Submitted by Anthea Garman. In what is becoming an interesting Winter School tradition, the Legal Resources Centre convened another panel to talk about the realisation of our constitutional rights. This year it was to discuss our progress on the right to education. The centre invited Mary Metcalfe, head of the Wits School of Education, the […]
2008
Posted inNews/Politics
What are Africa and South Africa’s most embarrassing moments?
While we await the African Union’s response to the Zimbabwean election, I thought we’d find out what South Africans believe to be our most embarrassing moment as a nation and a continent. For me, Robert Mugabe thanking President Mbeki for his role in this fiasco is by far and away our most cringeworthy moment. All […]
Posted inGeneral
Wait a minute, why don’t we hold a pop concert?
After Mandela’s guided tour to the mike was concluded by Graca I found it increasingly tough to fight off deep embarrassment at the idolatry placed on the man, and at the happy, feel-good faces of a crowd of suburbanites totally immersed in the idea of their own charity.
Posted inGeneral
Dogma or victory? The Bok dilemma
Einstein once said the definition of lunacy is to repeat the same actions while expecting the results to change. This came to mind as I was reading opinion pieces in print media and online about how Peter de Villiers should go for outright brawn against the Kiwis in the Tri-Nations Tests, something about bullying them […]
Posted inGeneral
The Problem with Rugby today: The Stadium, or the Box?
Are we so spoiled by our SuperSport television producers creating, such a fantastic and scintillating rugby inventory and TV package, each week, from 18 cameras on site, for us at home, or in a club, or local watering hole, that we start to avoid watching live games at the stadium? Of course the price of […]
Posted inGeneral
Citizen media: Global, independent and rising
I was in the hotel lobby waiting for my room to be ready and madly typing on my computer when a wide-eyed woman peeped around the corner, looked expectantly at me and smiled. I smiled back, and the penny dropped when I overheard her talking about her excitement for the Global Voices Summit that I […]
Posted inLifestyle
A stroke of genius
In November last year I had a mild stroke. You may think of this as a stroke of bad luck, but for me it has been the most incredible experience — both in the minute space of time that it happened, and for what it has meant to me afterwards. We’ve all heard the old […]
Posted inGeneral
Stand up and be a citizen
Submitted by Anthea Garman As a result of chairing 10 Winter School talks (at this point) I’ve started to feel a growing a sense of urgency about being a South African, a citizen and a member of a civil society in need of revival. Just to give you a sense of what’s being said at […]
Posted inGeneral
The politics of being Muslim
Submitted by Julie Posetti “Our Muslims are well behaved and respected … they aren’t like yours.” This was the patronising response I received from one South African when I outlined my research into media coverage of Muslim women in Australia. And, it’s a theme that’s been echoed in conversations with more informed South Africans, with […]
Posted inSport
Who will 2010’s losers be?
Submitted by Thandanani Mhlanga OK, so there we were at Game, every race known to the southern hemisphere. A rare moment indeed — this is Nelspruit, after all, a place where the winds of change hadn’t fully reached yet at the time. But there we were, washing detergent forgotten, glued to the different screens at […]
Posted inGeneral
Talking: Maybe not an art, but a necessity
Submitted by Anthea Garman The Winter School — a place where people perform by talking — is an old, established part of the National Arts Festival. But what is its role and value in a festival that celebrates the arts in all their glory and diversity? Is talk an art? That’s debatable, but what isn’t […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Biggest insult to Africa yet: Is Mugabe the real problem in Zim?
“Mugabe is not unpopular in Zimbabwe today because his government has been autocratic and brutal. He is not unpopular because the minority (but substantial) Matabele tribe have been persecuted, killed and dispossessed by a governing party whose power base is among the Mashona majority. He is not unpopular because he and his wife are greedy […]