Editor's note

Nic Dawes, Editor-in-Chief

Ferial Haffajee, founding editor

Take, for example, the media section. Where is Rapule Tabane, deputy editor of this newspaper, and one of the more thoughtful political commentators you are likely to read anywhere? Ineligible, I’m afraid, on the grounds that, like Caesar’s wife and public officials, the maker of the list must be above suspicion and must therefore exclude M&G employees.

Adriaan Basson, investigative journalist and scourge of the powerful, is out for the same reason, even though at 29, and garlanded with the most prestigious awards in the industry, he is an obvious candidate. So is Jason Norwood-Young, an online guru who is helping to shape the way you will be consuming news in 10 years time, and Percy Zvomuya whose gently left-field culture writing is an increasingly essential read.

Niren Tolsi is not on the list for his brilliant profiles, nor is Lloyd Gedye for his probing of cartels. Mandy Rossouw, Matuma Letsoalo and Mmanaledi Mataboge go unmentioned despite their sharp political reporting, as does Sello S Alcock for his dispatches from the battle for the soul of the legal system. Yolandi Groenewald gets no recognition here for her robust investigations of environmental scandal, and Lynley Donnely’s delicate touch with business stories is ignored. Phathisani Moyo and Lucky Sindane are not profiled here for rebuilding the sports pages of our avowedly political newspaper.

Our photographic team -- Paul Botes, Lisa Skinner and Oupa Nkosi -- are represented only by their work as seen in Jacqueline Steeneveldt’s layout of these pages.

They deserve recognition, and all of them make age cut, if only barely, but they really don’t need to be included here, because they have a showcase each week in the M&G, a newspaper powered to an extraordinary degree by the energy and commitment of young South Africans; people for whom a prosperous, democratic future is an urgent, living demand, not a fantasy.

Frankly, we have left lots of other such people out. Some we’ve never heard of -- and we know you will remind us to include them next year -- others just weren’t young enough anymore. To keep the list meaningful we’ve been a bit stricter this year about excluding the young at heart and tried as hard as possible to leave out anyone over 35, but we buckled in few cases for some really starry leaders.

Still others seemed like tedious lunch companions to us, so we excercised our discrimination, and spared you the expense account query. On the other hand, we included a few people who weren’t born here, but who have made South Africa their home.

The point of such a list is not to be complete. On the contrary, it is meant as a starting point, perhaps even a provocation, but in any event the opening of a conversation about a generation that is truly beginning to shape our possible futures.

Ours is a young country in just about every sense: demographically, democratically and in its developing identity. This list is a cross-section of the present, but it is also a map to the future and it cheers us up no end.