Michael Francis

I recently visited Botswana where I was driving a friend’s 4×4 for our annual trans-Kalahari trip. On the return through the Lobatse border post I was asked for a bribe, albeit indirectly. I have done this trip about five times now with some deviation and in reverse direction. The route runs from Durban to Kimberley […]

I spent election day driving around KwaZulu-Natal visiting polling stations both in Durban and Zululand. I started early and headed north to Ulundi and then onwards to Nongoma before making my way back to Durban stopping at various polling stations along the way. Election day was rather slow and sleepy despite the media hype about […]

Loaded Minds is a concept expressed by a band, Spirit of the West, about the increasing violent responses and calls for violence that has ingrained violence as a viable response. It is the same thinking that claims that it is acceptable that the cost of peace is war. The crime and especially the violence that […]

I’m writing as a Canadian who has made South Africa my home on and off for the past 8 years. I’ve been made to feel welcome by most, but there have been some xenophobic remarks directed at me. They usually come from middle-class South Africans who don’t wish to hear any critique of their country […]

I was watching the debates on the upcoming election in the Western Cape recently. A large piece of the debate referred to what was deemed a “housing crisis”. I hear similar things being said around Durban and indeed all over South Africa. I make the claim there is no housing crisis in South Africa. The […]

I have been away from South Africa in the belly of the beast so to speak. I have spent five weeks in the US and must admit I was relieved to go, not because I never enjoyed myself or that I missed my dog, I hated the media. I would yell curses at the TV […]

The headline reads “End of the giant farms”. The subtitle should be: food prices hurt poor the most. I spend quite a bit of time in rural communities and know very well the struggles and strife faced by poor rural people. Land shortage is a real issue in some places, but I find what is […]