I have never met you. I have never talked to you but I have been within close proximity to you. Yes, on both occasions you were smoking cigars. There is nothing wrong with smoking them at all. I for one have smoked cigars many times. None of which I bought with my own money of […]
2010
Posted inGeneral
Crying for my country
I watch the welts appear through the boy’s underwear. The boy’s head is caught between a grinning, stocky policeman’s thighs which imprison the boy and keep him bent over. In front of the boy stands another policeman, face furrowed in thought as he wields the cane. The cane comes hissing down on the boy’s buttocks […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Juju’s globetrotting — for what?
By Suntosh Pillay Truth is always stranger than fiction. Malema, after all, went to Zimbabwe to learn economics from Robert Mugabe. In fact, the ANC Youth League’s “study-tour programme”, where eight of Malema’s cronies will travel to China, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba, to “learn” how these countries have fared in nationalisation projects, is absurd. […]
Posted inGeneral
We let Malema dominate the news
Julius Malema must be quite the conundrum for our journos and editors. Every week he has a print run boosting opinion or reaction to something or another. The man is walking circulation gold. He is also in danger of swamping the national consciousness with his often ill-delivered, though often on the mark, commentary on issues. […]
Posted inGeneral
AWB to SACP should back Zuma on this
President Jacob Zuma’s statement on political conduct and social cohesion issued late Saturday is exactly what this country has been waiting for. It is a reaffirmation that the president, government and ruling party share the same goals as the vast majority of South Africans in building our fledgling constitutional democracy. In clear terms it sets […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
The centre cannot hold: Our national paralysis
By Zukiswa Mqolomba We’ve seen a statesman with multiple wives and a girlfriend(s) with just under 20 kids unashamedly defend his right to engage in extramarital sex with a friend’s daughter, fathering her child. We’ve watched state “militia” in the form of SAPS officials (no, excuse me, commanders and generals) released on black communities with […]
Posted inGeneral
ANCYL, cure thyself
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth wing of the African National Congress. Unfortunately, unlike the youth wings of major parties the world over, this is not the fountain from which young blood and radical new ideas flow forth to the party but rather an ill-disciplined, militant rabble whose only sense of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Leadership based not on hope but fear
It is dispiriting that the ANC’s sudden restraint has more to do with managing international perceptions ahead of the Soccer World Cup than it has do with what happens in SA in the long term. It is also dispiriting that the death of a particularly vile racist has given a shot in the arm to a white supremacist movement that previously was on life support.
Posted inNews/Politics
Livestock keepers’ rights: Conserving endangered animal genetic resources in Kenya
By Dr Jacob Wanyama and Danielle Nierenberg Maralal, Kenya, is mostly known for its wildlife. And as we made the seven hour, bumpy trek from Nairobi — half of it on unpaved roads — we saw our fair share of water buffaloes, rhinos, impala, and giraffes. But we weren’t here to go on safari. We […]
Posted inGeneral
Notice where the ANC drew the line on Malema?
I know you’ve had enough of reading about Julius, but this one is different. Promise. Because it’s a bit of good news at last! Earlier today, the ANC issued a statement condemning the behaviour of Youth League President Julius Malema at a press conference yesterday towards BBC journalist Jonah Fisher. Malema called Fisher, amongst other […]
Posted inNews/Politics
AWB best not declare war
Reports, including our own, which claim that the AWB wants a declaration of war are not giving careful consideration to the circumstances in which the country currently finds itself. It simply is not on. For proof that it is misguided, regard need only be had to the retraction by the AWB of the statement of […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
What’s in a proper noun?
Amid all the political and other chaos in South Africa last week, we missed a potentially very important story: and that involved the planned changes to Scrabble. The producers of this popular board game announced that they intend to introduce a rule that would allow the use of proper nouns, something that has never happened […]