Thabo Mbeki must go. The president who has failed to see any crisis with the world’s highest rates of Aids, worst crime statistics, exploding power stations, the stolen election of a neighbouring country and scenes of unmitigated barbarism against foreigners is destroying our nation. African National Congress treasurer general Matthew Phosa is right, we need […]
Charlene Smith
Charlene Smith is a multi-award-winning journalist, author and media consultant. She has had 14 books published, one of which was shortlisted for an Alan Paton award.
Television documentaries for which she has worked have also won awards.
She has worked as a broadcast journalist and radio-station manager. Smith's areas of expertise are politics, economics, women's and children's issues and HIV. She lives and works in Cambridge, USA.
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
No time left for anger
It’s often those who are dying that appreciate life most. They get news of a terminal illness and suddenly everything comes into focus, that niggling issue is really not important, that unfulfilled dream becomes a regret, it’s easier to forgive because there is simply no time left for anger. No time left for anger — […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
What makes a person great?
Robert Mugabe won’t leave office. Thabo Mbeki made a bid for a third term and will leave a country ravaged by inflation, high unemployment, ineptness at high levels in government and business, and erratic electricity supplies. The Economist last week said, in the angriest editorial I can ever recall from that journal: “Can Thabo Mbeki, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Racist South Africans retreat to apart-hate
South Africans are racist as naturally as roses bloom. A struggle in which thousands were murdered, tortured, detained and persecuted to ensure a non-racial, non-sexist country appears meaningless to those who now preach the politics of exclusion, whether in right-wing journalist fora, universities or the workplace. More disturbing is seeing young people, the children of […]
Posted inLifestyle
The things love has taught me
A day in which love is expressed is a day well-lived. Last Valentine’s Day, I sent these words by WH Auden to my Irish lover: “I’ll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.” For those of you that missed […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Satirists in desperate bid to keep Republicans in power
The US Republican Party isn’t just being kept in power by the military industrial complex, it’s being kept in power by satirists — what would they do without Bush, Huckabee or McCain? Last week Mitt Romney withdrew from the Republican race to replace George Bush as US President. Romney, who has a way of tightening […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Hope as a weapon: Obama, Eskom and Zuma
Hope exists only because of despair. Panic thrives among the ignorant. Discrimination lives in those who fear their own inadequacy. Let’s have a look at what that means for the United States this week as it heads toward Super Duper Tuesday on February 5 and the strongest indicators yet of who its next president might […]
Posted inNews/Politics
‘We never thought it could happen here’
“We never thought it could happen here” is the most common phrase you hear in Kenya today. In three decades of covering conflict in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Korea, Chile, Argentina, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique, the two weeks I have just spent in Kenya saw the worst violence I’ve ever experienced among many of the nicest […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Tribalism is the word that must now be spoken — to avoid its perils
Tribalism is the word that must now be spoken. It is being used across Africa to gain political power, to pillage wealth, and it ultimately results in genocide. The politically correct resist use of the word — though they are least likely to rush to pick up the bodies and heal the wounded when conflict […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Song for Ashley — Barack Obama shows us how it’s done
If Barack Obama can live up to the promise of this speech, then the United States has a great new president in the wings or, like Adlai Stevenson, a great potential leader that voters lack the wisdom to elevate. These words speak of the singular importance of working together. What divides us is about serving […]
Posted inLifestyle
Selfish parents breed violent young
Are young people with increasingly violent, self-destructive behaviour out of control — or is this the most self-centred, negligent generation of parents yet? Globally, young people in newly affluent societies are playing up — they stagger drunk from parties, consume an array of drugs, have sex at increasingly young ages and are disturbingly violent. Last […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Kenya’s woes have warnings for South Africa
Kenyans have been frightened by the extent and scale of post-election violence and displacement, but what has shocked them most is how fast the economy has faltered. Tourists exited in droves when violence broke out after Kibaki assumed power. On an Airbus to Nairobi from Johannesburg that can hold 300, there were 30 passengers; all […]