His smiling face popped up on a faded, scanned-in picture on one of the millions of Facebook groups. The class photograph was taken in front of the building of Ecole Privée Belge in Gisenyi, Rwanda. It was 1986, the sky was blue, the rain season had finally come to an end and Rwanda’s future looked […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Obama will change Africa starting with Zimbabwe?
If regard is had to the fact that African American voters in the USA and white voters in South Africa form roughly the same percentage of the overall population then the result we witnessed in Tuesday’s US presidential election is the equivalent of Helen Zille capturing the South African presidency. Stop and think about that […]
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Would an ANC by any other name smell as sweet?
Two scholars reflect on the implications of Lekota and Shilowa’s ANC breakaway party for South African political leadership … “Thank heavens for Shikota” The South African political situation has never truly been ideal; for the most part it has always seemed that the average South African has had a choice been the devil and the […]
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The heights we must climb
Change we can believe in! It is the most compelling election theme to have captured the imagination of the entire world. As encapsulated by Barack Obama in his victory speech, “change has come to America”. Whilst we celebrate America’s and indeed the world’s most momentous occasion, we also mourn the floundering attempts to overcome the […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Taking ownership of an American president
A talk show host on a Cape Town radio station was joking (Wednesday, November 5 2008) about how a coloured won the F1 title on Sunday and how another coloured won the US presidential election. I had never thought about it like this but I guess when somebody achieves something in life, everybody wants to […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Barack Obama puts the spotlight on the role of the so-called coloured in the black struggle
Barack Obama’s predictable triumph in the American presidential race, interestingly, sets up the role of the so-called coloured in the black struggle for critical examination. Of course, most blacks deny that there is intra-racism determined, largely, by complexion and class in black American society. Thus the political euphoria has misled the world to believing that […]
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Obama: ‘Thank God Almighty, free at last’
“Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring — when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children — black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, […]
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Obama’s US is the new rainbow nation: Africa needs to learn
Change may have been a long time coming, but when it did – wow! Sometimes revolutions come with pain, sometimes with joy. From today this is a new world and we all have to change the way we think and what we do. The first decade or two of any millennium is a time of […]
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The Kleurling takes it!
Call me NastroSumo, but didn’t I mention in my piece called Making beautiful Coloureds Together that the future of the world lies, with the Tik somewhere in Mitchell’s Plain, in the Kleurlinge? thoughtleader.co.za/thesumo/2008/02/12/making-beautiful-coloureds-together/ Yes, yours truly, The Sumo, has predicted this current state of affairs being of mixed race is the very way to go, […]
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Australia’s response to the US election
Australia is a nation of Obama supporters. Like virtually every other country in the world, Australia was strongly pro-Obama in The Economist’s global electoral college. At 905 support for Obama, Australian support was even higher than that in South Africa, where Obama scored 89%. Interest in the US election was very high indeed in Australia, […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media, News/Politics
Televising the revolution: how ‘illiterate’ Jacob Zuma outshone educated Professor Barney Pityana
The live coverage of some of the great political events happening in the country will, inevitably, shape the future and influence choices people make. After all, television is a powerful medium that has the potential to influence people’s behaviour and attitude. Thus it was fascinating to watch the revolution being televised and observe the behaviour […]
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If only Barack Obama was a Republican
In 1964, three young civil rights workers were abducted by die-hard white supremacist rednecks in Mississippi and cold-bloodedly murdered. Their crime? Assisting blacks to register as voters. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – one a black Mississippian and the other two Jewish human rights activists from New York – paid the ultimate price […]