I don’t like Lena Dunham, but I have my reasons. Dunham is the writer and creator of Girls, one of those “edgy”, sometimes-women-are-naked shows on HBO. Girls follows the lives of four young (and almost permanently and perhaps proudly unemployed) New Yorkers as they navigate the melodrama of their loveless love lives and self-induced trauma. […]
General
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Should revolutions have a leader?
Nelson Mandela was quoted as saying, “It is not kings and generals that make history but the masses of the people.” This came to mind as I watched what was unfolding in Burkina Faso. I watched Blaise Compaoré’s 27 year reign come to an abrupt end in the midst of a burning Parliamentary building. He […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
Step on the corruption scale
By Abuti Rams Say you were to step on the “corruption scale”, how much do you think you would weigh? Just like most people, I have a problem with corruption in its diverse forms. In recent years, most of our media reporting has exposed corruption on all levels of government (be it local, provincial or […]
Posted inEquality, General
The unfinished business of the TRC
Acting on the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in 2003 the President’s Fund was set up to provide comprehensive reparations programmes for victims of apartheid crimes. It was intended to restore and repair the damaged lives of those who stood for justice against the apartheid regime. This was to be done through […]
Posted inGeneral
Letting the curtain fall
By Lawrence Kritzinger It is Sunday evening. For whatever reason, my subconscious has been regaling me with choice tidbits from my memory banks, not all of them pleasant. They disturb me, and so I write. I don’t know how else to process them. So permit me this self-indulgence, please. Sometimes, death wrenches someone from us […]
Posted inEquality, General
On being mis-recognised: Julian Hewitt and the angry black woman
People think I’m an angry black woman. People who know me well, know that this is a misrecognition of me. I’m a nice person. I hate foot-in-mouth interactions: that awkward moment when someone says something they shouldn’t have said, and someone else has to salvage the situation or we all walk away. I save face. […]
Posted inGeneral
The seductions and betrayals of technology
We live in a time of unmitigated technophilia, or love of technology. It was not always so. Since the earliest of times people have shown their intuitive awareness of the ambivalence of technology. In ancient Greek myths, for instance, one encounters the awareness that technology as a kind of prosthetic empowers humans to do what […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Gareth Cliff: Who do you think you are?
The funeral of slain soccer star Senzo Meyiwa was barely over when polemic radio jockey Gareth Cliff took to the Twitterverse to ask who was paying for the funeral. Another South African is lowered into the ground after an act of violence, another family mourns, and another story of our failed collective freedom is written […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, General
Get your clothing laws off my body
I recently read a piece on Buzzfeed about items of clothing women have been barred from wearing in 2014, and I was livid. Some of them include: * Women in Uganda being banned from wearing mini-skirts. Some were even publicly undressed for wearing them; * More than 250 girls being removed from a school in […]
Posted inBusiness, General, Media, News/Politics
Numsa: Is this the left’s moment?
The announcement that Numsa would form its own socialist party should come as no surprise. Numsa’s battles within Cosatu (most notably with its historical rival, the Jacob Zuma-aligned NUM) and the ruling alliance (particularly with the Zuma faction, ostensibly on questions of ideology) have served as a generous forewarning that this was coming. Further, in […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Crime: There is something rotten in the state of South Africa
Driving to work this morning I heard the news about the fatal shooting of Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates captain Senzo Meyiwa. Saddening and extremely disturbing as it is, the irony of the matter is that it is even more saddening that the vast majority of people who fall senseless victims to the apparently never-ending […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Is the public protector an ‘enforcer’ or a ‘recommender’?
The public protector has dominated the news yet again this year, and I’m sure this has been the year with the most coverage in the public protector’s history. One thing that has been outstanding is the debate around the powers of the office of the public protector. The public protector falls under chapter nine institutions, […]