Having a RaceCardTM neatly tucked into your wallet, ready to be despatched at a moment’s notice, makes you a card-carrying … what? A bit of a spanner, maybe? Yeah, someone’s finally done it. There’s a RaceCardTM now, complete with choice of colours and neat little boxes to tick. The idea is that you wave it […]
Sipho Hlongwane
Sipho Hlongwane is a journalist and columnist for the Daily Maverick.
He is an avid fan of jelly beans, Top Gear, Arsenal and thinks that South Africans tend to take themselves a little too seriously.
Posted inNews/Politics
Did Nelson Mandela sell out?
It’s an uncomfortable question, but one that bears asking, because it has far reaching implications for the future of South Africa. The battle for Nelson Mandela’s legacy has begun, even before his death. In an interview published by the London Evening Standard, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela had no doubts as to where her ex-husband stood. “Mandela let […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Here Be Squalls: Navigating ANCYL dullard-speak
Why do people hate Julius Malema so? I’m honestly perplexed. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t love him. Do you see me in a JZ shirt, baying out mshini wami outside the ‘Maritzburg High Court, sweat dripping from beneath my Dickies taxi-boy keppie, scuffed ankles and once-white All Stars straining as I give the […]
Posted inLifestyle
Dear white liberalist person,
I get it. I totally understand. The whole “white in a post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa” thing. The terribleness of carrying the burden of your racist ancestors, for no other reason than being the wrong colour in the wrong place. The irony of having to prove your non-racist views at every turn thanks to things that […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Woeful State of the Nation Part 2
In part 1 of this blog post, I discussed the State of the Nation address, delivered rather badly last Thursday by the president. I mentioned how the problem of crime had gone almost completely unmentioned by the Comrade Leader’s speech. Thankfully, I’m not the only one to decry the lack of crime prevention strategy in […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Woeful State of the Nation Part 1
Lofty ideals. Fanciful notions. Good intent. That is the problem with our government. You see it in the legislature where good intentions pass the Consumer Protection Act which, though intending to protect the hapless consumer, will mostly result in more expensive goods and services. You see it in the judiciary, where lofty ideals abolish the […]
Posted inLifestyle
The seven highly annoying habits of boardroom prawns
A meme that has been doing the rounds, where rude and obnoxious cyclists are insultingly called prawns. You know the type, they walk into the café while still wearing their cycling helmets and shoes, the salt from their evaporated sweat powdering their neck and shaven calves. I approve. Life is littered with prawns, and all […]
Posted inLifestyle
Vegetarians cause me grief
As I type this, it’s late Saturday afternoon, and my hands are shaking deliriously, my eyes have shrunk to the back of my head, my gums have gone all mushy, my teeth are falling out, my bones are like butter and I’m pretty sure the dull thudding sound in my ears isn’t normal. I had […]
Posted inMedia
We’re still coping
South Africans are masters of craziness and natural geniuses when it comes to insults.
Posted inLifestyle
Tourist-hunting season now open
You know something, this sucks mightily. Tourist-hunting season opens, and we hear of it first from the British? Typical of our authorities. This is incompetence at its most apathetic. How African of the government. No wonder the Brits want to re-colonise this place. What, have you never heard Uncle Bob Mugabe speak? Wouldn’t that be […]
Posted inLifestyle
Do you have a favourite toilet?
The number of page hits that certain blog posts get on this website would suggest that Thought Leader readers like to read about the government, politics and how everything is going wrong, wrong, wrong with the ANC. You, the reader, want to discuss Zuma, Malema and those okes. Well, terribly sorry to disappoint. This isn’t […]
Posted inMedia
Bono vs The internet
The interwebs were buzzing angrily yesterday because of something Bono* said. Bono, remember him? He’s the frontman for that famous Irish rock band U2. In a recent op-ed piece for the New York Times, he suggested that the net should be policed to a certain extent to stop what he dubbed reverse Robin Hooding. He […]