When it comes to renaming things, government suddenly gets goal-oriented. In fact, I’m surprised we’re allowed to choose our own names and aren’t given a pre-approved list of politically correct suggestions. But what’s in a name? A lot, if we go through three recent events. The first involves one Supra Mahumapelo, the ANC’s North West […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Why are we obsessed with the Oscar case?
A week is a very long time these days. In our addiction to new news, we’ve become a society with ADD, The half-life of any given story is a day, if that. Since the story that Oscar Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day, we have spoken and tweeted […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Oscar, Reeva and the hypocrisy of popular activism
Violence against women is a moral-turned-physical plague, and it has bedridden South Africa. Our mothers, daughters, sisters, children and friends are sitting ducks. They are targets of the male ego. Violence against women is the patriarch’s last stand. He is gripping on to his illegitimate, undeserved “entitlements”. The howling storm of change brings with it […]
Posted inNews/Politics
‘Ramphele, an agent of the imperial ghost’
The imperial ghost is alive and kicking. The big, bad, ugly angel of darkness is gearing-up to roam the streets of South Africa and has apparently found itself an unlikely host … Mamphela Ramphele. The imperial ghost, as you might know is sometimes based in the US, sometimes the UK and sometimes the European Union. […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Why I will wear black next time
Since the murder of Anene Booysen, I, and I suspect many others in the gender-based violence sector, have felt completely overwhelmed by the multitude of opinions and approaches to gender-based violence articulated in the sector, the media, and in public and private conversations throughout the country. At the research unit where I work there have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Party bosses: A tyranny of the fanatical
The irrational behaviour of some political leaders is denigrating faith in the social contract that unites our post-conflict society. That same contract underpins the necessary wealth-creation efforts integral to the achievement of a non-racial, non-sexist, non-xenophobic and democratic society. In essence, power-hungry men and women are drawing the entire country into an unnecessary state of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Will Agang take off?
So Mamphela Ramphele, South Africa’s last great hope if we’re going to break the impasse of our current political landscape, which cynics might summarise as a choice between self-interested thieves and self-righteous prefects, has finally announced what we’ve suspected for some time: she’s launching a political party. Wait, not a political party, a political “platform”. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Oscar Pistorius and the State of the Nation
In a recent conversation with a cartoonist friend, he suggested that his daily work had changed from providing insights into our lived reality through over-the-top images, to toning down our over-the-top reality for a baffled and battered citizenry, through light relief. Artists, cartoonists and writers often use metaphors to provide insights into the state of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Reeva, Oscar and the media lens
It was on my daily two-hour commute to work, tweeting my regular #TaxiTales, that I came to learn of Reeva Steenkamp’s killing on Thursday morning. Still shell-shocked from the gruesome rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen just the week before, and only just starting to unpack the prevailing culture of rape and other forms […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
A correct police response to domestic violence could save lives
Every eight hours in South Africa, a woman is murdered by her intimate partner. Three a day. At least. The Preamble of the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) states that victims of domestic violence are among the most vulnerable members of society. The DVA describes a variety of behaviours that can be classified as domestic violence […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Oscar and Chekhov’s Gun
There is a rule in screenwriting that if you introduce a gun into a scene, at some point you must use it. The rule applies to real life too. That’s how Reeva Steenkamp lost her life. A gun appeared in her story, and she got shot dead. Regardless of the circumstances, when guns are near […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why I am glad Reeva is on TV
I am not in the target market for the Tropika Island of Treasure, the reality show in which one of the celebrity guests is Reeva Steenkamp. Though I have an inexplicable weakness for pineapple flavoured dairy fruit juice blend, I am not one of the people who will have fitted into the marketing brief, which […]