A wave of popular interest and sympathetic media coverage helped the “radical” Ukrainian feminist movement Femen, known for their topless “attacks” on symbols of the “patriarchy” (religion, “dictators” and pornography) to expand rapidly into Western Europe, the Americas and several Islamic countries. Recently Femen announced triumphantly that “Femen” has topped “feminism” in the Google rankings. […]
Conrad Steenkamp
Conrad Steenkamp is a social anthropologist and writer.
In 1976 he and some friends founded a youth group optimistically dubbed "South African Youth and Future 2000". It brought together young people from different backgrounds for discussion and exchanging views, an unusual experience at the time. He left South Africa in 1985 to avoid deployment in the townships during military camps.
For the next seven years he lived in Munich, talking politics, selling bratwurst in an underground station, working as an English teacher, painting houses, and writing a script for New Constantine Film. He got a bursary from the Heinrich-Boell Foundation of the Green Party, which enabled him to continue studying in Germany and later in Switzerland.
In 1994 he returned to South Africa, overqualified and with great ideas - and just in time for affirmative action. For the next two decades he worked as a consultant in land reform, community-based natural resource management, protected area and World Heritage Site management, cultural and heritage tourism, and marketing. This included a six year stint as a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, in the course of which he set up and managed an international research network focusing on protected area management and transboundary protected areas in southern Africa.
He recently worked in Afghanistan, the Netherlands and now the UK. His first novel, Thomas en die gat in die Heelal (Thomas and the hole in the universe) was awarded the Ernst van Heerden Prize for Creative Writing. He is hard at work on a set of novels.
“Ons is ‘n bastervolk met ‘n bastertaal”.
Breyten Breytenbach, 1973.
(We are a bastard nation with a bastard language)
http://conradsteenkamp.wordpress.com/
Posted inGeneral
Happy endings in Afghanistan
“All that has to happen is for the Taliban to lob a couple of hand grenades over the walls of one of the guesthouses,” the security consultant told me. He traced an imaginary trajectory over the roof of the guesthouse into the courtyard with his can of beer. “Then you’ll see how quickly the foreign […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Apostasy and ducks in Afghanistan
“He’s the man!” Barham, my young Afghan colleague, said one morning as we inched through the godforsaken rush-hour traffic of Kabul, rocking through the frozen potholes. Barham proceeded to tell me that the rather timid-looking young man at the office had a black belt in karate and participated in full-contact fights. “Beneath that shirt of […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
The ancestors strike back
The angry whispering of my ancestors, black, tan and white, refer. They speak about the words of some Deployed Writers in this middle-class space about race and hatred and the Great Juggernaut; the Great One, that Great Socialist of the humble bank account, that is bringing hope to the African poor and anxiety to the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Fear in Afghanistan
I had moved to a new guesthouse which looked and felt like a death trap. I had to travel even further to work and the first morning, just to complicate matters further, there was a demonstration at the University of Kabul. We took a circuitous route to the government compound: up and down narrow alleys […]
Posted inGeneral
Trust in Afghanistan
“Don’t trust anybody,” an old consultant told me one morning in the corridor of the government office, sotto voce and all that. “I mean — anybody.” He had been in the country for more than five years and I took note. Each morning I wake up to the sound of a muezzin in the background, […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Forgiveness in Afghanistan
Kabul airport was a run-down, high-security version of “Bloemfontein international”. It was dotted with military freight planes and helicopters, hidden behind concrete walls and sandbags. One’s baggage is scanned on the way into the country, the officials behind the counter eagerly confiscating the bottles of duty-free booze from Dubai. In the arrivals hall outside I […]
Posted inLifestyle
En route to Afghanistan
I was offered a job in Afghanistan. Exactly what kind of work is not at issue. It was everyday stuff, though the context was unusual. Unsurprisingly the family was not impressed and I had to decide whether the job would be too dangerous or not. From the word go I struggled to get a straight […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
‘Don’t call me a kaffir’
Recently, about five-thirty in the afternoon when everybody was stuck in traffic, 5FM exposed its listeners to the following lyrics: Kom hier, kaffir, kom hier! Hoekom het jy nie my kar skoongemaak nie…Bliksem! (white male). Baas, don’t call me a kaffir (black male). Don’t call me a kaffir (choir). Thereafter the word “kaffir” is repeated […]
Posted inGeneral
On attacking Tutu: Bile, heaps of audacity and heart burn
Not too long ago Bishop Tutu (and many others like him) were taking on the moral corruption of apartheid. Particularly Bishop Tutu became a voice of reason and hope at a time that many thought that things would never change. In response the regime deployed the overcoat brigade and propaganda machinery to discredit him (and […]
Posted inGeneral
Sentletse, be careful where you dip your pen
Words have consequences. That is why the Germans speak of ‘Schreibtischtaeter’: people who were innocent of killing any Jews, gays or Gypsies in person, but who contributed to the holocaust through their writing.
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Of Bosluisbasters and other hybrids
“My father and them trekked with a donkey cart”, Floors explained. “It was a long distance to cover in that way and some families had it very hard. Somebody’s wife went into labour and they stopped at a farm. But the farmer wanted to know nothing and chased them away.” One of the government officials […]