To understand the effectiveness of President Thabo Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy, we need to understand that, sometimes, finding African solutions to African problems is a phenomenon that cannot be put into words. In fact, most people cannot grasp or conceptualise it. Here is a made-up attempt to explain what has been happening over the past few […]
Sandile Memela
Sandile Memela is a journalist, writer, cultural critic, columnist and civil servant. He lives in Midrand.
Posted inGeneral
Touched by a Mosotho angel: And where will YOU be when your mother dies?
At the darkest hour for my family, I saw the Light and the blessings of the ancestors shine through the calm dignity of a domestic helper in Soweto. We had buried my mother, Nomali Memela, last Saturday. She died at home of natural causes. She was 83 years old. It being an ordinary Tuesday, this […]
Posted inGeneral
Indifference to national holidays is an insult to democracy
For those who died on 21 March 1960 so that we could live While poor people, mostly black Africans, burst into song and wave bright and colourful national flags that flap in the wind to celebrate national holidays like Human Rights Day, for instance, a sense of betrayal and shame should shrivel up the souls […]
Posted inLifestyle
‘Ubuntu’, the inherent goodness of blacks and (d)evil whites
If you grew up in dominantly black circumstances, like me, populated by oppressed Africans, especially in the townships or rural areas, then no doubt you will have heard many mythological stories about the inherent goodness and morality of blacks called “ubuntu”. Perhaps we should make one thing clear about MY definition or understanding of the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The face of South African crime is, of course, the black man
I sat stunned and paralysed with anger at an upmarket lounge a few days ago when a friend, sister and wife, Letta Mofokeng, told me with a heavy heart that she did not understand why she was a widow and her children were without a father. Shimi Mofokeng’s neck, heart and liver were ripped into […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, News/Politics
The pitfalls of South African journalism:racism and capitalism
The biggest achievement of the recent Human Rights Commission hearing on the Forum of Black Journalists and racism in South African newsrooms has not only plunged the profession into its deepest crisis but got it to hang its dirty linen in the public. The heated debates and personal attacks among some of the players have […]
Posted inGeneral
Whites need not apologise for apartheid
I can’t say the precise moment it hit me, but I do know that it was on Friday morning while I was listening to SAfm anchor Jeremy Maggs interview a panel on the issue of racism at the University of Free State. That’s when it became loud and clear to me that the wise guys […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Unlike a rose, ‘kaffir’ does NOT smell the same to black and white
Township blacks will not say the precise moment when it hit them, but it was a good few days after township “klever” Irvin Khoza allegedly made a booboo by calling a black journalist a “kaffir”. Slow thinkers that they are, they have now started noticing that the wise guys who protest too much about Khoza’s […]
Posted inMedia
Furore over FBJ and its coconut journalists
I have it on good authority that the biggest sellout and “father of African journalism” is planning a marathon party among the dead to congratulate white journalists and their coconut cohorts who have, so far, managed to suppress the relaunch of the Forum of Black Journalists. As I understand it, media-created coconut journalists will make […]
Posted inGeneral
Callous ‘black diamonds’ and the poor white problem
It is time that we asked the question whether the non-racial struggle has, ironically, delivered its anti-thesis of black racism. In a strange way, there is an unconscious disposition among privileged black Africans — now called the “black diamonds” — to be unkind in a racist way towards fellow South Africans who happen to be […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is Mr John Minto a true ‘friend of the natives’?
This has to be said. So I am going to say it: Mr John Minto is not a true “true friend of the natives!” The time to call some self-proclaimed false “friends of the natives” to order is now. It is not surprising that few African public intellectuals have taken Minto to task for his […]
Posted inMedia
The trial of John Tengo Jabavu for (mis)representing African opinion
Friends asked me to attend a day-long talk shop by some of the country’s opinion-leaders at some white university the other day. I did not have to think hard before I answered with a resounding: “I am not particularly interested!” They were quiet for a minute before they answered: “This is so surprising.” I guess […]