Melanie Verwoerd | We live in a complex country that requires complex, not lazy, thinking

The inability to hold the tension between what often seem like contradictions, especially in the political space. Melanie Verwoerd writes that we are losing our capacity and willingness to understand and engage with complexities.

On Saturday night, I went to a concert of Ladysmith Black Mambazo at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town. 

The Artscape holds many happy memories for me. As soon as we were old enough, my mum would bring my sisters and me to concerts at the Nico Malan Theatre – as it was then called. Concerts were serious business. You had to dress up in dresses and shiny leather shoes, while absolute silence and best behaviour were required during the performance. The audience was, of course, lily white.