Ena and Julian Hewitt were both 15 years old in 1994. Ninety-four, that sluggishly revered year which we consider to be our glorious break from the horrors of the past. I imagine that they were brought up well. The comforts of a suburban white, middle-class life in check: a good education and great future prospects. […]
News/Politics
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
How poor is poor?
Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. — James A Baldwin Poverty and hunger remain a global challenge. However fewer people live in extreme poverty in the 21st century compared to previous generations. According to the World Bank, between 1981 and 2008, the proportion of people […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Shipwrecked by injustice but clinging to the Constitution
Surveys show that barely half of South Africans trust the justice system, despite relatively few personally having been snagged in its maw. So it is a welcome paradox when someone dealt only injustice by officialdom, somehow retains faith in the Constitution. Hollander Thijs van Hillegondsberg and family – wife Patricia Poelmann, joint son Ludo, and […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
We must treat women as equals: Response to Jessie Duarte on Vavi
Life is complex and therefore consciousness about life is caused by a myriad of issues internal and external to each person and society at a particular time. In this instance cause and effect do not sit in rigid anti-thesis one from the other. Therefore, presentation of things in a one-sided manner as Jessie Duarte did, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Greece, an African tragedy
When the troika (the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission) rode into town, the Greeks didn’t have to look far too to see what impact the troika’s policies would have on them. Just across the Mediterranean lay an entire continent littered with examples of failed IMF policies. Greece has, in essence, become another African […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Are Africans corrupt?
In a World Economic Forum Davos session titled “De-Risking Africa” — on which presidents Jacob Zuma and Goodluck Jonathan, Sunil Bharti Mittal (Bharti Enterprises), Graham Mackay (SABMiller), and Louise Arbour (International Crisis Group) sat as panellists — President Jacob Zuma took exception to the session’s basic assumption that Africa has a “special case” of corruption. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A family destroyed by bureaucratic bullies
At a stroke past Saturday midnight, Thijs van Hillegondsberg becomes a wanted man. He will be arrested at his Strand home, jailed, tried, likely committed to a Home Affairs detention centre, processed and eventually bundled onto a plane to the Netherlands. This is because Van Hillegondsberg is an illegal immigrant and has been served with […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
What art you talking about?
The 31st of July was the deadline decided on by the South African Department of Arts and Culture (DepARTment) for arts practitioners and institutional responses to a revised White Paper they made available (in very limited fashion) earlier in the same month. There was nothing normal about the process but nothing abnormal either. Because this […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Anatomy of power: Sexual misconduct in South Africa’s polity
Irregular employment practices, furtive, adulterous sex in the workplace, rape, blackmail, secret meetings, power and conspiracy — they’re all there, the ingredients central to any riveting political scandal. But Zwelinzima Vavi’s sexual liaison with a female subordinate is so much more than entertainment for the excitable twitterazzi. Indeed, the sexual misconduct that it illustrates and […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Hello rape culture, hello ignorance…
I recall a discussion I had with a friend about why she didn’t want to write yet another article on race and racism. Her view was that it had all been written. She said the problem was that the people who continue to argue that race doesn’t matter and that we should just “move on” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
There will be more Vavis
Our revolution in order to succeed depends on Zwelinzima Vavi too much. Thus, if they target or kill him, they would have delayed this revolution for decades. By their nature, revolutions take time to build alternative and credible leaders. This is because revolutions depend on selflessness and loyalty, which are traits that take time to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zimbabwe elections: A conspiracy theory
While Egypt became the first example of expedience over democracy being openly accepted, if not actively promoted, by Western democracies it is going to find its match in Zimbabwe during the course of this week albeit without the fanfare and publicity that is occasioned by a military coup. The outcome, in my most humble opinion, […]