You are greater than Mandela. Our greatest strength as a people is when we are at our weakest. Waking up in our humble homes to the news that the founding father of this nation, the great Nelson Mandela has passed on, we were not quite ready to believe that. But over the years, ever since […]
News/Politics
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Shallow rhetoric, Mandela and personal responsibility
I still vaguely remember the first time I found out who Nelson Mandela was. My parents had an ANC sticker in their bedroom wardrobe that carried Mandela’s face. I did not know anything about him at the time, but it wasn’t until my mother caught me trying to remove the sticker that I would first […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Trading old chestnuts for new – young, angry and black
“It would make an am-a-zing scarecrow, don’t you think?” asks a friend. Save the dull narrative of South Africa’s miracle, another chestnut has crept into South Africa’s discourse. This time around, there’s no Shosholoza humming or rainbows. “Young, angry and black” and its variants has become a phrase dished out with little thought. It passes […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Madiba, this is why I am a public servant
I posted this on my Facebook profile, today. I figured I would share it widely on this worst of days. He held my hand for twenty minutes and told me of the vision he had for our country. No, I said, I was a journalist. It is all I ever wanted to be. I loved […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mandela in reflection: The laws of admiration
In 1986 the French thinker Jacques Derrida published a text in a collection of protest tributes that he co-edited with Mustapha Tlili entitled For Nelson Mandela. The English translation of Derrida’s tribute is titled “The laws of reflection: Nelson Mandela, in admiration”. I have chosen to subvert this title by way of re-ordering its words. […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Coconut-ism and death of African culture
About a week ago I read an uncomfortable piece about the unwillingness of black people to share their cultures. The author insinuates that black South Africans remain willingly enclaved in a cocoon of apartheid pain. My objections were immediate and loud. This post is an afterthought and a result of some reflection. Culture in South […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Health, News/Politics
Gogos under siege: Let’s put an end to it
It should be concerning to every individual when a newspaper headline sates: “Dead woman (80) sexually assaulted with a fork”. Actually everyone should be filled with anger. This was the headline in the Sowetan today (December 4 2013). The story tells of the gruesome murder, and possible rape of Gogo Anna Ntsane of Hennenman in […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Inequality will derail our democracy
The magnitude of the problem of inequality in our country, compounded by the painful reality of unemployment and poverty, will hobble any future development prospects unless we seriously debate the efficacy and appropriateness of our policy responses in post-apartheid South Africa. Let me put the problem in context. It had always been clear in the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Asylum in Germany, asylum in SA: Is there justice and humanity?
Although the numbers are disputed, South Africa and Germany are among the States Parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention that receive the most asylum applications in the world. It is interesting, then, to compare the legal frameworks that both countries apply to asylum seekers. The most striking difference is that, in South Africa, asylum seekers […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Bribery, the real costs
By Anthea Paelo The other day the taxi I was riding in was stopped by a policeman. Not an unusual event in itself. Neither was the exchange of money that happened afterwards. What was strange, at least for me, was the policeman’s method of request. Upon stopping the taxi, he did not bother to pretend […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Democratic Alliance does the Time Warp again
The normally smug and steady Democratic Alliance has over the past month metamorphosised into South Africa’s political equivalent of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This dizzying plunge through a Verwoerdian time warp was triggered by the Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEAB), which prescribes swingeing penalties for private sector companies that don’t meet the government’s rigid […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A state of emergency?
There was a time when journalists knew not to ask too many questions. A time when they knew not to dig too deep. There was a time when they had a healthy respect for authority and knew their place. The Mail & Guardian‘s leak of the Nkandla report marks that moment when the journalistic profession […]