When you watch what is happening at the SABC you get a feeling that it’s more like Days of our Lives, today Marlena and John are married and Kate is in love with Victor and tomorrow Marlena is possessed, John is arrested and Kate is mentally ill. Things move from the good, to the bad […]
Media
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Brexit: Should ‘ordinary people’ be taking a decision as big as this?
By Abigail McDougall Between last night and this morning an “I’m in for Britain” poster popped up in the window of my upper-middle-class neighbours. This display of support for Remain is rather gutsy for Kenilworth, Warwickshire, where Leave posters are in many windows and I’ve had Leave propaganda raining through my mailbox for weeks. It […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
SA’s UN vote against press freedom NGO is a vote against diversity of perspectives
By Caroline James This week, South Africa was one of eight countries in the United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations that voted to deny the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) observer status at the United Nations (UN). South Africa voted against accreditation along with countries like China and Russia who are not known for their […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Zapiro, monkeys and red herrings
Editorial cartooning must be one of the most difficult jobs out there. Not only must the cartoonist be technically adept when it comes to caricature, he or she also has to find the humour in situations that often, on the surface, aren’t especially funny. Day in and day out, cartoonists have to generate ideas and […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, News/Politics
The Ntokozo Qwabe Ashleigh Schultz affair: Notes for a screenplay
Antoinette put down her waiter’s tray filled with dirty plates from customer’s tables and softly murmured the words, “We will give tip when you return the land.” She stared at these words on the crumpled piece of paper in her hand and began to laugh. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Islamic fundamentalism in the information age
In the second volume of his monumental three-volume study on the information age titled The Power of Identity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Manuel Castells addresses (as the book’s title indicates) the different ways in which a sense of collective identity is configured at a time when the so-called “network society” has emerged, concomitantly with the global communication-technological […]
Posted inGeneral, Media
Can a white man tell Khaya Dlanga how to write a memoir?
Writing a standard book review risks creating a vapid commercial about the new publication. This is different to the journey that serious reading is, and journaling about that reading. Reading frequently, and returning to books that move you, creates a “spiritual travelogue”, and begins to resemble a series of religious stations, reference points to look […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, Tech
This is not all that Gyna sapiens (‘thinking woman’) is capable of
How the human species – Gyna and Homo sapiens (thinking woman and man), supposedly – have come down in the world. It does not take a genius to grasp this, although I daresay most geniuses would not waste their time with evidence supporting my statement, above; they probably have better things to do. What I’m […]
Posted inHealth, Media, News/Politics
The problem with the ACDP’s anti-abortion Facebook post
If there’s one thing South African politicians should know about social media, is that it’s a double-edged sword. When used correctly, it can add value to the party’s concerns. Think about the successful Twitterviews held by the ANC, the engaging Twitter Town Halls run by the DA and the highly publicised online Q & A […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, Media, News/Politics
Do we have a duty to arrest Omar al-Bashir and hand him to the ICC?
By Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh These will be some of the deliberations at the Supreme Court of Appeal hearing tomorrow in the state’s appeal of the June 2015 high court order to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Will this court arrive at a different conclusion in respect of the arrest of al-Bashir? The state certainly hopes so. […]
Posted inEquality, Media
‘Blackface’ but not really
By Melissa Nefdt Recently there has been a story in the news of what initially appeared to be yet another case of blackface at a traditionally white institution. “Blackface at Stellenbosch University”, headlines said, above a picture of two young women clearly sporting paint all over their faces, necks and arms, smiling broadly into the […]
Posted inEquality, General, Media, News/Politics
Whites only Oscars and black sour grapes
The recent announcement of an exclusive all-white list of actors who are the finalists for this year’s Oscars has provoked a lot of negative black reaction. Big names in the movie industry like Spike Lee, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, among others, have criticised and condemned the list of nominees. Many other black people […]