Happy birthday to my favourite person on this earth.

Sometimes I actually sit and think about how crazy it is that, out of all the people in that Grade 9 class, somehow you became my best friend. We were literally just two students trying to get through Grade 9, and then somehow you barged your way into my life and never really left.

And I’m so glad you didn’t.

Because somehow, all these years later, after being separated from Grade 9 and going through completely different things, we still made it here. We went through years of school, different classes, different people, different phases of our lives, and somehow we never really lost each other. There was never a point where we just stopped being us. No matter how much changed around us, there was always that friendship sitting there, waiting for us to pick up exactly where we left off.

And I think that’s one of the things I love most about us.

I remember the almost-bald hairline days 😭. I genuinely don’t think I could ever look at those pictures and not laugh, but at the same time, I wouldn’t change a thing about that version of you. I wouldn’t change any version of you, actually. I’ve gotten to know so many different versions of you over the years, and somehow every single one is still just... you.

I remember when we used to spend HOURS reading Wattpad stories. The most ridiculous stories known to humanity. Stories where absolutely nothing made sense, the plot would suddenly go somewhere completely insane, and somehow we’d still keep reading because we needed to know what happened. We’d sit there judging the characters, making comments, laughing at the stupidest things, and somehow those became some of the memories I hold closest.

And now we’ve graduated from Wattpad to Substack 😭.

I think that’s what makes me laugh when I think about our friendship. We’ve literally grown up together. The things we used to do have changed, the things we talk about have changed, we’ve changed, but somehow the friendship itself never disappeared.

Then there were our Snap Sticker days. The amount of completely ridiculous things we made together will forever be insane to me. We genuinely thought we were creating museum-worthy art while absolutely nobody else understood what we were doing. But we did. And that’s all that mattered.

There have been so many moments like that with you. Moments that probably wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but mean everything to me because they belong to us.

The stupid jokes.

The conversations that went on for hours.

The things we would find funny that nobody else understood.

The random memories that I can think about years later and immediately remember exactly how it felt to be there with you.

That’s what you became to me without me even realizing it. You became part of my life so naturally that I can’t really remember what it was like before you were in it.

And you are genuinely one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Your laugh deserves its own award because what the hell is that sound? 😭 It literally sounds like little pigs squealing, and somehow I could listen to it forever. It’s one of those sounds that I could recognize anywhere because it’s just so completely you.

You’ve made me laugh so many times, sometimes intentionally and sometimes just by being yourself.

And I think that’s what makes our friendship so special to me. I don’t have to explain everything. I don’t have to make every moment meaningful. Sometimes we can literally just exist, talk absolute nonsense, laugh at something stupid, and somehow that is enough.

You came into my life in Grade 9, and I don’t think either of us could have known then that we’d still be here after everything.

After all the years.

After all the changes.

After finishing school.

Still us.

And I’m honestly so grateful for that.

I hope today reminds you how loved you are. I hope you laugh that ridiculous laugh of yours until you can’t breathe. I hope you get everything you deserve and more. And I hope you know that no matter how much life changes, you’ll always be someone I look back at and think, I’m really glad I met her.

Happy birthday, Sihle.

Here’s to more Substack stories, more ridiculous conversations, more inside jokes that nobody else will ever understand, more things that somehow become memories, and more years of us finding our way back to each other no matter where life puts us.

From those Grade 9 days with the almost-bald hairline, somehow you’ve been there through it all.

And I wouldn’t change a single part of it.

I love you.

Always have.

Always will. ❤️

ActionSA is a party that was formed in 2020 by Herman Mashaba after his split from the Democratic Alliance, and, unusually for a new party, has the CV bona fides of an incumbent government: Mashaba was the Mayor of Johannesburg from August 2016 to November 2019, and his party’s campaign trail slogan is that his record “is unrivalled by any other leader since 2016.” In its own way, that is a strength, since compared to other aspirant parties, ActionSA has a track record in government that can be more readily assessed.

What the Record Says

On areas of emphasis, Mashaba’s administration has been focused on making specific, demonstrable claims about its time in office: the value of private investment secured in the city, the level of resident satisfaction, the establishment of anti-corruption structures, the improvements made to the Johannesburg Metro Police Department, the insourcing of security guards, and the initiation of an innovative inner city renewal project. By the figures given in the party’s own retrospect, satisfaction with city services has been as high as 74 percent, and the record on service delivery has also been presented as the best since 2016, even as it was achieved under a seven-way coalition minority government, which has not been equalled since. It is notable that on the thorny issue of workers’ rights, the administration’s programme of insourcing has provided employment for 4,185 security guards by the end of its term, with take-home pay of these workers increased by over 50 percent and job security afforded to them, compared to contracting firms. These are specific, tangible achievements, not general assertions.

The financial clims also appear to stack up: under the finance MMC, the city has seen an unqualified audit, the saving of 5.3 billion Rand in reserves for the 2018/19 financial year, and over 91 percent of the capital budget for the same year expended, figures that reflect a turn-around in the city’s fiscal affairs.

What the Record Does Not Say

However, the record of Mashaba’s administration, while being largely positive on specific assertions, appears to be one that has cherry-picked its comparisons: the whole point of the ActionSA campaign is that it sets out to contrast its own performance in 2016-2019 with whatever mayor is put forward by other parties in 2026, who will presumably be competing for the same coalition of voters. The 2016 election in Johannesburg did not produce a winner, and so the city has had ten mayors since then, and currently requires over 200 billion Rand in maintenance and upgrades to its road, rail, energy, and water infrastructure, with deteriorating services throughout the metropolis. ActionSA’s claim to have “delivered a programme of action and results,” as compared to the “failure” of nine other mayoral candidates since 2016, is simultaneously both true and entirely self-serving. It is much easier to govern a city that has not been placed in a state of near-insolvency by previous administration, and ActionSA has not held office since 2019, and cannot credibly claim to have delivered the same improvements to an environment with significantly strained finances. In context, the claims of 2016-2019 are reasonable, but are also now several years old, and the party has not held office since to demonstrate its capacity to replicate its past successes.

The campaign slogans of Mashaba’s party make a number of specific allegations that are closely tied to issues in the city, but which have questionable grounding in either policy or facts. On immigration, the party has been particularly vocal in claiming that it has made substantial contributions to solving the city’s challenges, which it has not credibly demonstrated. The programme of ActionSA would see the Johannesburg Metro Police Department create a task force to track down illegal immigrants and forward them to the Home Affairs portfolio for deportation, supposedly as a response to the city’s crime and socio-economic challenges. It is similar in formulation to the proposals of the Patriotic Alliance, and suffers from the same issues, namely, that they seek to conflate several complex issues into one perceived cause, illegal immigration, which is not demonstrably responsible for any of them. It is easy to blame immigration for the problems of crime, unemployment, and xenophobic attacks, but in reality, those stem from domestic causes, poorly addressed by either the Patriotic Alliance or the DA. In essence, ActionSA is making the same claims as other right-wing parties in South Africa, on issues of immigration, without evidence of a demonstrable improvement in conditions, since 2019.

Compared to the other parties in this assessment, ActionSA is an intriguing case. Its primary campaign slogan is “promise versus practice,” but compared to other aspirant parties, it has a body of demonstrable evidence about what it has achieved in its sole term in office as mayor of Johannesburg. It is, perhaps, the most honest of the lot in saying that the best time to judge it is in the five-year period starting in 2026, but at the same time, the record of Mashaba’s administration compares favourably to those of its successors, on most objective measures of investment, audit, reserve, and insourcing. The record of the party is one that suggests that, compared to most other options, it is the most likely to secure investment in the city, to keep the city’s finances in order, and to provide much-needed jobs in its vast network of security guards. It is not an overwhelming performance, but it is not one of empty talk and hyperbolic allegations, either. The record of ActionSA is one of promise versus demonstrable practice in the past, but the party has not yet had an opportunity to prove itself in the future.

Unlike the ANC, EFF, DA, or MK party, AfriForum is not a political organization. It was created in 2006 as a trade union Solidarity daughter body and has a specific mandate to protect the interests of Afrikaans speakers in post-apartheid South Africa, which it has pursued ever since. The promises it made were related to its stated goals of protecting minorities and the Afrikaner language and culture, researching and protesting farm attacks, and litigating to oppose the government and promote the rights of whites as a minority and disadvantaged language group. An assessment of its performance should therefore be related to whether these goals have been achieved and whether its practices have damaged its reputation, especially in relation to the majority black South Africans, as promised.

What AfriForum Promised

AfriForum was originally formed to fill a vacuum created by the ANC’s dominance in post-apartheid politics, which did not account for the aspirations of many white South Africans. AfriForum ‘s value proposition was to oppose the ANC’s disruptive influence and pursue legal action in domestic and international courts in defense of Afrikaans language, culture, and land ownership, as well as to protect minorities through its legal and investigative resources. It promised to ensure justice in matters concerning the murder of farmers with the help of municipal and private security and to promote and protect Afrikaans in education through persistent litigation.

Where AfriForum Delivered

AfriForum has fulfilled its mandate as an organization that delivers on its promises in several key areas. Firstly, it has achieved organizational success as a network that provides security, legal, and community services to its members and has good funding, with hundreds of millions of rands in revenue, hundreds of staff, and over 300,000 members. It has delivered on its promise to create a strong local security apparatus in rural areas by using community cadres and coordinating their activities with private and municipal guards. The organization’s rural safety program also has early warning systems and training modules for community watch and farm security, and it has partnered with Transvaal Agricultural Union since 2013 to collect data on farm attacks for its members. Secondly, AfriForum has delivered on its promise to litigate aggressively on matters affecting whites in post-apartheid society. It has had success in court on several occasions, including educational matters and land expropriation, and has successfully promoted its views in parliament. Finally, it has demonstrated a high degree of commitment to its stated values: when its finances were questioned in a recent forensic audit by News24, the criticism was presented as unsubstantiated and misleading. The audit questioned substantial sums spent by AfriForum on administrative costs and salaries for directors, but no evidence was presented that AfriForum’s lawsuits do not bring about concrete change in the areas of education, local government, and land, or that its neighborhood watch programs do not serve their purpose of preventing attacks on farms.

Where the Promises Failed

The main area in which AfriForum has failed to deliver was the area of its central messaging – the promise to protect Afrikaners from an existential threat. This promise has been consistently undermined by reports from reputable news outlets that show that there is little basis for the claims that Afrikaners are being subjected to genocide or systematic campaign of annihilation. Although AfriForum and other white supremacist organizations have hyped up the rhetoric about the threat to whites in South Africa, both internationally and locally, the statistics tell a different story: there has not been a single instance of land expropriation in South Africa, and the majority of citizens are black, with violent crime being primarily directed towards them. In 2020, for example, statistics showed that out of 20,000 murders, only 46 were white farmers. This discrepancy between AfriForum’s hyperbolic claims and the reality accounted for much of the controversy that surrounded the organization, particularly its efforts to receive international support.

In early 2025, AfriForum’s leadership responded to criticism of the organization’s domestic and international reputation by traveling to Washington to discuss farm murders with American authorities. Along with Solidarity, AfriForum appears to have successfully promoted its narrative that the Trump administration has responded to by cutting off USAID assistance to South Africa and considering white Afrikaners for resettlement. AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel blamed the domestic government for refusing to take action against the “Kill the Boer” slogan or respond to the “conspiracy of silence” around the Bela Act and the Expropriation Act. This criticism sparked a storm of controversy in South Africa and resulted in accusations from the ruling party, including ANC Deputy Secretary General Nomvula Mokonyane, who accused AfriForum of being “racists” and “not patriots.” Several ANC MPs called for treason charges to be brought against AfriForum, and the organization was widely criticized in both the media and the government. AfriForum appears to get value for its efforts in publicity and international outreach, but at the cost of increased domestic condemnation and further damage to its reputation as a “divisive” organization that stirs up racism and division.

This inability to achieve its core objectives despite being effective in some areas has defined AfriForum’s record. As an organization, it has become increasingly prominent in domestic politics, both in terms of its positive features – as a protector of minority rights – and its negative – being accused of exacerbating divisions and being a “racist” organization. AfriForum has been criticized for both its domestic and international activities, as well as its tendency to work with far-right groups, despite occasionally tempering its rhetoric. When the organization’s leadership opposed the legalization of the apartheid-era flag as racist, it took a relatively nuanced position on the issue, arguing that banning it would make South Africa “look like a police state.” However, this position did not resonate with many people due to the organization’s overall reputation.

AfriForum’s record is, therefore, mixed but mostly positive in terms of the promises it made to its members and the goals it set for itself. It has succeeded in creating a strong network of organizations that focus on the needs of whites as a minority group and protect their interests, especially in relation to land ownership. It has also fulfilled its promises in terms of organizational capacity: maintaining a strong presence in terms of staffing, funding, and legal services. The controversy surrounding it stemmed from its efforts to gain international attention and influence, which spilled over into domestic affairs, undermining its reputation among the general public. However, the criticism seems misplaced given the organization’s domestic impact, which is primarily negative in terms of stoking ethnic tensions.

( threatened my life for these manifesto dissections I'm not back but I'm just posting the manifesto dissections that were in my drafts

The Patriotic Alliance (PA) was founded in 2013 by Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene, former gangsters turned entrepreneurs, who positioned the party as a reform-minded organization that sought to impose law and order, responding to the perceived failures of mainstream parties to deliver on promises to coloured voters in the Western Cape, who had voted overwhelmingly for the ANC in the early post-apartheid era. The party’s program made a distinction between serious crimes such as corruption by public officials for which it advocated life imprisonment, and integrity tests for police, which it supported, and crimes such as murder and rape, for which it called for the death penalty, while also proposing mass deportations of illegal foreign nationals, which the party’s founder Kenny McKenzie continued to defend as patriotic, even as critics accused him of xenophobia.

What the Party Promised and What it Delivered

The most visible test of the Patriotic Alliance’s credibility belongs to Gayton McKenzie, the founder of the party who has served as the Executive Mayor of the Central Karoo District since his election in April 2022. At his swearing-in, McKenzie promised to give up his salary to renovate the municipality’s swimming pools, launch a cemetery improvement program and end the bucket toilet system within 100 days, but none of these pledges were fulfilled, as residents filed complaints with the SABC and the South African Communist Party, accusing McKenzie of having lied about paying off Eskom debt, and demanding proof of both the Eskom payments and the spending of municipal funds, while residents of Beaufort West protested against “lies and very poor service delivery.” The damage to McKenzie’s reputation was compounded when the Western Cape MEC for Local Government opened a Section 106 investigation into allegations of maladministration, fraud and corruption at the Central Karoo municipality, which resulted in a court order directing McKenzie and a law firm associated with the PA to hand over documents pertaining to his tenure as mayor, including information about a Sandton gala dinner, which raised 3 million Rand for municipal community projects in 2022.

In recent months, the Patriotic Alliance has demonstrated a pattern of behaviour, in which it makes extravagant announcements about fundraising initiatives, relying on media attention, which are then followed by accusations of either misrepresentation of the use of funds or failure to deliver on time-sensitive service delivery promises, which in turn have resulted in municipalities being placed under provincial supervision, as happened in the case of Beaufort West and Knysna, both of which were placed under the authority of the Western Cape Provincial Government after mayoral by-elections, in which the PA candidates were declared winners, but service delivery was declared unsatisfactory, even as the Patriotic Alliance, as a small party, was able to dictate coalition rules in the municipalities, which it controlled, as happened in the case of Nelson Mandela Bay.

The Credibility Challenge from Former Insiders

The credibility challenge facing the Patriotic Alliance also extends to the ranks of its former members, who provide a damning assessment of the party’s record as a coalition partner and reformist opposition. One of these critics, a former member of the PA, who rejoined the DA in 2025, stated that he had placed his trust in Gayton McKenzie and that he had believed in the promises made by the PA, but that he had subsequently realized that they had been deceived, as the party had “sold its voters to the ANC,” functioning as “an uncritical supporter, a cheerleader in fact,” which does not demand any responsibility from the ANC for corruption by its officials, no matter what is revealed.

McKenzie’s reputation as an unreliable coalition partner is further compounded by his role in a number of financial management controversies, stemming from his actions as a representative of the DA in the national council, where he was accused of being an unprincipled opportunist who promised to “teach the DA a lesson” after feeling insulted. In addition to being accused of undermining the DA’s credibility as a coalition partner, McKenzie and his allies in the PA blocked key motions on economic equality and social services in the NCOP, which the DA accused them of undermining the interests of the DA by advancing party interests over those of the nation.

The Patriotic Alliance was founded on the idea that its members’ first-hand knowledge of gangsterism and its victims’ perspectives gave them an unrivalled understanding of the root causes of crime and the solutions to it. The experience of the Central Karoo, where Gayton McKenzie’s credentials as a crime fighter have been questioned, following on the heels of failed promises to deliver on key service delivery initiatives, illustrates the difficulties of the PA in living up to the expectations of its supporters. At the national level, the PA has positioned itself as a kingmaker, exploiting its electoral clout to extract concessions from larger parties, but with limited success, as its interventions in the affairs of the DA and the ANC have generated controversy, resulting in the loss of some of its former members to the ranks of the ANC.

Hello there, most likely you know me as Iam$upremacy. Mayhaps you knew me from the political articles I published, or perhaps you knew me from some other piece of writing that interested you enough to read it. Either way, this is my farewell.

First I'd like to say a huge thank you, to all those who’ve supported me, even the few articles I've put up. When I first got on this application months ago, I never expected what I got out of it. I never really had a goal in mind, other than write, and somehow having over 400 of you decide that is something worth doing, is something I never expected. Something I still can’t quite explain myself for, but I'm grateful none the less.

Writing on here was something I expected to be a means of an end, an escape, a way for me to put my thoughts out there for others to see, to have an argument with myself on paper, and for some reason, it worked. It made people care enough to either Dm me, comment, or simply read my writings and return for more, and for that I am truly thankful. Even if I never commented or responded back to those who did.

I am, what most people know me as, a con artist. As such I have done plenty of lying, and if this, what is hopefully my last article on this platform, then I should at least do the right thing and be truthful. For all who are reading this, and you are most likely few, in the past few months I have not been alright. Mentally, physically, and everything in between. I rarely talk about my emotions, and mental problems, more out of shame, than anything else. A shame brought upon by fear, a fear that I can’t quite explain, of what others may think of me, of what they may try to subject me too,

That makes me write these words. That makes me write political articles rather than mental ones, for this is a place where I feel like my voice can be heard, even if it is only among the few. A place where I can be passionate about things I care for, and pretend for at least a moment, that I have power over something.

This however, is not why I am writing this. The reason why I write this, is that I will, hopefully, no longer be on this platform. Not that I really said or did anything worth deleting really, but I think its best if I step away, at least for now. If there was ever a place I'm not in control of, ever a place where I screamed and cried in vain, it is here. I simply find it easier to pretend and move on, than actually fix and change what is wrong. At least for right now, I'm stepping away. Whether this is for good or not, I hope you’ll never know, for I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows how it feels to be ghosted on, and it feels absolutely horrible for both parties I'm sure.

I know not everyone cares, and this may only be seen by the “400+” of you who’ve shown interest in what little I write, but I prefer to be upfront and honest, than fake and mean. I think its better for both of us, as being ghosted only hurts everyone involved, and I never wanted to do that to you. You gave me a place to be, when I never really wanted one, and for that I'm grateful, and you’ll forever have my thanks, wherever I go.

With that, I'm off, and farewell, for now at least.

Iam$upremacy, signing off, and out.

(on a rather high note I'm living you guys my favourite memes )

Friendship is, supposedly, a good thing. Advice all over the place encourages finding your people, investing in your circle, surrounding yourself with the right ones. But there is, it seems, a kind of friendship that feels like a business arrangement. One that makes you perpetually wary of tipping the scales in its favour. One where you spend too much time wondering if you’re putting in more than you’re taking out, if you’re doing your part.

There is this fatigue that creeps up on you when dealing with friendships that only seem to give when you take. Birthdays are celebrated but forgotten. Presence is offered during their storms, but yours is met with distractions and absences. Laughter is given freely but only when adjusted to their own rhythms, and when you find yourself doing so often, when finding yourself becoming very, very good at being the friend to people who are only intermittently good at giving the same in return, that is when you realize it is no longer friendship. That is when you realize it is more in line with a kind of unpaid emotional labour, and that is an exhausting thing to be good at.

There is also, frequently, that kind of odd one out feeling that comes with these relationships. That sense of being slightly removed, of not quite belonging to the group the way you want to. Of always missing out on the unspoken undercurrents, on the things everyone else finds obvious even if you can’t remember ever being taught them. You laugh an instant too late because you’re waiting for the queue, and you spend the following few minutes wondering if it is your presence in the room that is somehow incompatible with the rest, if there is some frequency everyone but you is operating on. It is a very lonely feeling, being the outsider in a friendship circle, viewing it all from behind thick glass.

And so it goes without saying that the easiest conclusion to come to when in this kind of headspace is that friendship is just not worth it at all. Friendship and its inevitable heartache do not seem like a worthwhile pursuit anymore, and there is a distinct appeal in walking away, feet pointed firmly in the direction of lowered expectations. Because, after all, they have been the cause of nothing but disappointment and the feeling of wasted emotional energy. The less expectation, the less potential for hurt. And if you step away entirely, you won’t feel that sting of being used all the same, or be disappointed in the ways you do not know how to be better yet.

It is important, however, to understand what that conclusion does and does not guard against, what being made aware of those things cost you, and what it will continue to do to you in the future. Because rarely is it ever the truth that deciding friendship is not worth it will keep you entirely safe from feeling like an outsider. What it does is instead usually replace the feeling of being on the outside looking in with the feeling of being entirely enclosed, unable to see anything at all. The people who have made you feel as you did, who were careless with your presence, are not evidence of friendship being a faulty endeavour. They were evidence of something else, that you would rather not understand. That lesson is much harder to swallow than the alternative, so it is understandable if you choose to write off entire friendships in general to never feel that way again.

The less obvious truth about this kind of disillusionment is that it is not friendship that is to blame, really. It is the wrong friendships. It is the exhaustion that comes from putting in too much when you expect too little in return, the feeling of being perpetually worn down by having to bend yourself to other people’s needs without anyone noticing how much it costs you. And maybe it is not being an outsider altogether but the feeling of being the odd one out in the room when it was never your intention to be one in the first place. You are the odd one out in the room because it was never meant for you, perhaps. Because it is the kind of friendship you put yourself into despite having no place there, not the other way around.

None of this is to say that this kind of feeling is any less valid than the previous ones. It is a very real and very unfortunate part of having friendships in general to feel this way, to want to retreat and feel weary of investing anymore. There are reasons for such apprehension, reasons why the feeling of exhaustion is often a justified one. But there is also a difference between resting in such feelings and resigning yourself to always feeling them, and it is worth distinguishing between the two even if it is not always easy. Especially on the days when it is easier to do otherwise.

(Authors note: two more post before my last post)

There is a certain kind of love that does not require justification. It is the love of a little girl running full tilt into her daddy's waiting arms after an afternoon away from him. It is the love of a little girl watching her papa tinker with gadgets and trusting implicitly that he can fix anything and everything. It is the love of being swept up and over the head and knowing without a doubt that nothing will ever hurt you. As a daughter, I believe that is the love that is always there, ingrained into every heartbeat of a child's earliest memories.

Psychologists have claimed that a father is the first male figure that a daughter learns to trust, thus building the foundation for a lifetime of relationships. It is not surprising that a father's affection is often the one that a child looks forward to most in childhood. By having a father who shows up, who pays attention, who talks to her about everyday matters, who encourages and makes her feel exceptional in her own skin, he has taught her what healthy love is. And, by doing so, he has given her something precious--a benchmark of comparison for every relationship in which she will engage in the future.

The father's love is often seen as something unique. While a mother's love may be intensely passionate, a father's affection often takes second place, but in a very special way. He is there for you, always, and he knows the exact manner in which you need him to be there. It is said that many daughters love their fathers best because he knows them in a way that the world can only hope to discover them. His love is a comforter, providing security and reassurance of his undying devotion. He is the father, and that single word encompasses a sea of feelings that can only be understood by daughters who have known his love.

The love of a daughter for her father is a love beyond words. Ask her and she will tell you about the little things that he does--the little things that only he does. It is the way his laugh sounds when he tells a self-deprecating joke, the way he drives the same route to school every morning and afternoon as if the road is the only constant in his life, the way he takes time out of his day to change the flat tire that he knows will bother her on a Monday morning commute. It is the lectures, the ones she hated as a teenager but now wishes he would continue unabated for the rest of her life. It is the quiet understanding on his part when she is hurting and he knows not to push her to say anything. It is all these little things that, cumulatively, make up the father-daughter love. This is the type of love that rarely screams, for such love seldom needs to. It is the type of love that often goes unnoticed until much later in life, when the daughter realizes just how much her father has sacrificed for her happiness without ever asking for anything in return.

Loving your father does not mean loving your mother any less. Nor does loving your father require that you hold his affection in higher regard than your mother's. Every single parent deserves to be treated according to his or her own individual circumstances and personality. Every child should be able to enjoy the type of relationship they share with their parents, for it is a uniquely individual combination of personalities. Some daughters connect better with their fathers, and this is okay. It is normal and perfectly healthy for a daughter to hold her father in higher regard than her mother--or vice versa--as long as she realizes that no type of familial love is superior to another.

As daughters grow up and become women, their relationships with their fathers often change. The father who used to carry his little daughter on his shoulders is now being carried himself, albeit metaphorically, by his own daughter. He is her confidant, her friend, her sounding board for all ideas, good or bad. They share a love that has grown beyond the childish admiration of youth and has matured into something resembling a friendship. They become equal in many ways, with the daughter often feeling more like a peer to her father than his opposite-sexed little girl. The daughter who has grown up and left home soon realizes that the relationship she shares with her father is changing. She no longer talks to him about the little things; she talks to him about deeper topics, about her own life and hers alone. Her father is her friend, and their conversations range from his youth to her own future. This is the fatherhood that many daughters grow to love best, for it is in this phase that the child becomes an adult and grows to understand that her father is a human being, just like herself. In this phase, the daughter learns to truly appreciate everything that her father has been through. The father is human, and like any other human being, he has his flaws, albeit ones that his daughter is likely to overlook. After all, he is her father, and she still remembers the man who used to carry her on his shoulders and promise to always keep her safe. He has grown up around her and she has grown up with him, and now they are both adults, forever bonded by blood and a love that has stood the test of time.

The daughter's love for her father is built upon a lifetime of memories, little things that together comprise a mosaic of happiness and security. It is knowing that he will always be there for her, always willing to listen to whatever is bothering her, no matter what age she is. It is the love she feels for the man who made her laugh for the first time, who tucked her in at night when she was sick and scared, who taught her how to ride a bike and then quietly waited for her to stop riding it. This love has many forms, but it is always there. It can be in the nicknames she still uses for him, or the advice she still takes from him even as an adult. It can be found in the simple assurance that no matter where she goes or what she does, there will always be someone who has been there for her since the very beginning of her life. There is no need to over-examine this love, for it is the kind of love that just is. After all, it began as a little girl's love for her daddy.

There is this phrase that people throw around, that depression is like a death, and if you haven’t experienced this death, it’s hard to articulate just how close they are, almost too close, and perhaps this is why the comparison is so easily shrugged off - it is, in fact, not a hyperbole of any kind. Something does die, although not necessarily the kind of thing you think, because the body continues as normal, going through the motions of the life it has to live regardless of where its heart is at the moment. It is the other, quieter, more elusive kind, one that only the living can notice if they look hard enough and one they cannot quite explain to those who are not, for reasons beyond their control, still here and still breathing

It is the want that begins to fail first, or the mechanism that causes it to appear so, and if you once wanted something, anything even as simple as coffee every morning, to hear the end of a story, to see someones eyes light up when you say something particularly clever and then one day, and that day is not a day of any particular importance as far as the calendar is concerned, the want is simply gone and you find yourself getting through the motions of your life, all the furniture in the right place but with no electricity, everything familiar but ultimately pointless

Those who have not felt it think it is a form of extreme sadness, and it frequently is, but more often it is the lack of it that is debilitating, not a stabbing heartache but a pervasive sense of grey that surrounds you in waves, one after another, with no sensation except the occasional pinprick of pain that serves as a reminder that yes, this is a form of dying, if an unconventional one, and one that has no gravitas to those who only know it through secondhand experience

There is a strange bereavement that comes with depression, because there is a person that is lost for a while, maybe permanently, who once had certain mannerisms, certain interests, who thought certain things was funny and who saw certain beauty in the world, and they are gone for an indefinite period of time, replaced by a person who wears their skin but seems to have trouble finding the right set of bones to operate them with. That person and their mannerisms and likes and thoughts are still there but more distant than they have ever been, and if grief is what you feel for the self that you used to know, it is a strange grief to feel as that self walks on past you every day, never noticing you, never ever aware of the loss in the first place

It is cruel because it has no sense of decorum, because you look perfectly fine to everyone who knows you and has not died with you, not from any particular malice but because that is the way the condition was designed, perhaps. You say you are fine because the alternative statement, the one that would let you say out loud that something has died, something important, is too big to fit in the space between you and the person asking you if you are okay, and so it stays buried with you, this tiny pointless death that noone else sees and noone else mourns as you continue to breathe it with you every day, every hour, every second

All of this is terribly morbid and not quite right, perhaps, but it is important to remember, if only to understand and to empathize, that this kind of death is not always permanent, that people get better, although they might not be the same when they do, because they carry this grey with them for the rest of their lives, and if you are in the middle of such a death and it feels like you will never get out, this is not true, and it is this truth that you must hold onto with everything you have, because it is the only thing that will get you through. If you find that you cannot hold onto it on your own, it is not a failing on your part, on anyone’s part, and there are people who can help you, who will help you, if you ask for them. You can call a crisis center, you can call a professional, and if you are reading this and it has touched something in you, you can do any of these things and none of them will be a betrayal of this essay, if anything, they will be the fullfilment of its purpose.

It is not a loss in the dramatic sense of the word; there is no particular precipitating incident that you could point to and say, this is what did it, this is when it happened. It is not even really like burnout, this slow recession of something that once fueled and thrilled you and made you feel, if only for a while and in measure, truly alive, only that it has been a while since you felt that way about anything at all, and the thought does not fill you with the kind of crushing sadness one expects when one thinks of a loss. It is noticing that the things that once mattered to you hardly matter to you any longer, and instead of an alarm bell, you feel something close to a shrug of your shoulders, which is probably worse

There is always something that you can blame, the thing that did it to you, that took it from you, the particular combination of circumstances that, when taken together, were too much to bear, and in blaming them, you can exorcise them from your mind, pretend they never happened, or at least that they are entirely responsible for what happened, which they might have been, and you might not have been in a permanent state of losing it all the time,

but more often than not, it was not a single thing but many, a series of concessions and compromises that whittled away at something that once lived inside you, and you did not even realize you were granting these concessions, only that it would be easier this way, that it would be simpler, less disruptive to your life, and that eventually, something that once thrilled you no longer does, because you have forgotten what it was like when it did.

That is the problem, really, and the thing that makes it so difficult to recover from, is that you cannot really will it back, this spark, this ability to want things openly and loudly and without qualification, to feel excitement without tempering it with irony and self-dismissiveness, which was probably the root cause of the loss in the first place, because the spark was never really about the things that once made you want, it was more about this freedom to want that you no longer possessed, to be invested in things without qualification, to be excited openly, however briefly

Something else happens when you lose it, something that has to do with the lack of desire itself, which is that you become safe in a way you were not before; it is much harder to be disappointed in the things that disappoint you if you never wanted them in the first place, and you never wanted them in the first place because wanting things openly made you vulnerable, and so you learned not to want things openly, and eventually, you stopped wanting things openly, period, without really realizing it at the time, that you have traded one vulnerability for another, one kind of disappointment for another, and the spark was the price you paid for this particular kind of insulation, but it was worth it, in a way, because it insulated you from the bigger disappointment, the one you still do not admit to yourself, that perhaps nothing in life will ever disappoint you as much as the things you wanted, and that you will always want things, however briefly, and however much it will hurt you in the long run

Losing the spark is not necessarily permanent, although in many cases, it tends to be, but it is not always so, and when it is not, it tends to be gradual and imperceptible, like waking up one morning and realizing with a start that there was something that made you want it in you, something that wanted it, but it has wanted it only briefly, in this one instance, and it has wanted it without you realizing it at all, and perhaps this is the only way it returns to you, this wanting, when you stop trying so desperately to want things, to make yourself want things, openly and loudly and without qualification, but you allow yourself to want things, occasionally and without notice, and without really understanding how it happened, it simply wants, this little part of you that still remembers, and it is probably the only way it can return, this spark, this want, this open, unguarded admission of wanting, that you thought was lost forever, and it can only return to you this way, because that is the way it was always there, and you were not looking for it in the first place.

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Unlike the other three, however, the MK party’s record is not based on actual performance in office but rather the reputation of its leadership, which has so far demonstrated limited ability to follow through on campaign pledges, respond to internal and external criticism, and demonstrate the competence and reliability the party’s founder, Jacob Zuma, promised.

What the MK Party Promised

The MK Party platform focused on structural economic and policy changes, which meant that most of its campaign rhetoric was related to institutional reforms. Apart from restructuring the country’s nine provinces into four, the party promised to embark on a radical land reform, nationalize mines and strategic assets, and implement an economic program that would tackle inequality more effectively than the ruling ANC did in the past three decades. President Zuma himself spoke about restoring the ANC’s original liberation values that were compromised by the party’s current leadership and pledged to deliver MPs “the most skilled, most accomplished, and most experienced collective with a resounding and verifiable track record.”

What Actually Happened

Since the uMkhonto weSizwe Party has not governed any province or the country as the ruling party, its performance did not directly affect the lives of everyday citizens. Rather, its record is based on the events surrounding the 2024 elections and the performance of the MPs currently in office representing the constituencies that voted for them. On the one hand, the MK Party appears to face serious internal organization and personnel challenges, which undermine its credibility as a competent and reliable party. On the other hand, there are instances when the party acted not in the public’s best interests but rather pursued its narrow ideological agenda.

Even before the results of the 2024 elections became official, the MK Party filed a legal challenge to the outcome of the voting, which suggests that the party did not recognize the legitimacy of the process. Although legal documents provided by Zuma and the MK Party leadership make no mention of election rigging, the party filed multiple requests to judicial authorities to review the results, with the organization filing additional motions more than a year after the voting to challenge the outcome of the election with claims of irregularities. It is noteworthy that while the MK Party filed a legal challenge to the 2024 election results, the party’s MPs continued to serve in the post-election parliament.

Another problem concerns the fact that the competent, stable, and effective leadership the MK Party promised appears to be undergoing frequent and significant personnel changes. Shortly before the 2024 elections, one of the founding members, Jabulani Khumalo, was removed from the post as the head of the party after claiming that he had registered the MK Party with President Zuma’s blessing. This practice of removing critical figures in the party appears to continue as Zuma himself terminated the services of the party spokesperson and treasurer in July 2025, which resulted in the dismissal of fourteen MPs for refusing to attend the caucus meeting. The party spokesperson reiterated that these changes were standard for a new organization that had grown significantly and rapidly in a short time, saying that they were normal for a nascent party.

However, the pattern of removing core personnel on grounds of disloyalty contradicts the initial claims by President Zuma that the newly elected MPs represented the most competent and reliable collective. Furthermore, the frequent changes undermine the ability of the MK Party to develop a stable and consistent foreign and domestic policy, which will inevitably damage both the party’s image and performance in the long run.

The Zuma Dependency Problem

The issue of the Zuma dependency has been raised repeatedly by independent experts who noted that his strong presence within the MK Party overshadowed other critical areas of the organization. Immediately upon the victory in the 2024 election, political analysts noted that the party achieved success due to “provocative rhetoric and few substantive policy ideas” and warned that the lack of a coherent agenda and overreliance on Zuma’s popularity would ultimately hurt the party, which “may well not have a future without him.” The concerns were shared by the voters in KwaZulu-Natal, who expressed their trust and affection for Zuma in personal conversations with reporters. The emphasis on Zuma’s role and the support for him within the MK Party suggested that his popularity was the key reason for the party’s victory in the 2024 election. This dynamic has further implications for the party’s future as a national movement, which may struggle to achieve nationwide appeal and vote concentration.

Unlike the ANC and DA, which had extensive administrative and management experience prior to the 2024 elections, MK gained a following based on the reputation of one individual, President Zuma. For the time being, the personal charisma has enabled the party to gain national recognition and secure a sizeable proportion of votes in a single province. However, the public, especially in KwaZulu Natal, appears ready to follow Zuma into office despite the potential risks and complications, which indicates that the popularity of one man is the force behind the rise of the new party.

No Governance Record to Test

Unlike the ANC, which has thirty years of performance to demonstrate and the DA, which governed the Western Cape for several years, MK cannot point to a single successful project or program that the party delivered to the public in its eighteen months in office. As the official opposition in the national legislature and the governing party in KwaZulu Natal, the MK Party has largely made unsubstantiated promises related to the economy and social issues, with its six-point plan having limited practical applications in day-to-day governance. Restructuring the nine provinces into four, for example, is an exclusively conceptual statement, which does not provide any immediate benefits to the constituents. Unlike the EFF, which has governed multiple municipalities and therefore has an extensive record to evaluate, the MK Party has not demonstrated any particular strengths in public administration. It must be noted, however, that the lack of performance is not necessarily a liability for the new party, which only began its parliamentary career in 2024 and is now in its early stages.

The record of the MK Party as a governing force is difficult to evaluate due to a lack of relevant experience, which contrasts sharply with the experience of the ANC, DA, and EFF. None of the scandals, tender irregularities, or corruption allegations can be levelled against the MK Party, as it has not governed any constituency, province, or the country as the ruling party. Nevertheless, the public should be aware that the promises made by the party leadership and President Zuma will take time to realize and, therefore, should approach the new party with due caution. It is important to distinguish between the rhetoric and the action, which so far demonstrated limited ability to produce tangible results. With the majority of the party’s MPs being inexperienced and untested in public administration, the voters who put their faith and trust into the MK Party may find themselves let down by the very party that promised to deliver on its word.

There is a difference between being conceited and wanting to be, and the wanting is in fact a very different landscape, less explored perhaps, and more vulnerable. Wanting to be conceited means that you are not, and that you examine the proud thought before it leaves your mind, and you catch it and file it away as one of those things that you don’t do, and beneath all that catching and filing there is a small persistent wanting that you didn’t have to catch it and file it and be good at your job of not letting the world inside your head know what the world outside your head already knows.

It takes the form of wanting what the other person wants, in a strange sort of way, and that other person has achieved a certain degree of self-possession, which you want, and which you know you cannot achieve, but would like to feel it inside you, just a tiny bit, because it feels so good to hear someone think well of himself, without apologizing to himself for thinking so, or even realizing that he has done so.

Wanting to be conceited is also a rehearsal, always. Wanting to say the sentence with more confidence than you have ever said it before, in some safe little space, just to hear yourself say it, because you suspect that it will feel good, or that it will not sound good, but you need to know which, if you are to continue on this road that is not really a road, only a wanting, not a journey. Sometimes you even try it out loud, in front of someone or to no one, and it feels like a costume that someone else has worn, and that you are wearing now because it looks good on them, but it does not quite fit you, and this strange longing for something ill-fitting that is also an armor is the shape of this strange wanting, which is not really a feeling, not yet.

Beneath all of it there is always the old story of what it means to be what you think you are, which is that pride goes before a fall, and no one likes the person for whom his own praise is not enough, and that self-possession is a mask for naked ego, and to be humble is to be liked, and the wanting wraps itself around these old assumptions like ivy, choking on guilt, that beneath all that wanting, you are not really worthy of it, that wanting makes you small, and makes you ashamed, so that in addition to managing the feeling you are required to feel ashamed of, you have to manage the shame of feeling it in the first place.

It is all a strange setup, and it is in fact evidence of a certain degree of self-possession, if you think about it, because no one really wants what they do not think they have, and the desire to stop lying about your self-worth is frequently mistaken for its opposite, which is that you want it badly enough to go get it, but you suspect that you are mistaken for having it all along. Wanting to be conceited is in fact the art of noticing yourself saying one thing to yourself over and over again for twenty years, which is that you are not worthy of the good things that happen to you, and it is always the art of noticing that it is an indulgence, and that you are already indulging, and that you might as well stop pretending that it is so terrible, and in truth it is not so terribly difficult to stop, but you think you need permission to do so, from someone, or from yourself, and sometimes it helps to remember that it might not be necessary at all.

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There is a date that resides somewhere quiet in your body long after your head has stopped marking it. You won’t write it down anywhere and would never admit out loud to knowing it in the first place, but there is a part of you that counts it obsessively and on its appointed day, feels suddenly heavy in the chest with an almost physical sense of occasion - until the penny drops, and you realize what it is, and subsequently feel foolish

Heartbreak anniversaries are weird things, because no one sends you a card to mark the day, and no one acknowledges this sort of grief in the ways that you might expect. You’re supposed to be over it by now, done with this chapter of your life, put it behind you, and in general act like it never happened. For the most part, you do. You get on with your life, rarely, if ever, thinking about the person or the relationship, until the day unexpectedly arrives, and you suddenly feel this strange, almost wistful sense of occasion settle over you.

It always seems to surprise you, this feeling, because your body somehow remembers the anniversary even if your heart does not, and you think about the day and the circumstances and the way the light fell that time of year, suddenly vivid as if it had happened yesterday, as if your mind hasn’t spent the intervening period trying very hard to forget it all.

But beneath all of that, there is always this unspoken question, the thing you don’t want to ask yourself out loud but will anyway, because it burns at the edges of your thoughts. Do you ever think of me?

Not that you want to think of them, necessarily, not in any selfish way. But perhaps just this quiet, unassuming curiosity about whether anywhere across the world, someone else is thinking of you in your turn, wondering if this day means anything to them the way it does to you, if they feel this strange, aching sense of loss that seems to come from nowhere specific but settle, all the same, in your chest. Perhaps, just maybe, you are not the only one who keeps a private ledger of these things, marking dates and trying to remember the details of a relationship that in all other respects has passed into history.

There is something incredibly humbling about finding yourself unable to answer even that most basic of questions in all honesty, because for all the ways you have invested meaning into this relationship, for all the little pieces of your own private mythology that revolved around them and their reactions, you have no real way of knowing if any of that has ever landed with them the way it did for you.

Did you hear that song and feel your heart twist the way it always does when you pass through that part of town or see that old movie or hear that certain phrase? Does it still matter to them at all, or was it all just you, and if it wasn’t, then why in all these months and years have you never heard from them at all?

Perhaps it is not really about them at all, not in the selfish way that your head insists it is but your heart most certainly does not. You do not want to think about them, really, not in any direct sense, but this day, this date, this sudden and unexpected arrival of it always feels like a kind of bereavement, because deep down, you know that most of the time it really is about the version of you that existed before.

You miss that person, the one who believed so wholeheartedly in things that you no longer do, who never thought to question their own feelings or consider that the universe does not bend quite so easily to accommodate every desire of the human heart. That person thinks of you, probably, and feels something close to what you feel right now, this aching, almost homesick sensation of loss, because for all your growth and wisdom, you have in many ways changed irrevocably since then. No one can think of you the way you think of them, because you are not the same person anymore.

Missing that version of yourself is, in many ways, the most painful part of this whole experience, which is why you keep waiting for that version of yourself to reach out, to remind you that yes, it really was that way back then, that you really did feel that way about them, that some small, quiet part of you still does. You keep waiting to hear from someone, anyone, to tell you that it wasn’t just you, that you’re not the only one who feels this way, that somewhere, somehow, across the great distances that separate you, someone still thinks of you, still cares, still misses the person that you used to be.

Because you do care, and you do miss that person. You always wanted someone to remind you that it was real, that it mattered, that it still does, in it own way, in its own small corner of the world. Someone needs to tell you that you are not alone in this, that you are not the only one who feels this ache in the center of their being, but since no one seems particularly eager to do that, you check your calendar in secret places no one else can see, waiting for someone to remind you that perhaps, just maybe, you are not the only one who feels this way about them.

There is a kind of doubt that goes past one's work, friends, and even whether one locked the door when leaving. It reaches down into one's very being, questioning the chair one sits on, one's own hand, and whether the world around is not some grand illusion for one's benefit only. Most of us would not waste time with such doubts as they do not yield results worth the effort. Rene Descartes, however, did, and what he found on the other side of doubt is what we know today as the most quoted phrase in all of philosophy, so often used that we overlook just how strange and out there the very idea was when first introduced.

His purpose with this exercise was to think of one specific thing that could not possibly be doubted. He imagined a malicious demon that was infinitely knowledgeable and powerful, capable of fooling Descartes about pretty much everything including the very sky above his head, his own physical body, the numbers and mathematics, and even the simple difference between waking and sleep. The only thing that would remain even after this terrible ordeal was completed was the very fact of thinking, including the thinking thing itself, which is a rather astounding realization.

This realization is what we know today as "Cogito ergo sum," or “i think therefore i am” the most famous expression of its author's career, and also the one that made the least lasting impression on the following developments in philosophy. The reason for this is rather simple: as a philosophical axiom, it does not provide much in the way of arguments for further contemplation. It does not confirm the existence of one's body, other thinking beings, or even one's own thoughts in most cases, only the simple fact of thinking being present at the moment. Everything else has to be built upon this shaky foundation, one bit at a time, until more familiar ground is reached, which few understood at the time Descartes was beginning his journey.

It is this very feeling of isolation and even egotism that makes one think just how much was actually given up in the name of finding a single truth that could hold water. One's entire world is filled with things one is not entirely sure of, from the very moment of birth until the final day of dying when the senses are shut down one last time. One cannot be certain of the presence of other minds, other than one's own, and even then, the physical body is often questioned by the mind's doubt. All of these things can be reconstructed in a careful and methodical manner back from one singular truth, but doing so takes time and effort few realize is even necessary. The rest of the author's life was spent traveling back through the layers of doubt to reconstruct his world, one small fragment at a time, proving, theorizing, and speculating on the exact nature of most things one takes for granted on a daily basis.

Perhaps this is also the reason why “Cogito ergo sum"/I think therefore I am” is remembered so rarely in the way it was meant to be: as a single point of reference for further, more extensive travels through the domain of philosophy. There is no actual proof for most things that could be claimed with reasonable certainty, no solid ground to build on, only a long and winding path with countless dead ends, theories, axioms, postulates, and a single undeniable truth that one is thinking. Something must be responsible for that, therefore it most certainly exists. Everything else is a laborious process of assembling one's world from thin air.

Personal Statement

It is a great shame to admit, but a lot of us have some insecurities that we would never want to admit on a public forum like this. You know the kinds of insecurities that feel embarrassing and a bit clingy? Something along the lines of, 'I want to love just as much as I will be loved back'

The mere fact of having to type it out now makes me cringe at the thought of it.

It is like you are admitting that you're cheap with your love and care, that you're holding a little tally sheet in your head of who is doing what for who. "Oh, I made them tea yesterday. Well, they only messaged me back 3 times this week."

If you have ever felt this way, you will most definitely understand where I'm coming from when saying that it is not cheapness that is at the root of this feeling.

It is something much darker and more painful. It is that nagging sensation that grows in the pit of your stomach when you realize you genuinely care more for someone than they do for you. Those nights spent lying awake in bed, trying to piece together fragments of conversations from days past while the person you care about sleeps soundly unaware.

I have been on the bad side of such an equation too many times for my liking. You start off being charming and generous, doing little favors for the person you like, showing up to the places they ask you to with a song playing in your head that reminded you of them. And you feel good about it. You feel like a caring person full of love to give, but then you begin to notice the little things. They don't ask you about your day or what you think about this or that. They are always the ones initiating the conversations and asking for things and when you stop doing those things for them, all it brings about is sheer confusion in their expression as if they can't understand why you've suddenly changed.

And the worst part is you start to realize that you feel stupid for loving them. Not angry or sad or even offended, but stupid. Like you've been participating in some kind of one-way conversation with an audience that has been listening to the wrong speech the whole time. You start telling yourself that "well it's okay, I'm a generous person, I just give more than most," but you feel like less and less with every interaction. You shrink yourself down to a size that makes you feel like you don't deserve more because it would be selfish of you to want it.

I once had a very, very bad experience with someone that I can't really go into detail about 😒

Which has shaped my views on love and relationships for the longer parts of my life.

What I have come to understand is that wanting to give and receive in equal measures is not selfish. In fact, it is the bare minimum when it comes to healthy relationships. It is normal to want a little something in return for the kindness and energy you put into someone some of the time. And it is normal to give more than you get, some of the time. That is life. What is not normal is always being the one to give more, always carrying the weight of a relationship, walking on eggshells around the minefield of interactions in an attempt to prevent the other person from getting hurt because you are so used to having your heart bled out on the floor for them to step on. It makes you feel like less of a person. It makes you feel cheap and used, like what you do for people is beneath you. Well, you know what? It's not beneath you. It is a part of you, your love is a part of you and your soul and when you give it, it should be given freely, but not expected to be returned in pieces on someones else's terms.

Love should not be charity. I'm not saying that it should always be given in equal measures, I'm saying that you deserve a person who sometimes texts you first when you need them to, who notices little things about you and appreciates them just because they want to, who makes you not feel cheap and used for giving your time and energy to them. I want to be able to love like that, to give freely of myself and my time, to show people what a beautiful person they are and how good it feels to be loved by me. But most of all, I want to be able to love just as much as I will be loved back and not feel cheap and used when it turns out that was all you wanted from me.

(Please note people have different variations of the title. Therefore, the post is name tagged it's part of the experiment, on which titles have the most interactions)

The Democratic Alliance has built its national identity around a single claim: that it governs better than the ANC. Where the ANC and EFF campaign on liberation credentials and radical transformation respectively the DAs pitch has always been clean administration, service delivery and accountability backed by its one genuine proof of concept, the Western Cape, which it has governed since 2009 and Cape Town, which it has controlled since 2006 making it the only opposition party to control a province in post apartheid South Africa. Assessing the DA means testing that claim against the record in the one place it has actually had the power to prove it.

What the DA Promised and What It Delivered

The partys core promises have been consistent for over a decade: reduce unemployment deliver the basic services in the country keep crime lower than elsewhere and run government free of the patronage and cadre deployment that define the ANC. On some of this the record holds up well. Independent fact checking of the DAs claims found that unemployment in the Western Cape at 20.2 percent is genuinely lower than the national rate and gross value added growth in the province averaged 2.1 percent annually from 2010 to 2018 under Premier Helen Zille, a period of consistent economic outperformance relative to other provinces. The province also achieved rates of formal housing and sanitation than the national average.

The DAs own promotional claims have not always survived scrutiny. When fact checkers examined five claims the party made about its Western Cape record ahead of the 2024 election, covering employment, basic services and crime they found three were incorrect one was misleading and one was unproven. The claim that the province offers the drinking water in the country wasn't supported by recent sampling data the claim of the "best sanitation services" was unproven and the assertion that the Western Cape was responsible for 78.9 percent of all jobs created nationally over five years was found to be misleading. Even the framing that "eight out of ten" people in the province are employed overstated a 20.2 percent unemployment rate in a way designed to sound better than the underlying number actually is. In words the DAs genuine relative strengths have consistently been oversold beyond what the data supports.

The Clean Governance Brand Under Strain

The problem for the DA is not that its governance is bad in absolute terms it is that its entire political identity rests on being categorically different from the corruption it attributes to the ANC and recent events have made that claim much harder to sustain. A forensic report found irregularities in a 1.2 billion rand IT tender awarded to a company called Blue Networks Consortium to provide services for schools in the Western Cape identifying conflicting pricing by the winning bidder, questionable disqualification of competing bidders and direct involvement of Western Cape government officials in the adjudication process at the State Information Technology Agency. Opposition parties seized on the finding with the EFF describing it as revealing "a web of corruption, collusion and abuse of power" and pointing out that the responsible minister then reinstated the very SITA board members who had been suspended over the matter a decision the EFF called evidence that the DA's more interested in protecting corrupt officials and covering up crimes than in serving the interests of the people." Commentary in the African press has drawn the same conclusion from a different angle arguing that the DA "cannot condemn the capture of the state by one party while tolerating the capture of policy by its own elite networks " and noting that Cape Towns once vaunted clean audit record has been declining, with the Auditor General identifying ongoing weaknesses and compliance failures in supply chain management and procurement oversight and that the DA led administration proceeded with the tender despite concerns raised by SITA itself.

This is not simply an isolated scandal being amplified by rivals. Broader analysis of the partys trajectory has reached a verdict: that the DA presented itself for years as "the paragon of constitutional virtue and clean governance " built its core criticism of the ANC around cadre deployment, factionalism and weak accountability but that "since tasting power we have seen the DAs growing inconsistency between principle and practice " with the partys conduct becoming harder to distinguish from what it once condemned the closer it has moved to the actual exercise of power. That the DA is now a governing partner inside the coalition Government of National Unity formed after the ANC lost its majority in 2024 has only sharpened this scrutiny because the DA no longer has the luxury of critiquing government from the outside; it is now part of the government whose institutional weaknesses it is simultaneously exposed to.

Historical Pattern, Not a New Problem

This tension between governance branding and practical conduct is not new to the current period. In its earlier years as a purely opposition party without executive power at the national level the DAs attempts to hold government accountable through formal channels were frequently blocked or stonewalled rather than proving structurally superior. Its Promotion of Access to Information application into the Nkandla investigation into Jacob Zumas homestead was unsuccessful and had to be escalated to the Western Cape High Court and its request for Parliament to establish an ad hoc committee to investigate the Gupta family state capture scandal was denied outright. This history is worth noting because it shows the DAs institutional strength has always been more conditional than its rhetoric suggests, dependent on cooperation from bodies it does not control than an independent capacity to enforce accountability on its own terms.

Leadership and Direction

The partys senior leadership figures have themselves acknowledged, in effect that the Western Cape record is now central to its national credibility rather than incidental to it. Former leader John Steenhuisen argued ahead of the 2024 election that smaller rival parties challenging the DA in the Western Cape should instead focus their energy elsewhere because the DA has "a proven track record" there an argument that only works if that record continues to hold up to scrutiny. Recently the DA elected Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis as its new leader heading into the 2029 election cycle, a choice that again ties the partys national identity directly to its municipal and provincial governance credentials rather than to ideology or opposition politics underscoring how central the "we govern better" pitch remains to the partys entire strategic positioning even as that pitch comes under growing challenge.

The honest assessment of the DA is a party that has genuinely outperformed the average on a number of measurable governance indicators in the one province it controls lower unemployment generally stronger economic growth, better formal housing access, but whose signature claim of principled corruption free governance has not survived contact with real sustained power nearly as cleanly as its own messaging suggests. Where the ANCs central failure has been converting stability into economic transformation and the EFFs central failure has been betraying its own anti corruption identity almost the moment it gained municipal leverage the DAs failure is more subtle but structurally similar: a party whose founding promise was to be procedurally and ethically different, from its rivals is now facing credible documented evidence, in its own flagship province, of the same kind of tender irregularities, insider dealing and institutional self protection it has spent two decades campaigning against.

(I finished this article today so they might be some spelling mistakes somewhere)

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) burst onto the scene in 2013, a breakaway group from the ANC Youth League, promising to be the voice of radical change in South Africa. Formed in July 2013 by Julius Malema and his supporters, who had been expelled from the ANC Youth League, the party campaigned on a platform of fighting corruption and providing quality, affordable social housing, free primary health and education, expropriating white-owned land, nationalizing key industries, doubling welfare grants and minimum wages, and abolishing toll roads. The party was born out of frustration with the ANC's perceived betrayal of the liberation values and principles, and its supporters saw the EFF as a chance to finally hold someone accountable.

Success

When it comes to sheer impact on the political landscape, the EFF has been undeniably successful, rising from nowhere to become a significant political force in just over a decade. The party's popularity skyrocketed in 2019 when it secured almost 11 percent of the vote, earning the party 44 seats in the National Assembly. The following year, the EFF's popularity began to wane, and it only managed to secure slightly less than 10 percent of the vote, and 44 seats, in the 2024 general election, being overshadowed by the uMkhonto weSizwe party's recent rise. The party's confrontational style, red overalls, and calls for Jacob Zuma's riches to be returned to the nation forced several accountability measures when the ANC was unwilling to take them, and its presence in parliament ensured that these issues continued to be raised. It was also the party that made land expropriation, nationalization, and inequality an issue that could not be ignored by the country's leadership. The EFF has also repeatedly served as a kingmaker, forcing coalition-building in municipalities such as Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Nelson Mandela Bay after the 2016 and 2021 local elections as a result of its strong regional presence and popopularity.

Failures

The biggest problem with the EFF's public image and its main campaign promise is its inability to actually deliver on its promises while in office. The party's brand was built on positioning itself as the clean alternative to the corrupt ANC, but the people who led and drove the party began to become directly involved in one of the country's largest scandals. The South African Reserve Bank's investigation into the collapse of VBS Mutual Bank implicated the brother of former EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu and accused him of illicit payments of about 10 million rands. This comes as no surprise to those familiar with the party, as it has long been the target of criticism from both the ANC and the press for harboring corrupt officials. It is worth noting that the initial reaction of the EFF leadership to the story was not one of remorse or even regret, but rather condemnation of the Reserve Bank and criticism of their interference with VBS Mutual Banc. The bank was accused of racism, and the party called on the government to recapitalize it, citing no evidence of Shivambu receiving the alleged payments. The entire narrative shifted when a trial began in July 2024, as VBS Mutual Bank chairman Tshifhiwa Matodzi pleaded guilty in court and testified that both Malema and Shivambu were aware of the payments and their nature. He testified that the illicit funds had been funneled to Malema and Shivambu through a company owned by Shivambu's brother. Additional reports from the Daily Maverick later accused the party of receiving hundreds of millions of rands from VBS Mutual Bank through a network of shell companies.

It was not the first time that the party had been accused of being involved in corrupt practices. The amaBhungane investigative journalism center revealed that the EFF received half a million rands in bribes when a 1.26 billion rand contract for fleet management in the City of Johannesburg was awarded to one of the party's campaign suppliers, with the Democratic Alliance being accused of turning a blind eye to the bribes. Another amaBhungane investigation alleged that the EFF pocketed 15 million rands when a contract for fuel supply in the City of Tshwane was signed with one of the party's allies, who were also accused of skimming 85 million rands. In other words, the party that campaigned so furiously against state capture and corruption and promised to root it out if it ever got into power had itself engaged in similar activities as soon as it had the opportunity.

The party's economic promises and manifesto have mostly remained unfulfilled in the areas where it holds power, as the party is too small to actually impose its will on the national level. Double minimum wages, doubled child support grants, expropriation of white-owned farmland, nationalization of mines and banks have all failed to happen, although some of them were at least pushed for nationwide. In essence, the party has failed to accomplish any of its economic promises outside of symbolic gestures and rhetoric, while its presence in national politics has been largely reduced to a nuisance. It holds no real power at the national level and has never participated in a coalition government, only making populist noises about radical change every few years and boasting of its popularity with the youth.

The final test of the EFF's commitment to its founding principles and promise to be different came in the form of internal dissent. Shivambu, the second-most powerful man in the party, resigned in 2024 and accused the rest of stealing from the people as he prepared to join Zuma's new MK Party. Dissident EFF MP David Smuts accused his former colleagues in parliament of having 'thieves in the red overalls.' Shivambu stated that after the 2021 municipal elections, coalition politics began, allowing self-enrichment to begin, which ultimately led to his leaving the party. One could argue that the best response to these allegations was not the resignation and criticism of Shivambu and Smuts but rather the actions of those still in power in the party

An objective analysis of the EFF's tenure in politics highlights a pattern of successes on one front while suffering from devastating setbacks on another. It has shaped the national debate in many ways and forced accountability measures against some of the country's most powerful figures, but it has failed, so far, to truly deliver on the promise of being fundamentally different at the core. The ANC has had thirty years to establish effective systems and structures to combat corruption and state capture, but it has failed. The same applies to the EFF, which has been in power for only a little over a decade. While the ANC's missteps tend to be broad and systemic, the EFF's weaknesses are often more personal and directly related to the individuals in charge at the time.

Dear this is for you

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being impressive all the time. You say the right things, you have your life together in the retelling, you know how to make your struggles sound like growth already completed. And somewhere in the middle of doing this, usually late at night or in the quiet after a conversation that went fine but felt hollow, you notice you haven’t actually told anyone anything true in a while.

Vulnerability isn’t really about oversharing, though it gets confused for that constantly. Dumping everything onto someone the moment you meet them, narrating your whole wound before they’ve asked, can actually be a way of avoiding the real thing. It moves too fast to be honest. It doesn’t wait to find out whether the person in front of you is someone worth trusting with this. Real vulnerability is slower and much less comfortable than that. It’s saying one true sentence and then living inside the silence that follows, not knowing yet how it will be received.

What makes it so hard is that it isn’t really connection we’re afraid of losing. It’s more specific than that. It’s the fear of a verdict. That if we say the quiet thing, the person will think less of us, or confirm some suspicion we already carry about ourselves, that we’re too much, too needy, too fragile to be around. Most of the time when someone says they’re scared of being vulnerable, what they actually mean is they’re scared of a particular outcome, and it helps to name that outcome specifically instead of hiding behind the general fear. Once you know exactly what you’re afraid will happen, you can ask whether that fear is protecting you or just running the show out of habit.

There’s also a kind of vulnerability that isn’t vulnerability at all, and it’s worth being honest about that too. It’s telling the truth while already knowing, or deciding, what a good response looks like. You share the difficult thing but you’ve quietly scripted how the other person should react, and if they react differently, you feel betrayed rather than simply met with something unexpected. That isn’t risk. That’s a performance of openness while still trying to control the outcome. The harder and more honest version is saying the true thing and genuinely not knowing what will happen next, letting the other person’s response be real even if it isn’t the one you wanted.

Timing matters more than people admit. Vulnerability that matches the depth of a relationship tends to build trust, brick by brick, in a way that feels earned. Vulnerability that outpaces the relationship can overwhelm the other person, can put them in a position they never agreed to be in. This isn’t an argument for holding everything back until some perfect moment arrives, because that moment doesn’t come on its own. It’s closer to a rhythm you learn, matching what you reveal to what is actually being built between two people.

And maybe the most underrated part of all this is that vulnerability doesn’t need to be dramatic to count. We tend to imagine it as the big confession, the tearful late night conversation, the moment everything finally comes out. But most of it happens in small ordinary admissions. Saying that actually hurt. Saying I don’t know the answer. Saying I’d like it if you did this instead of that. A pattern of small honesty, repeated often, builds the muscle far more reliably than waiting for one enormous cathartic unburdening that may never arrive on schedule.

Being vulnerable, in the end, isn’t about how much you reveal. It’s about revealing something true without deciding in advance how it has to be received, and being willing to stay in the room while the other person figures out what to do with it.

There's a particular kind of heartbreak that doesn't come with a funeral. No one brings you food. No one asks if you're okay because on paper, nothing happened. You weren't dumped. You weren't cheated on. You were just... let go of, slowly, without a single sentence that named what was ending.

That's the cruelty of a situationship. It gives you every feeling of a relationship and none of its language. You spend hours on the phone and call it nothing. You meet their friends and call it nothing. You learn the rhythm of their day, the tone they use when they're tired, the way they go quiet when something's bothering them, and you still call it nothing, because that's the word they taught you to use.

I think what broke me wasn't losing him. It was realizing I had spent months building a home inside something that was never structurally sound to begin with. I kept mistaking comfort for commitment. I kept mistaking access to me for value of me. He had my time, my attention, my late night voice notes when I couldn't sleep, the version of me that shows up for someone fully. What he never had to give in return was clarity. And I let that slide, again and again, because clarity felt like it might ruin the mood.

Women get taught to be easy to love. Easy meaning undemanding. Easy meaning don't ask him what this is, don't ask him where this is going, don't be the one who "ruins things" by wanting a definition. So I didn't ask. I absorbed the ambiguity like it was my job to carry it for both of us. And he let me, because why would he stop something that cost him nothing and gave him everything.

The hardest part to admit is that I knew. Somewhere in me, underneath the hope, I knew this wasn't going anywhere real. I knew because real things don't need to be protected from conversation. Real things can survive the question "what are we." A situationship cannot. It exists specifically in the space where no one asks, because the moment someone asks, it either becomes something or it ends. And deep down he knew that too. That's why every time I got close to asking, the air in the room would shift, and I'd back off, scared of being the one who broke the spell.

So it ended the way these things always end. Not with a conversation. With a slow fade. Messages that took longer to come back. A "we should talk soon" that never turned into a talk. And then one day, silence that stopped pretending to be temporary.

What I grieved wasn't just him. It was the version of me who thought if I was patient enough, soft enough, undemanding enough, he would eventually choose me out loud. I grieved the time I spent defending someone to my own friends who could see clearly what I refused to. I grieved the nights I convinced myself that inconsistency was just "his personality" instead of information.

People don't talk enough about how situationships mess with your sense of your own worth. Because a breakup, a real one, at least confirms that something existed. A situationship ending confirms nothing. You're left standing there with all this grief and no relationship to justify it. You cried over someone you were never technically "with." You're mourning a title that was never given, so even your pain feels like it needs an explanation.

I've learned that the ambiguity was never an accident. It was the whole design. Some people are drawn to situations that ask nothing of them, because commitment requires a kind of honesty about their own capacity, and some people would rather keep you guessing than tell you the truth that they were never fully in.

If I'm honest with myself, the lesson wasn't about him at all. It was about learning that clarity is not too much to ask for. That wanting a name for what you're in isn't clingy or needy, it's basic self respect. The people who are actually serious about you will never make you feel like asking a simple question is a threat to the relationship.

I don't regret loving him. I regret how long I let the absence of definition convince me that I wasn't allowed to want one.

When the African National Congress swept to power in 1994 under the banner "A Better Life for All," it inherited a country scarred by apartheid and offered its people a sweeping vision: economic transformation, land redistribution, universal access to housing, water, electricity and healthcare, and a state cleansed of corruption. Three decades later, the record shows a party that has delivered real, measurable gains in some areas while falling drastically short, sometimes catastrophically so, in others. Understanding the ANC's governance requires holding both realities at once.

What Was Delivered

The ANC's own reviews of its record point to genuine achievements. Housing programmes have reached an estimated 14 million people, and electricity access was extended to millions of households that had none under apartheid. The party's 30 Year Review of South Africa's Democracy cites nearly 14 million people who have benefited from a range of housing programmes, with electricity extended to 2.5 million households. Social grants now support a large share of the population, and access to antiretroviral treatment expanded significantly after the government abandoned the AIDS denialism of the Mbeki era. South Africa also retained a functioning constitutional democracy, with the judiciary, a free press and regular elections continuing to operate independently of the ruling party.

What Was Not Delivered

Set against those achievements, the gap between promise and outcome is stark, and nowhere more so than on jobs. The ANC's manifestos have repeatedly promised mass employment. Instead, joblessness has climbed almost every year the party has governed. Unemployment has risen by roughly 0.5 percent on average every year since the ANC came to power in 1994, and by 2025 the crisis had become generational. Among the 4.8 million unemployed youth in the first quarter of 2025, 58.7 percent reported having no previous work experience, trapping millions of young South Africans in a cycle where they cannot get hired without experience and cannot gain experience without being hired. Broader measures put the picture in even starker relief: unemployment stood at roughly 33 percent by the broad definition, or 43 percent including those who had given up looking, up from 25 percent in 2014, with sixty percent of 15 to 24 year olds available to work unable to find it. This is the clearest possible failure against the ANC's own founding promise of economic inclusion.

Infrastructure tells a similar story of decline overtaking delivery. Eskom's energy crisis produced roughly seventeen years of load shedding, while theft, vandalism and so called ghost vending cost the utility around 27 billion rand annually, with a further multibillion rand hole later discovered hidden in the utility's distribution arm. Transnet's rail and port network, once a continental leader, degraded to the point of choking export industries. Municipal water and sanitation systems in many towns and cities have deteriorated to crisis levels, producing the kind of protests seen in Johannesburg's Westbury suburb over water supply failures.

Corruption is the area where the distance between rhetoric and reality has been most damaging to the ANC's legitimacy. The Zondo Commission, the government's own inquiry, spent nearly four years exposing corruption and named or linked hundreds of ANC politicians and officials to corrupt activity, yet few of the accused have ended up behind bars, and Zondo himself has expressed disappointment at how slowly the recommendations have been acted on. The former president at the center of the state capture era, Jacob Zuma, has faced hundreds of corruption related charges without ever standing trial on them, and went on to found a breakaway party after being barred from Parliament following a contempt of court conviction. The pattern of commissions producing findings that are then only partially, slowly, or never implemented has become a defining feature of ANC governance rather than an exception to it.

Land reform, one of the ANC's oldest and most emotionally significant promises, remains largely unrealized in material terms. Whites account for roughly 7.3 percent of South Africa's population but continue to own nearly three quarters of all farmland, while Black South Africans make up about 81 percent of the population yet own only about 4 percent of the land. Despite three decades of restitution processes, redistribution targets, and legislative reform culminating in the contested 2025 Expropriation Act, the basic pattern of land ownership inherited from apartheid has barely shifted.

Poverty and inequality tell the same story. Roughly two out of every three Black South Africans remain in poverty, about 30 million people out of a population of 52 million, compared with poverty of only around 1 percent among white South Africans. The economy's growth trajectory has compounded this: South Africa's economy has averaged barely 1 percent annual growth over the past fifteen years, nowhere near the pace needed to absorb new entrants to the labour market, let alone reduce the existing backlog of unemployment.

Why the ANC Still Governs Despite This Record

Given this record, the ANC's continued dominance for most of the democratic era is itself worth examining. Analysts point to a combination of enduring loyalty to the party of Mandela, deep reliance among rural and poor voters on ANC administered social grants and pensions, and the practical absence, until relatively recently, of a credible alternative capable of winning power nationally. That calculus shifted materially in the 2024 general election, when the ANC's vote share fell below fifty percent for the first time since 1994, forcing it into South Africa's first national coalition government. By late 2025, roughly 80 percent of South Africans told pollsters the country was on the wrong track, a striking indicator of how far public patience has worn thin.

To its credit, the ANC's own internal structures have increasingly acknowledged this gap rather than papering over it. The party's National Executive Committee has conceded that the national fault lines of unemployment, inequality and poverty have persisted despite thirty years of progress, and has committed to quarterly checks against its own manifesto promises, an implicit admission that self monitoring was previously inadequate. Later economic planning documents acknowledge that the impact of governance interventions is yet to be felt in growth and employment figures, and that the persistence of low growth, severe unemployment and the high cost of living is unacceptable, language that would have been unthinkable in the confident manifestos of the Mandela and Mbeki years.

The essential picture, then, is of a governing party that built and sustained the institutional architecture of a constitutional democracy, a genuine and durable achievement, while consistently failing to convert that political stability into the broad based economic transformation it promised. Housing, grants and electrification expanded the floor beneath South Africans' lives. But jobs, land, infrastructure reliability and clean governance, the pillars the ANC itself identified as central to a better life for all, have deteriorated or stagnated across most of the democratic era, leaving a widening chasm between what was promised at every election and what has actually been delivered.

For most people with vagin as, this is a part of the body they will go their entire lives never actually looking at directly. It is hidden by clothing, rarely discussed openly, and for many people wrapped in a lifetime of shame, embarrassment, or simple avoidance. Yet this lack of familiarity comes at a real cost. Understanding what is normal for your own body is one of the most basic forms of healthcare there is, and it is one that a surprising number of women and people with vaginas have never actually practiced.

Looking at your vulva, the external part often mistakenly referred to as the vagina itself, is not vanity or an unnecessary act of self indulgence. It is a practical health habit, no different in principle from checking a mole on your skin or examining your breasts for lumps. The vulva can show early signs of infections, irritation, unusual discharge, changes in skin texture or color, cysts, or in rare cases more serious conditions like vulvar cancer. Without a baseline understanding of what your own body normally looks like, it becomes far harder to notice when something has changed. Many women only discover a problem once it has already become painful, visible, or advanced, simply because they never took the time earlier to know their own anatomy well enough to notice a difference.

There is also a psychological and cultural dimension to this that matters just as much as the medical one. For generations, vaginas have been treated as something shameful, dirty, or simply not to be looked at, let alone talked about. Many girls grow up never learning the correct names for their own anatomy, and many women reach adulthood with more familiarity with the inside of a magazine or a screen than with their own bodies. This disconnect feeds directly into stigma, into difficulty communicating with doctors about symptoms, and into delayed diagnoses of treatable conditions simply because embarrassment kept someone from seeking help sooner. Familiarity breeds confidence, and confidence makes it far easier to advocate for your own healthcare, describe symptoms accurately, and notice early warning signs before they become serious.

Practically, this does not require anything elaborate. A hand mirror, good lighting, and a few minutes of privacy are enough to get a clear look and start building familiarity over time. Doing this occasionally, not obsessively, simply as a normal part of self care, allows you to notice what is typical for your body, the natural variation in color, texture, and shape that exists from person to person, and anything that later seems different or worth mentioning to a doctor.

Ultimately, this is not a radical idea. It is basic bodily literacy, the same standard we already apply to skin checks or breast exams, extended to a part of the body that has been unfairly left out of that conversation for far too long. Knowing your own body is not something to be embarrassed about. It is one of the simplest and most effective tools you have for protecting your own health.

The vagina is the holy grail that can bring life but you dont know how it looks like

(Note from I am supremacy a k a Me

I remember the first time I had to try on a tampon and I had to lay down in front of a mirror to make sure I was putting it in my vagina and not my butt hole,It was so uncomfortable because I have never actually seen my vagina,I failed in putting the tampon it was painful so I didn't force it and even in Biology we are never told to look at our genitals and how the look of our genitals can tell us a lot of informationn about its health)