Getting lost in Pretoria to collect your new teammate is not a good sign when you’re about to spend the weekend navigating your way through the countryside. Getting lost en route to the meeting point is even less encouraging. Navigation is not my thing, but Toby must have been seriously concerned when I missed the […]
2008
Posted inNews/Politics
Amakwerekwere memories: ‘The police — they just laugh at us’
The two Congolese men that arrive on the church’s doorstep look shaken and defeated. They explain that their house in Samora Machel has been ransacked and burnt down; there is nowhere for them to go. Could they spend the night here, at the Claremont Methodist church? Unfortunately the church is full so, after a hot […]
Posted inLifestyle
A dirge for our decaying suburbs
The experience of being shoved roughly against a stationary truck and relieved at knife-point of my wallet and watch should have marked the end of my long-standing affection for Johannesburg’s inner-city streets. It did not, even though I have never forgiven those two bastards and occasionally still fantasise about their receiving a painful come-uppance. Maybe […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
With everyone running around dropping off letters to each other — President Mbeki to President Bush, Morgan Tsvangirai to Mbeki and the chairman of Benoni Brothels Inc to the government (Mrs Traps) — I slipped out without paying, apparently — I figured: Why not send one to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela? As the recipient of the most […]
Posted inGeneral
SA Rugby: Administration of subterfuge and oppression
Almost three years ago to the day, on June 8 2005, SA Rugby’s presidents’ council put in motion a unanimous council resolution — a transformation charter of sorts that was a groundbreaking plan to fast-track transformation and representativeness in rugby in South Africa. It has been declared that the game of rugby is in peril […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SA cannot afford a failing presidency at this time
Pat Buchanan correctly observed that “when loyalists defect and seek to profit from that defection, it is usually a sign of a failing presidency”. While I have to play fair and admit that I generally can’t stomach Buchanan’s views, his diagnosis is a fair measure and appropriate description of the position that Gordon Brown, the […]
Posted inGeneral
Irony that is music to my ears
Submitted by Dylan Edwards The news that Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday will be celebrated with a concert in Hyde Park would have been exciting news for many South Africans. Unfortunately, the Hyde Park in question is not the northern Johannesburg suburb; in fact, it’s in London. And the excited South Africans are not the 40-odd-million […]
Posted inNews/Politics
An aphasic proposition
Submitted by Patrick Madden “One may lie with the mouth, but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.” — Nietzsche It seems the order of the day to accept that politicians, like lawyers, lie or obscure the truth as a matter of course. We hardly decry this any more. The sound of the […]
Posted inGeneral
The people are revolting
Submitted by Trevor Watkins Some of us achieve our destiny only in death. The image of the burning man that has flashed around the world this month will haunt our beloved nation for years to come. Such images have changed the course of history, and may yet change ours. Most South Africans are bowed down […]
Posted inGeneral
‘Let them eat cake’
Submitted by James Tobias Put aside your political agendas and concern yourselves purely on a humanitarian level for a moment. Driving my kids to college on Monday morning, I heard that our local town hall had been transformed into a place of safety for immigrants who were fleeing from an inexplicable onslaught on their possessions, […]
Posted inGeneral
Renaissance dreams and discontent
Submitted by Chris Waldburger This month, South Africa ached for a leader. South Africa’s shoulder rubbed raw against the wheel of destiny; there was nobody to stand as a midwife for her so that she could bear the hopes and dreams of a continent. She shook with the fever of fear, hatred and criminal opportunism […]
Posted inGeneral
Cape Town — city of fibre
On Wednesday this week, the City of Cape Town gave the final approval to launch its groundbreaking municipal Broadband Infrastructure Project. Over the next two years, the City of Cape Town will invest close to R300-million in creating a state-of-the-art, fibre-optic network that will not only reduce the city’s telecommunications costs over time, but also […]