From the time the drawings of the Prophet Muhammad set the world alight, it’s been clear that cartooning — the right to draw — will be at the epicentre of media freedom debates. South Africa’s been a tinder-box too since ANC president Jacob Zuma sued Zapiro for defamation for attaching a shower to the head […]
Ferial Haffajee
Ferial Haffajee is the editor of City Press and a former editor of the Mail & Guardian
Posted inNews/Politics
History will not absolve us
Post-Polokwane, our country has lost its standing. I realised this as ANC president Jacob Zuma fell backwards on his arse during his fourth wedding celebrations. He laughed good-naturedly, as he does, as his loincloth rose to reveal a set of legs toned by his dance routines. This view is reinforced by the corruption charges against […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mine’s bigger than yours
The ego of a politician, I’ve decided, rests less on the size of the manaconda (as my colleague Niren Tolsi so eloquently describes the penis) than on the size of the convoy. For a full week now, we’ve been bullied off roads by minor pols with big convoys. You should’ve seen the dickheads on the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Networking
I am bourgeois. There it is. Admitted. Along with my other big B friends and acquaintances, I trekked to the Network Lounge for “proper” coffee. “Proper” coffee being ground coffee, not the Ricoffy on sale at the student canteen next to the media centre here at the Limpopo University. At least I didn’t mutter “civilisation” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A day of terror
Sunday will go down as the day on which President Thabo Mbeki lost the leadership of the ANC, but it’s party chairperson Terror Lekota who goes home with the biggest headache. What a day! It’s never been this good (for journalists) and so bad (for the ANC). The day ended as it began: with a […]
Posted inMedia
Of ivory towers and diseased black men
Here is why people are so afraid to “debate” Ronald Suresh Roberts. After last week’s post in which I objected to Ronald’s name-calling, I called him and explained why he’d really pissed me off. I know him and believe that he has a great mind that should be applied to weightier matters than personal attack. […]
Posted inMedia
How dare he?
Ronald Suresh Roberts tests my commitment to freedom of expression. When I read his blog calling Mondli Makhanya a chicken, I wanted it taken down off Thought Leader. But to do that would be to abuse the space as he has abused it. Abused it by parading attack as debate; innuendo as critical thought. Bile […]