I’ve been watching a fair amount of the IPL (I still have my misgivings about its constant commercial steriodisation), and in between all the the DLF Maximums – puke – and cheerleaders – double puke – and commentators on Valium – triple puke – there have been a whole bunch of adverts featuring Proteas players […]
General
Posted inGeneral
Whiteness, shame and “this strange place”
“The liberals must realise that they themselves are oppressed if they are true liberals and therefore they must fight for their own freedom and not that of the nebulous “they” with whom they can hardly claim identification.” – Steve Biko So much has been written on whiteness recently that it hardly seems worth adding to […]
Posted inGeneral
City deserved United scalp as title beckons
The English Premier League season is winding down, with two matches to go in the world’s most watched football league. Manchester United, from cantering to yet another title, have managed to find banana peels on the pitch against Wigan, Everton and now their fiercest rivals on the other side of town, Manchester City, after the […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
High Court of the Executive: Zuma’s remission of sentences
On April 27 1994 all South Africans could vote for the first time to mark a new era of equality and justice for all. This stands in stark contrast to how the rule of law, criminal justice and equality in the execution of criminal sentences are viewed by the executive today. Last Friday it was […]
Posted inGeneral
Disenchanted youth of the world: Tomorrow’s hope
The youth of the world are disenchanted — disenchanted by the older generation’s politics as well as their economics, by their ideologies and their religions and by their inability to halt ecological destruction. And they are the ones who will replace the current leaders of the world. What are the chances that they might just […]
Posted inGeneral
Give me South Africa any day
Commemorating South Africa’s 18th year as a democracy this past week calls for a patriotic blog post, as does the e-toll interdict which delivered a sweet respite and an appropriate present for May 1 to the labour movement for exerting their right to protest. Owing to apartheid, I have never been much of a conventional patriot […]
Posted inGeneral
Epic failure
“OMG! EPIC!!!” For anyone who regularly frequents online spaces, this is a familiar refrain. It is the default comment for even the most pedestrian or banal of content. So much so, that the word itself has taken on the same nature of the objects or events it is so undeservedly used to describe. Type “epic” into […]
Posted inGeneral
How humans ‘produce’ space
Space is one of the most intimately experienced, and probably least reflected-on phenomena of the human life-world. Like time, it is presupposed in everything we do, although – living, as we do, in an era of what Lyotard and others call “accelerated” time, and therefore constantly being aware of time – we are probably less […]
Posted inGeneral
Is cinema fundamentally conceptual or perceptual?
Looking for different ways in which the human body has been thematised in film makes for interesting research. I was reminded of this recently when acting as examiner for a dissertation written by a master’s student, Martin Rossouw of UFS, in which (among other films) he analysed Charles Chaplin’s 1936 classic, Modern Times. Rossouw demonstrated […]
Posted inGeneral
True, not magnetic north: Reflecting on Freedom Month
By Erik de Ridder It is often contended that South Africa has lost its moral compass and the ability to navigate on a moral basis. Libya, the visa-debacle of the Dalai Llama or the collapse of schooling in the Eastern Cape, for instance, serve as cases in point. The magnetic lure of succumbing to a […]
Posted inGeneral
UKZN crisis – a letter to management
As has been reported in several media sources, the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) faces another crisis, several contract staff members have not been paid for up to four months of work. Many of those who have been paid have not been paid in full. UKZN management has consistently denied or downplayed the issue, as […]
Posted inGeneral
Sex for sale: The state as pimp
By Zuki Mqolomba Debates on adult prostitution have been raging on in South Africa’s public and legal domains since the 1990s. Debates surfaced in 2007 when Labour Court judge Halton Cheadle ruled on the “Kylie” vs Michelle van Zyl case. The debates spiraled once again in light of the foregone 2010 Fifa World Cup, with […]