It started with the #Bringbackourgirls campaign. I hadn’t followed the story closely, but when I read articles to make sense of what had happened, I couldn’t make sense of it. I tried to imagine people coming into my school and taking away the students and there being no sense of security or outcry. I tried […]
Media
Posted inGeneral, Media
Why ‘freedom’ sells
Having lived in China for seven years I have my own kind of sorrow, mixed with the tenderness of memory when I see a small Christian community deep inside China harassed for their faith. The leader, pastor Zhang, was imprisoned for 12 years and his family was in danger of losing their lives before making […]
Posted inGeneral, Media
Capitalism: Why we live in a ‘schizo society’
What a pleasure it is to be in Istanbul — probably the most sensuous city in the world — for a conference on one of the most innovative and profound thinkers of the 20th century, if not in the history of philosophy, Gilles Deleuze (whose extensive collaborative work with Felix Guattari makes it imperative to […]
Posted inEquality, Health, Media
Auschwitz should put us off our food
While a crudely assembled advert that ran in the Mail & Guardian featuring pictures of a pork factory farm and concentration camp prisoners side by side was naïve, the reaction from Caryn Gootkin in her piece, “I’m a Jew, not a pig” is misplaced. Quite rightly, we’re shocked by pictures of the camp inmates, and […]
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Mr X versus the Marikana miners
The mysterious Mr X has been testifying against the striking miners at the Farlam Commission for the past two months in which he claimed the miners engaged in murder conspiracies and flesh-eating rituals. But Geoff Budlender has questioned parts of Mr X’s claims and provided evidence that disputes his claim that Association of Mineworkers and […]
Posted inEquality, Media
I’m a Jew, not a pig
By Caryn Gootkin Today’s Mail & Guardian carries the following (what appears to be a) plea to Pick n Pay to stand against cruelty to pigs. It is supposedly an advertisement, because the newspaper apparently knows nothing about it. Chris Roper, the editor, placed an apology on their website. In it he states: ”Owing to […]
Posted inEquality, Media
The dangerous sentimentality of Alice Mann’s ‘Domestic Bliss’
A photographic series by a white employer on her domestic worker was always going to be problematic, but I didn’t know how problematic until I was presented with Alice Mann’s Domestic Bliss. In her artist statement she says: “This series of portraits depicts black, female domestic workers in the homes of their white employers in […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Mogoeng: Give truth a sporting chance
You know the ol’ Mark Twain witticism: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes?” Well … I got a lesson in that this week. When I got to thinking about it (and I’ll get to it in a sec), this saying sprung to mind, and – […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The only clown here is the cartoonist
Everywhere you go, some shit word will collide with you on the wrong side of the road. — Dambudzo Marechera, The Black Insider I have a profound respect for language. Words dream us into being and knit together the world around us. Think of this passage from your trusted King James Bible: “In the beginning […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Time to have Faith in the ANC’s ‘good story’?
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, is what the mafia don advised. It’s a Machiavellian strategy that President Jacob Zuma has embraced and is taking to absurd lengths with his new Cabinet. It is now a veritable army of ministers and deputy ministers that oversees South Africa’s government. This week’s oath taking ceremony […]
Posted inEquality, Media
Lines of privilege
“I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.” These are the words that played over and over in my mind while I was at the Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF) this past weekend. Two friends and I attended two sessions on the festival’s final […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
The National Drug Master Plan: More bark than bite?
In August of last year the department of social development released the latest incarnation of South Africa’s National Drug Master Plan, the NDMP 2013-2017. The national press responded with deafening silence. Considering, however, that it will play a central role in both defining and guiding the South African government’s responses to the production, distribution, and […]