Posted inEqualityGender violenceGeneralHealthLifestyle

Fantasies of binaries: Why are we so uncomfortable with difference?

By Pierre Brouard By Sunday May 17 I would have participated in a panel discussion on LGBTI migrants and asylum seekers at an Idahot event organised by the Alliance Francaise in Sunnyside, Pretoria. Idahot is the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, and is intended to celebrate sexual and gender diversity. This celebratory spin […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Let the youth take over the ANC

The duty of the young is to improve upon the past which is, largely, a world created or messed up by their parents. What we are witnessing now is that moment when the great grandchildren of Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko and others must make a choice in terms of […]

Posted inEqualityNews/Politics

Born frees do not exist

Post-apartheid South Africa has many myths in different spheres of public life. The sphere of the battle of ideas has its fair share of such mythology. Since 1994, concepts such as South African exceptionalism, rainbow nation, lost generation, post-colony, white genocide, white fears and recently, born frees and many others have emerged across the political […]

Posted inGeneral

SA’s deeply flawed young middle class

Almost 20 years after South Africa’s miraculous democratic transformation, we, the young “middle-class”, find ourselves to be the emerging leaders of this nation, and in a somewhat of a rut. Black, white, coloured, Indian it doesn’t matter. Race isn’t the discriminating factor as it was all those years ago. We have either grown up with […]

Posted inEqualityHealth

Teenage pregnancy a crime?

Ever heard of the “30cm rule”? This unwritten rule is popular in many co-ed high schools and it stipulates that a boy and a girl should not be closer than 30cm of each other. That means no hugging, kissing and gevoefeling while under the watchful eye of teachers. The students I teach have also been […]

Posted inEqualityGeneralLifestyle

When I was a prison guard

Having identified 36 jobs for which I’ve actually been paid in my 60-year lifespan, I’m sharing the ludicrous, the lucrative, the lugubrious and the lessons learnt. In no specific order, here’s Chapter Two … I never fancied being a Prison Guard. But it was one of those unanticipated side-jobs you had to do as a […]