The fanfare at the beginning of a new year is usually celebratory and full of hope. This celebration is a way for people to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. But last year, 2013, was a particularly tumultuous year in South Africa when we were besieged by problems. In reality, these problems have been […]
Equality
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Now for the 21st century round of South African sex panic
Twenty years into democracy and the battles to capture and define South African identities are at fever pitch. Race seems to have a new lease on life and, unexpectedly, so does sexuality. Some say that South Africa’s future is black, in the sense that state power will never be in the hands of a white-defined […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Your homophobia is un-African
The average gay African is no stranger to torture, rape, prison or terror. Thirty-eight countries in Africa now oppress LGBT individuals in one way or another, and although a recent wave of anti-gay legislation is gaining massive media traction, the dignity of these people has never really been embraced in all corners of the continent. […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Why stop at just the gays?
By Thabo Seroke A couple of months ago, Uganda asked a question that could usher in the systematic hate aimed at a group of people. The question was simple: Who is going to inspire the senseless murder of gender-variant people in Africa? This was not a view that needed to be vocalised by Ugandans, but […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Born frees do not exist
Post-apartheid South Africa has many myths in different spheres of public life. The sphere of the battle of ideas has its fair share of such mythology. Since 1994, concepts such as South African exceptionalism, rainbow nation, lost generation, post-colony, white genocide, white fears and recently, born frees and many others have emerged across the political […]
Posted inEquality, General, Media, News/Politics
Be cruel to be cruel
It is May 1968. Raging in the streets of Paris, the (in)famous student uprisings. On the walls of the Sorbonne a slogan appears: “SOYONS CRUELS!” / “BE CRUEL!” Someone comes up to you and asks: “Have you seen this writing on the wall? What is it telling me to do?” Cruelty, by which I mean […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle
Patriarchy bad for men too
“Who’s your daddy?” This is the infamous slogan of commercialised intimacy. A masculine Mandingo demands an answer, while his submissive remnant of a woman is supposed to respond with “Yes, you are my daddy!” Eric Zorn deconstructed the phrase in a piece in the Chicago Tribune. He described it as “a boastful claim of dominance […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The Mandela moment: Now it’s time to move forward South Africa
The past few weeks have been a milestone in our country’s history — there’s no doubt about that. We’ve made huge pronouncements about how we are so very thankful for all that Madiba has done for us, how we pledge to continue and honour his legacy, how so much still needs to change. But what […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
We need to talk about racism (TEDx Talk)
So here I am, on the TEDx stage, to deliver the message that makes me probably the most hated person in South Africa — as far as white many people are concerned. Certainly I have been called all sorts of horrible things including self-loathing, masochistic, a black-wannabe, a bitch, witch, man-hating dyke, mad women who […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Phantsi homophobic Uganda phantsi
“Thou shall practice homosexuality, thou shall rot in jail.” — Clause 2(2) of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. For about four years Uganda’s ruling political class has held an axe above the head of that country’s LGBT community, and has only just mustered the courage to pass a law that bans homosexual acts. This anti-gay legislation punishes […]
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Yes, but do we live human dignity?
Much has been said, is still being said and will continue to be said about the reconstitution of the South African legal, political and, perhaps most importantly, ethical order on the basis of the ideal of human dignity. This reconstitution of course took place and form by way of the adoption of the post-apartheid Constitutions […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
How not to pick up women in SA
Written with Rethabile Mashale* City Press ran a story on December 22 by Charl du Plessis titled “The art of picking up women in SA”. The article on Pick Up Artist SA’s boot camp on picking up women is about “the secret psychological techniques that will help [men and lesbian women] get lucky with South […]