Many ugly and unfair things were done to blacks under apartheid. The miracle that some people do not believe happened in 1994 is that black people, generally, forgave whites for their sins. They chose to let bygones be bygones, release the hurt and trust that the gesture would significantly contribute to nation building and reconciliation. […]
Sandile Memela
Sandile Memela is a journalist, writer, cultural critic, columnist and civil servant. He lives in Midrand.
Posted inEquality, General
Fort Hare is not what it is used be
The celebration of University of Fort Hare’s 100th anniversary has, indeed, revealed historical revisionism to portray the university as a hot bed of revolutionaries. This is a predictable political revision as the desire is to create the profession that former students were trained and destined for revolutionary roles in society. But one ZK Matthews does […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle
We are not born inferior to anyone
Far too many suffer from self-imposed inferiority complex. This is because they pay too much attention to what others have, especially the advantaged. They feel inadequate because they are looking at what others have: money, houses, furniture, clothes, cars, food and positions. As they say in the in the townships, “Bhek’indaba zakho wna!” – just […]
Posted inEquality, General, Media, News/Politics
Whites only Oscars and black sour grapes
The recent announcement of an exclusive all-white list of actors who are the finalists for this year’s Oscars has provoked a lot of negative black reaction. Big names in the movie industry like Spike Lee, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, among others, have criticised and condemned the list of nominees. Many other black people […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Mbeki must leave the past in the past
It would seem one of the greatest leaders to emerge from the liberation struggle, Thabo Mbeki, can neither leave the past behind nor ignore his detractors. The former president wants everyone to like him. Much as he succeeded Nelson Mandela in 1999, Mbeki told the country and world that his shoes were too big and […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Lifestyle
Not all women want men to be fathers
Not all men are fathers. Some men will always be just males. Until you have been a “childless father” or watch the Mzansi Magic television series Utatakho you will never know what that means. You will never know the pain, the emptiness that echoes in the heart of a man who is deprived an opportunity […]
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Those who control the mind control society
Those who write what people read control the public mind. Those who control the public mind control the present and future. If you want to control society, you must control information and knowledge production. All that the average man knows, especially in the historically disadvantaged communities, is what he or she reads in the media. […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Access to white privilege equals freedom?
Since the mid-1980s, many black parents have sent their children to “white schools”. Much as they may have been criticised, they have not been bothered. In the first years of their schooling, these children would, unavoidably, be one of five children, at most, in a class. Some parents worried that this would make them lose […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
No Christmas box for my fellow countrymen
I was out doing my irregular early morning jog when I was stopped by a lean and hungry-looking man. My street-wise eyes screened him up and down as he walked in my opposite direction. The distance between us closed and in no time we were face to face. What I picked up was the shabby […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mandela no sell-out
Less than a year after his death, it would seem that international icon and the first president of a democratic South Africa, Nelson Mandela, is neither a saint nor a much-loved hero. There are an increasing number of voices and social-media posts, especially, that assert he was not a genuine hero and condemn him as […]
Posted inLifestyle
When a boy becomes a man
I am proud to have met and known a youth who has consciously chosen to become a man, a son who, in his own right, has become a father and a head of a family. I feel that becoming a man, a father, a husband and a head of the family at the age of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
My captain, murdered for a cellphone…
It was long before dawn. I moved carefully so as not to disturb the woman who sleeps next to my heart every night I am home. But she awakened suddenly and saw that I was dressing up. “What is it,” she asked. “You’re not having a heart attack, are you?” I have an unusually high […]