The last decade has seen a remarkable surge in US economic interest in the continent of Africa. Policymakers who once considered Africa the languid backwater of global economics are now rushing in to stake a claim in the continent’s enormous resource endowment. Most of this effort operates with a rhetoric focused on “partnership” and “development”, […]
2011
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Why I dig U2 and always will
So completely overwhelmed was I when I received an electronic invite from Heineken for U2’s 360° concert that I promptly declined it. Twice. One sheepishly penitent, slightly humorous email to a kindly executive producer and my RSVP was reversed as the tickets were being dispatched. The puerile excitement was just that. Puerile. To the point […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Maybe individuals can’t change the world
In the blogs I write I’m always careful to include what individuals can do about climate change and environmental issues. It’s about presenting a complex and daunting issue, but then discussing ways we each do something about those problems. Recycle, ride your bike rather than drive, don’t over consume, switch to energy savers, lobby government, […]
Posted inGeneral
‘Shoot the boer’: Our own Rwanda?
Professor Pierre de Vos, undoubtedly one of South Africa’s leading academics on constitutional law, says that it would be constitutionally impermissible to ban a song such as the “shoot the boer” one outright on the basis that it constitutes hate speech. The professor looks at Sections 10 and 12 of the Equality and Prevention of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Ronald Reagan at 100: The legacy
Ronald Reagan turned 100 this month, and his legacy continues to shape American politics from the social democrat White House to that woman from Alaska — especially in the realm of statecraft. Reagan, like President Barack Obama in 2008, was elected on a “transformational ticket” and, indeed, the former — politics apart — is said […]
Posted inLifestyle
Bandits in them hills
Over the past five months, I have pedalled my bike up and down the bandit-besieged tracks of Table Mountain on about 70 occasions, and only twice have I seen park officials on patrol. The first slapped me with a half-grand fine; the second snored in a bush while his dog tried to chew my face […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What is ideology?
The recent press coverage of my colleague, professor Pierre de Vos’s critique of a speech by advocate Jeremy Gauntlett, made me think about the question of ideology again. In his critique, De Vos writes: “For me what would be interesting and worthwhile would be to have a conversation (or even a heated argument) about the […]
Posted inGeneral
I’m a slave, but hey, at least I’ve got a job
By Cobus Fourie I am your average corporate weasel. There, I said it. I confess. I am neither a rabid libertarian nor an unthinking progressive. Cosatu will not burn me at the stake along with my hypothetical Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand collections and neither will I get honorary life-membership by extolling the virtues of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
‘Shoot the boer’ should be banned
Bono, the frontman for Irish group U2, couldn’t help himself it seems and decided to enter the debate about the struggle song “shoot the boer” which had its moment during apartheid but now has no place in South Africa no matter where or when it is sung. In terms of the Afrikaner community the persistence […]
Posted inGeneral
The giant leap from ‘I am’ to iPad
Can Twitter save our planet? Will Facebook free mankind from the twilight of collective stupidity, religious fanaticism and crazed dictatorships? Is WikiLeaks the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy contained in Johan 8:32? In short: is the internet the next step in the evolution of human consciousness? This isn’t just idle speculation. Many people are starting […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
A day in the life of Bono
It’s Sunday morning. You touch down in a new country to promote an album you made back in ’09. Your shiny Learjet comes to a halt on Lanseria’s tarmac. You stick your hand out the window and sense it’s going to be a scorcher. You fling open the cupboard and pick out the thinnest black […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
The real state of the nation 2011
Last week President Zuma gave his 2011 State of the Nation address to much applause and sometimes laughter as well. If I had been playing a drinking game, these would have been the rules: When the President mentions specific deliverables have one shot. When the President mentions the rights of victims of crime have one […]