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04 August 2020 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath
Apart from its devastating impact on people’s lives and livelihoods, the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the nature and quality of our democracies – democracy read in its widest sense here as collective and individual self-determination. Formal, institutional democracy has beencurtailed through the imposition of states of emergency or disaster and the logistical difficulties associated with social distancing. Extra-institutional democratic work, such as protest and social-movement activity, has suffered from prohibitions imposed by law and through state suppression related to ‘lockdown’. The nature (and perhaps democratic quality) of public conversation has changed – for better or worse – from increasing reliance on ‘science’ and ‘scientists’ to justify public choices. The crisis has brought to the fore already existing characteristics of our democracies, such as the prevalence and power of special-interest bargaining, the extreme inequality of our societies, and chauvinist nationalisms that force us to ask whether we have ever had democracy at all. What will be the long-term effects of these impacts of the crisis on our democracies? What will democracy look like post-COVID? What does the crisis teach us about what our democracies have always been?

Join us for a discussion of these and other democracy-related issues in these troubled times by a panel of four hailing from Colombia, India, South Africa, and the USA.

Date: Thursday, 13 August
Time: 14:00-16:00 (South African Standard Time – GMT +2)

 

Please RSVP to Mamello Serasengwe at serasengwemsm@ufs.ac.za no later than 12 August 2020 upon which you will receive a Skype for Business meeting invite and link to access the webinar

Panel

Prof Natalia Angel Cabo (University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia)

Dr Quaraysha Ismail-Sooliman (University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa)

Dr Usha Ramanathan  Independent Law Researcher  (Delhi, India)

Prof Katie Young (Boston College, Boston, USA) 

Moderator

Prof Danie Brand (Free State Centre for Human Rights, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa)   




News Archive

Kovsie tennis team wins gold at nationals
2012-12-12

 
Members of Kovsies winning tennis team.
13 December 2012

For the sixth time in a row, the tennis team of the University of the Free State won gold at the tennis championships of the University Sports South Africa (USSA) tournament. The tournament was held from Monday 3 December 2012 until Friday 7 December 2012 at the University of Pretoria, where 21 teams from 20 tertiary academic institutions participated.

The team participated in a round robin during the first three days where they beat the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of Johannesburg, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and North-West University (Potchefstroom Campus). On Thursday, the team played in the semi-finals against the University of Pretoria and won the tiebreak 8-2. Friday’s final was against the Stellenbosch University and after eight singles matches, Kovsies was already 8-0 up. There was thus no need to play the doubles and mixed matches.

After the USSA tournament, four Kovsie players were included in a training group to take part in training camps, tournaments and trials in preparation for the World Student Games (Universiade) in Russia in 2013. These four students are Duke Munro, Christi Potgieter, Elizna Barnard and Hendri Steyn. The coach and team manager of the Kovsie team, Marnus Kleinhans and Janine de Kock, were also appointed coach and manager of the South African Student team for the World Student Games.

At the Annual General Meeting of USSA Tennis, Janine de Kock was re-elected as chairperson and Marnus Kleinhans as technical advisor. The captain of Kovsies, Christi Potgieter was also selected as vice-chairperson.

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