I’m shocked and saddened by the loss of 14 of our soldiers in the Central African Republic. It sounds like the Wild West. And it doesn’t matter how many of “them” our forces killed, it’s all just bullshit. How do 200 of our troops get attacked by a rebel army of some 3 000? And nowhere […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
African Union, useful or useless?
By Lindelwe Dube The continent has recently seen an increase in the number of attempted coups. The list includes Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast and now the Central African Republic (CAR). While Africans themselves and the international community may look to the African Union (AU) to facilitate peace and stability, the AU has struggled to fulfil […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
There are many Oranias in SA
By Athambile Masola As a product of a Eurocentric, former white educational institution, I was once very quick to embrace non-racialism (that race should no longer be used as a marker to understand our experiences). I’ve been living in Cape Town for over a year and have come face to face with the politics of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Brics can unlock deadly stalemate, bring humanitarian relief to Syrians
By Jonathan Whittall On one of my first visits into Syria with MSF, I arrived on a cold night in a city with no electricity and shortages of food. A community under siege hosted me while they lived in fear, huddled into basements in an attempt to escape the continuous bombing. I saw field hospitals […]
Posted inNews/Politics
BDS lobby fails at Brics
The proceedings of the fifth Brics summit that took place on March 26 to 27 2013 at the Durban International Convention Centre provided an international stage for civil organisations to garner the limelight for their causes. One such organisation, which promotes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel by South Africa, foundered in its […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Why all Afrikaners should go to Europe
By Mark John Burke Europe is a great place, it really is. You step off your plane onto a train that takes you to your destination and once there trams and buses stand ready to take you to wherever you want. Europeans have perfected recycling and they go to great lengths to ensure everybody’s safety. […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Behind the shock and awe, the violence is ‘normal’
The murders of miners at Marikana by brutal state apparatus, the rape and murder of Anene Booysen by a group of men, and the killing of Reeva Steenkamp by her male lover have common threads. All three reflect a confluence of systems of violence that span centuries. Each is a product of past and prevailing […]
Posted inNews/Politics, Tech
The importance of technology for education
In a globalised economy with a high degree of competition among countries, the success of a nation depends on the educational level of its workforce. This is true not only for those just entering or already integrated into the labour market but also for the unemployed, who may lack the qualifications required by the growing […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dotty Davies gets ready to close up shop
Politicians and officialdom are not known for their grasp of nuance. This makes for inadvertently amusing acronyms to give us the occasional giggle. We have had such gems as Boss, the apartheid era’s Bureau of State Security, Saps, the hapless police force that shot dead 34 at Marikana, and Wasps, the Worker and Socialist Party, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SABC bored, what about Honey Boo Boo?
South Africans, faced with rampant inflation and severe austerity measures, are once again bemoaning their fate, threatening emigration and promising politicians that there will be bedlam at the next elections instead of concentrating on producing those things that make this country great. What? Take a step back and answer this question: When the Americans ran […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why I will not fight for CAR or any other country
Why would they ask me to put on a uniform and go to the heart of Africa to fire high-calibre machine guns and drop bombs on fellow Africans whose leader got into power through a coup and not democratic elections? I will not draw guns and shoot bombs at the sight of marauding African rebel […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The disaster that is Metrorail
A few years ago I relocated to Pretoria. I only had one friend who happened to use the Metrorail train strictly and being new to the place I followed suit. I found it to be a very novel experience, especially since I’m from Mahikeng where the only form of public transport is taxis. Apart from […]