“The erosion of institutions” has become something of a buzzword. Add to this the “paralysis in crucial institutions”, and “institutional fabric being unwound”, and you’d be forgiven for thinking you were in Mobutu’s Zaire. They’re usually adjectives attributed to the local commentariat: which interpret any event as a sign of the country’s imminent implosion/race war […]
Khadija Magardie
Media Strategist and Communications Consultant. Former journalist gone to The Dark Side
@dijamagardie
Posted inNews/Politics
The convenient democrats
To hear former Cabinet ministers from the salad days of the Thabo Mbeki presidency speaking of the “erosion of democracy” is as rich as a “Save the Angus Cow” campaign run by Ronald McDonald. It’s definitely legacy hour. How else could one explain the sheer size of ego that drives Mbeki-era mandarins (or should we […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Arab first lady’s burden
The woman, yet again, has become a political football in Middle-Eastern politics. One wishes the area experts would make up their minds: just yesterday we were being told the Muslim wife was a voiceless, pitiable creature walking five steps behind her husband … Now she’s an assistant secretary of state — directing and manipulating her […]
Posted inNews/Politics
How the gogos got their groove back
It’s exciting enough to have me scrambling for the number of my old tailor in Oriental Plaza. Granted, those gigantic bib collars are a bit seventies, and the skirts are a bit mumsy. The hint of shoulder pad also needs to go. And that hat will never fit on my ‘fro. But the old green […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Calling out a koek
One supposes it’s nice to know we aren’t the only ones who dissolve into giggles whenever anyone mentions koek. Only this time, it really is a koek: red velvet sponge by the look of it. Meant to represent and symbolise … well, daai ander koek. Confectionary’s (nudge nudge, wink wink) still big news (or, as […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Airbrushing the boesman
Just what does a coloured have to do these days — short of knocking out the rest of his teeth or picking up the banjo — to get noticed in South African national debates? One really wishes the government would make up its mind. First they were saying there’s historically been an ‘over-concentration’ of bruin-ous […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
There’s a killer in my family
He’s doing 25 years. Then there’s another petty thief cousin who’s been “inside” for pilfering a bottle of Panache from Clicks — for his girlfriend, when he was down and out a few years ago. There’s also my mother’s cousin’s son, the career criminal and regular beater up of women — who spends his time […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The brigade for boiling and burning blacks
Just north of here, the tree of liberty is being liberally watered — not with the blood of patriots, but with the blood of blacks. And also unlike Jefferson’s dictum, it isn’t just occasionally, but has been going on for months. The vigilantes have even given themselves a name “The Brigade for Purging Slaves and […]
Posted inGeneral
The bogus war in defence of the Muslim punani
The “charge” seems almost cartoonish. A wild-haired, loony old eccentric with a penchant for buxom female bodyguards — dishing out handfuls of blue pills to his troops with their morning orange juice. Their task: to pillage, plunder and rape. The evidence? Well, none so far. That’s if one doesn’t count the three little bottles of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Bin Ladens of Boksburg
There’s a trim, two-storey house at the end of a cul-de-sac on the East Rand. The facade is ordinary: railway house meets Boere-baroque. If you could see it, that is. The property is surrounded by a 10-metre high wall and laced with razor wire. Behind the walls, in the out-building, the world’s most wanted man […]
Posted inGeneral
Diff’rent strokes for Muslim folks?
The Justice Department, when it comes to matters of the Bearded Folk, has the patience of Job. This, as the deadline for comments on the Muslim Marriages Bill has been extended — again. Not that this need to “allow for maximum participation” isn’t an admirable gesture. But the first draft was published 10 years ago. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Stovepipe pants and phutu plaits
Mr G was jug-eared and wore towelling socks with Barker moccasins. His moustache was more Yosemite Sam than Magnum PI. On good days, he wore a canary-yellow tracksuit in keeping with his role as the phys-ed instructor. But normally it was the stovepipe pants and white shirt combo. Oh, and the bad tie. But these […]