General

Reading the responses to my last blog, one can only wonder if honest introspection is at all possible in this society, rent as it is by greed and bigotry. An anonymous little letter landed on my desk the other day. It was a photocopy of a book excerpt on the missionary, philosopher and physician Albert […]

For decades the antagonism between Russia and China was a constant of international politics. Such mutual relations tend to be marked by ambivalence. With hardly any other country has Russia fostered contacts with such intensity as with China. External trade relations have developed with similar intensity. Second only to Germany, China has become Russia’s most […]

Dear Sir, I was outraged by your attack on the fine young men and women of the metro cops who have become almost like policemen to us. I mean, how dare you offend the very people who ensure that, after being gridlocked at a robot for three hours due to an Eskom blackout with no […]

Some of the responses to my previous posting suggested that the relation between images and concepts, as explained by Leonard Shlain in his book on the link between alphabet literacy and patriarchy (The Alphabet versus the Goddess), requires clarification. What better way to do that than by referring to his earlier book, Art and Physics: […]

Isn’t Cape Town the most beautiful graveyard you’ve ever seen? Okay, that’s maybe too cynical. But let’s get real about a few things. Cape Town is not the most beautiful place in the world. It doesn’t have the best beaches and neither does it have the greatest value for money. I say this not to […]

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 […]

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you”. So begins the British poet Philip Larkin in This Be The Verse but his wry observations are just as applicable to […]

I was tempted to answer Mike Trapido’s recent question, “Is there life after death?”, in the form of a comment on his blog when I realised that such a big question perhaps required a bigger answer and more effort, and hence it quickly became an entire article. Firstly, and probably most importantly, I do not […]

Submitted by Felix Ngasama The year 2008 is so far proving to be South Africa’s annus horribilis since its rebirth as a new democratic state in 1994. Things haven’t been worse since 1994. This year has brought with it the aftermath of the ruling party’s most divisive national elections where Jacob Zuma, a man acquitted […]

Inayat Bungawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, wrote a column asking Guardian readers the following question: Is death the end? Unsurprisingly, he was flooded with responses from many communities and any number of schools of thought. So I figured that, seeing as your bosses are paying for your time anyway, let’s […]

I am disturbed by the manner in which we conduct debate in this country. Disagreeing with a politician or someone in a powerful position earns one unflattering labels. When anybody raises views contrary to our own, we react emotionally and go on the attack. We don’t sit back to consider the possibility that the opposing […]