“Now is the hour. This is the moment. South Africa can no longer afford endless rhetoric and mutual recriminations. My government needs to act. It has an electoral mandate to act. And act we shall. We stand or fall by the deliverables that we pledge today.” These are extracts from what political observers, both locally […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Mining strike: Ominous clouds of history
Working as a miner is a filthy, frightening and dangerous occupation. Death and dismemberment are the spectres lurking every moment at your side. And that’s while you are still above ground, as was demonstrated during the Marikana massacre in which police fire killed 34 miners and left another 78 injured. Actually go below ground and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Demystifying new immigration laws
By Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh New immigration regulations are causing consternation among foreign nationals living and working in South Africa, as the provisions severely prejudice their fight to become documented. One of the most concerning elements is the situation of foreign spouses and life partners of South African citizens or permanent residents. Those married and wishing to […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Pistorius and the unfinished gun ownership debate
When Oscar Pistorius first entered the courtroom where he stood accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, the case raised great interest. It was followed online, on radio and even watched on TV, where it received a lot of coverage. While some see the spotlight put on gun ownership by the trial as nothing but […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Of clowns, covert racism and whitewashing black concerns
The furore over the cartoon depicting the ANC parliamentarians and their electorate as a bunch of inept clowns is indicative of how far we still have to go in terms of embedded and unconscious racism in South Africa. There is nothing wrong with critiquing government in satirical depictions, but there is something horribly wrong when […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Privatisation of governance: A multi-stakeholder slippery slope
As the world debates the new set of internationally agreed sustainable development goals, influential politicians, technocrats and captains of industry are humming a common tune. They are busy promoting “public-private partnerships” as the panacea to fix governance failures, and as the silver bullet for the post-2015 agenda. Although, innocuous and even benign sounding, public-private partnerships […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Doing panga surgery with the National Health Act
Legislators are like tik addicts. They’re convinced that after just one more hit they’ll find Nirvana. But the law, especially when cack-handedly drafted, is an imperfect instrument for changing society. It’s like using a panga for plastic surgery: the results are likely to please neither practitioner nor patient. Filled as it is with a righteous […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Mogoeng: Give truth a sporting chance
You know the ol’ Mark Twain witticism: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes?” Well … I got a lesson in that this week. When I got to thinking about it (and I’ll get to it in a sec), this saying sprung to mind, and – […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Joyce Banda, neither saint nor sinner
Written with Lindiwe Makhunga* The defeat of incumbent Joyce Banda in Malawi’s recent and controversial presidential elections, raises some uncomfortable but necessary questions about what constitutes collective expectations of women’s formal leadership in sub-Saharan Africa. On Saturday, Peter Mutharika of Malawi’s Democratic Progressive Party emerged as the winner with 36.4% of the vote, Lazarus Chakwera […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
Apology for the sexual assault of Jordao College learners not enough
It is Child Protection Week this week in South Africa. Last week a bloodied condom was found in the girls’ bathroom at Jordao College, a private school, in Gauteng. Instead of using this as an opportunity to encourage positive and healthy discussions around sexuality, the principal instructed teachers to conduct “tests for sexual activity” on […]
Posted inNews/Politics
EFF beret restores black pride
I live in Cape Town and not since the red berets started popping around the city have I seen the black man walk so tall in this terrifying tower of white privilege, which is this city. So sure of himself is the fighter that he does nothing but inspire confidence to those, like myself, who […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The only clown here is the cartoonist
Everywhere you go, some shit word will collide with you on the wrong side of the road. — Dambudzo Marechera, The Black Insider I have a profound respect for language. Words dream us into being and knit together the world around us. Think of this passage from your trusted King James Bible: “In the beginning […]