It is sometimes difficult to follow President Jacob Zuma’s explanations of events. His utterances can be so convoluted that the thread of logic is all but invisible. Or else they are patently contradictory. At other times he makes plainly incorrect assertions that are never retracted. So they lie there, littering his political reputation like discarded […]
News/Politics
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Change is happening worldwide…
On October 15 and 21 2012 the Current Affairs programme on the BBC’s Radio 4 broadcast a documentary in the form of an interview with the most cited sociologist and social theorist in the world, Manuel Castells, at The London School of Economics on his (then) recently published new book, Aftermath: The Cultures of the […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
On the streets of Cologne
By Gaia Manco Paris 2005 Evening, I’m walking home with my roommate, we live in the 10th arrondissement: A man follows us, makes vulgar advances, we walk away, we ignore him. He doesn’t stop, we are afraid, he keeps on following us until we get to a busier avenue. 2008 Bastille food market, grocery shopping […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
What is the colour of South Africa’s soul?
In the movie 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup asks, “What difference is there in the colour of a soul?” Such a question will raise eyebrows and tempers in South Africa, where the word “colour” sends a rush of emotions flooding down to angry hands from polarising thoughts. We are a rainbow — but our […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
African leaders, please give us back our dignity in 2016
[dignity / noun, the state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect.] It’s taken me a short while to figure out what upsets me so much about power cuts in Africa. The experience is in both measurable and immeasurable ways un-dignifying. You are in the middle of cooking a meal for the family, […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Blacks ‘portraying’ victimhood: Gwen Ngwenya’s tall (reckless) ask of a nation
Unfortunately I am about to do something that I’m not often a fan of doing, namely engage in debate on the internet. One thing I’ve learned about the online space is that it is where people often come to take a mental dump due to its accessibility. God bless us all if Twitter decides to […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Racism, a distraction that keeps us explaining our existence
“The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have scientists […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Thank you Penny
A preamble: just as Penny Sparrow does not speak for me, I do not speak for any of you. But I am hoping that some of you will at least listen, and think, and reflect. As a white South African, I’d like to say thank you to Penny Sparrow. Without her, we wouldn’t be having […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Devil’s advocacy for decolonised curricula
Shouting fire in a crowded theatre may not always be accurate, but it will typically get one attention. Such is the analogue regarding those who bemoan the “whiteness” of university curricula. The terms used to diagnose the problem are frequently emotively charged and difficult to understand. If “the curricula” shall be Africanised then, one may […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
‘Racist’ black South Africans who kept their jobs?
From Dianne Kohler-Barnard to Chris Hart and Penny Sparrow, the rallying call has been for punitive action, namely remove them from their jobs. In addition the discovery that Sparrow is a DA member has prompted the ANC to lodge a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission pleading the commission to investigate racism within […]
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Those who control the mind control society
Those who write what people read control the public mind. Those who control the public mind control the present and future. If you want to control society, you must control information and knowledge production. All that the average man knows, especially in the historically disadvantaged communities, is what he or she reads in the media. […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
White people must stand up against white racism
When I was in high school, my headmaster used to say that evil triumphs when good people do nothing. It was not till I matriculated and grew older that I could fully comprehend and appreciate the gravity of his words. Racism, of any nature, defeats the ends of the reconciliation project we’ve been working towards […]