During the past few weeks I seem to have spawned a fan club of several charming individuals who have left comments informing me that because I am white I have no right to tackle issues such as the Zimbabwean crisis. It’s interesting because these persons don’t demand that I censor myself on the basis of […]
Alexander Matthews
Alexander Matthews is the editor of AERODROME, an online magazine about words and people featuring interviews, original poetry, book reviews and extracts. He is also a freelance writer, covering travel, culture, life and design. The contributing editor for Business Day WANTED, his journalism has also appeared in House and Leisure, MONOCLE, African Decisions and elsewhere.
Contact Alexander here: alexgmatthews(at)gmail.com
Posted inNews/Politics
We must prevent a Zimbabwean genocide
Sokwanele [“Enough is Enough”], a Zimbabwean human rights NGO, has a flickr photo album that illustrates, rather graphically, the means that Zanu-PF and its fascist affiliates are using to cling to power. Images copyright Sokwanele The photos in this album are not of extras in Hollywood’s latest “Afritragedy”. Neither are they the spurious efforts of […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Our president has blood on his hands
South Africa’s continued inaction on Zimbabwe is a disgrace. Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” is merely a euphemism for his cowardly indifference. He continues to turn a blind eye while the Mugabe regime systematically rages war on its people, avenging them for daring to exercise their democratic will at the ballot box. “No crisis.” Yes, that is […]
Posted inNews/Politics
All aboard Shabangu’s Bang Bang Club
After the startling success of her president’s Native Club (the koeksisters at their Tuynhuys imbizos were reputed to have been a particular hit), a deputy minister has made a desperate escape from obscurity with the launch of the Bang Bang Club. At the launch last night, Susan Shabangu’s corpulent beam — previously only seen framed […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Was Dave’s drivel really racist?
After reading Xolela Mangcu’s frothy condemnation of what will ultimately be David Bullard’s last Sunday Times column, I braced myself for the worst and prepared to be thoroughly indignant when I got round to reading it. But when I eventually did get to the so-called controversial and allegedly racist piece, I was puzzled. He got […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Skewed coverage is an injustice to SA’s victims of intolerance
In a recent edition of the Cape’s Weekend Argus, columnist William Saunderson-Meyer pertinently points out the contrast between the overwhelming — and appropriately outraged — media response to the University of the Free State racist video debacle with the story of student in Limpopo who was killed for refusing to sing a “struggle” song on […]