South Africa in 2019 and the Rational Standard
The Rational Standard was founded on 25 January 2016. It has been three years since our founding (almost four, if you include our previous incarnation as South African Libertarian. In those years, we established ourselves not only as one of the largest classical liberal voices in South Africa and the entire continent, but a well-respected platform for analysis, political commentary and intellectual discourse.
In 2018, we started our first podcast, hosted by one of our founding contributors, Nicholas Babaya. The podcast has already interviewed a range of interesting South Africans on topics ranging from game farming and EWC to the Democratic Alliance and Orania.
We broke ground, discussing topics that other journalists wouldn’t touch, including much-needed exposes and condemnations of Ashwin Willemse and Winnie Mandela.
Thought leaders, brave and intellectually astute enough to do so, shared their public support for the Rational Standard as one of the few sources of trustworthy commentary in the country, placing us as a crucial influencer in the battle of ideas in South Africa.
Near the end of the year, the Rational Standard merged with two US-based libertarian websites – Being Libertarian and Think Liberty. The ongoing partnership with these two great brands has already proven to be extremely beneficial to the Rational Standard, allowing us to focus on delivering African-centred news and commentary and benefit from a network of skilled libertarians from around the world. This merger has especially helped us bring South Africa’s crisis of property rights to an international audience.
We are looking forward to continuing this partnership in 2019 and for years to come.
Our mission for 2019
Our mission, broadly, will remain what it always has been: To be a voice for free markets, liberty, individualism and the pursuit of reason.
South Africa is still in dire straits – perhaps more so than ever before after 1994 – but as more and more reasonable thinkers come to the fore, we believe that something can be salvaged.
2019 is an important year for South Africa. With general elections around the corner, the Hate Speech Bill on the horizon, and EWC looming over us – there is a lot to watch out for.
The Rational Standard will be here to analyse and condemn these policies when the rest of the media is too distracted by pettiness to care. And when the reasonable are shunned, we will provide a platform for them to voice their dissent.
In 2019 specifically, we will provide resources for our readers to understand the upcoming elections, and to help make up their minds on who to vote for, if anyone, and crucially, who not to vote for.
How to support us
The Rational Standard has lasted far longer than our competitors had thought possible. We have outlasted big-money media projects like Huffpost ZA and have gone from strength to strength. We have certainly held out by not hiding our content behind a paywall, as South Africa’s alternative media historically has done and is doing increasingly.
But, we are still mostly a volunteer organisation and need help to grow.
You can help us in the following ways:
Share our content: The easiest way to ensure we grow is to share our articles and podcasts. Share them on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and even by email. The more people who see our content, the larger we can grow and the further we come in winning the battle of ideas.
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We look forward to a fruitful 2019 and hope to see you there along the way -- either as a reader, a writer and/or a donor. If we’re to make strives in this dire debate, we need all the help we can get.
Nicholas Woode-Smith is the Managing Editor and a Co-Founder of the Rational Standard.