Apart from the lamentable tendency to misspell “Gandhi” as “Ghandi”, failing to distinguish between the Treason Trial and the Rivonia Trial would seem to be the most common error even reasonably educated people make when it comes to South African history. Usually, it is the second trial, where Nelson Mandela et al were famously put […]
David Saks
David Saks has worked for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) since April 1997, and is currently its associate director. Over the years, he has written extensively on aspects of South African history, Judaism and the Middle East for local and international newspapers and journals.
David has an MA in history from Rhodes University. Prior to joining the SAJBD, he was curator -- history at MuseumAfrica in Johannesburg. He is editor of the journal Jewish Affairs, appears regularly on local radio discussing Jewish and Middle East subjects and is a contributor to various Jewish publications.
Posted inLifestyle
The strange phenomenon of eminent lady novelists
When it comes to the writing of novels, women have from the outset been able to go toe to toe with their male counterparts, producing from their ranks genuine literary heavyweights whose work is deservedly held in the highest regard. At least, this is true of those writing in English — my own knowledge does […]
Posted inGeneral
Revisiting the Aryan racial superiority cult
Towards the end of the 19th century, a belief in the innate superiority of the Nordic, or “Aryan”, races — specifically of the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon variety, but by implication including others — started to become fashionable. This way of thinking would reach its gruesome culmination in the catastrophe of Nazism, with its cult of […]
Posted inLifestyle
So this is menopause (the male variety)
Age is often the determining factor when judging certain modes of behaviour. Take drunkenness, for example. A twenty-year-old who drinks too much and ends up spewing his lunch all over the road is quite funny (“Youth must have its fling” etc). A thirty-year-old who does it is reprehensible (“Time to grow up, don’t you think!?”). […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Which is SA’s oldest political party?
It’s a no-brainer, surely? The ANC was founded as long ago as 1912, making it today by some way the country’s oldest extant political party. The old National Party could at least claim to be close to that status, having set out as a breakaway from the ruling South African Party in 1913, but even […]
Posted inGeneral
Forgotten voices from another ‘stop the war’ campaign
So deep seated was the unpopularity of the last war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that it was strongly in evidence even within the US and UK, the two main countries that waged it. Interesting, one finds parallels between this contemporary anti-war sentiment and what took place in South Africa a century previously when the British […]
Posted inGeneral
The bare breast debate: Somewhere between the full-body burka and the full monty
A couple of weeks ago, the Mail & Guardian featured a “for” and “against” exchange on the subject of women going bare-breasted on public beaches. It virtually goes without saying that both viewpoints were advanced by women. What possible right, after all, would a man have to express an opinion in an area that is […]
Posted inLifestyle
Tracking down the ancestors — fun but a little pointless
WS Gilbert pokes fun at ancestral one-upmanship in The Mikado, with the absurd Pooh Bah boasting how he could trace his ancestry “back to a protoplasmal, primordial atomic globule”. How ultimately meaningless it is to brag about one’s ancestors becomes even more apparent, moreover, when one realises that, according to modern-day research, everyone is practically […]
Posted inGeneral
Religion, the ultimate taboo subject?
Thinking people generally resent being presented with take-it-or-leave-it dogmatic certainties, especially when it comes to the “Ultimate Questions” of humanity’s origins and purpose. That being the case, why did I choose to present a pro-religion argument in my last post in so unqualified and in-your-face manner? It was not, contrary to certain rather spiteful suggestions […]
Posted inGeneral
Religious belief is more logical than atheism
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. These words were put by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into the mouth of his most-celebrated creation, Sherlock Holmes, and for me they provide a useful way of approaching the deepest mystery of all — is our universe and all that is […]
Posted inLifestyle
Feminism gone crazy
Sometimes, reality satirises itself. I would like to share the following advertisement for Bronco toilet paper (“It’s a healthy sign when there’s a Bronco in the house”) that appeared in the Women’s Weekly issue of September 12 1959: “To the men in your life … some things are very important. Men liked being looked after […]
Posted inGeneral
Why are the Brits paying to maintain our war graves?
The good news regarding my recent visit to the Anglo-Boer War battlefields around Ladysmith is that the numerous military cemeteries scattered around there are in remarkably good condition. The bad news is that the UK, through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, is to a very large extent paying for it. “So let them pay”, I […]