2008

“Kill the Shangaan! Kill the Shangaan!” the mobs in Ramaphosa informal settlement near Reiger Park chanted as they marched through the streets in search of more victims. Reading it sent a disconcerting prickling sensation down my spine. I searched through the first chapter of my first book on South African insults and found this passage: […]

Why is it that at the first sign of things getting hairy, the calls go out to send in the army? Does anyone actually think about the signal they’re sending to our fellow South Africans by deploying troops against these communities? The current xenophobia problem in South Africa arises, primarily, out of the government’s failure […]

There is a strange, paradoxical blending of disillusionment and hope in the minds of millions of Zimbabweans. Like that mediocrity strutting about in the White House, Mugabe is hell bent in stealing an election he never won. Let there be no doubt, Tsvangirai has no exploitation-free route once he assumes that tragic country’s reigns; masculated […]

The deep rumbles of discontent have, sadly, exploded into an orgy of violence, death and destruction that threatens the center that holds South African society together. It is, of course, a very complex issue but it can be simplified, if you like. One of the fundamental reasons for this explosion of anti–African xenophobia is man’s […]

This is us. No miracle nation. No rainbow nation. Just us: violent; intolerant of difference — hitting where it hurts. Let’s not try to sweet-talk ourselves. This is who we are. Let’s look ourselves in the eye. We are lurching from crisis to crisis at every level of our society, the latest being the extremes […]