All of us have that button. That thing that makes us see red, the thing we hate, which if we were in charge we’d ban immediately. In the past, people in power have been deeply offended by the notion that anyone who wasn’t white and male could have the vote. That gay couples could marry. […]
News/Politics
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Black women, on the up and up?
I follow US politics half-heartedly but since the first Obama presidency, US political life has become central in many ways even for people who are not interested in politics. Michelle Obama, together with her husband, became the face of a changing American society — at least that was the promise of the “rise and rise” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Robert McBride: In the best tradition of cadre deployment
What a silly fuss about struggle hero Robert McBride being cnominated to head the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). So typical of racist, Eurocentric liberals not to appreciate the unique skills set he brings to the job. Confirming the Cabinet recommendation to Parliament, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said that IPID was “an important tool” in […]
Posted inNews/Politics
We are no longer placated by empty assurances
As loyal South Africans, who have made a disproportionate contribution to the well-being of South Africa, I and my colleagues at the Cape Board of the Zionist Federation, wish to voice our dissatisfaction with the consistent attacks on Israel’s internal policies, and on it alone being singled out for failure to reach an accord with […]
Posted inNews/Politics
We need a national development plan for the soul
By Russel Botman Close on 20 years after South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy through a negotiated political settlement, our country finds itself at a crossroads again. Progress in many areas has been commendable, but in others the pace of change has been far too slow. And in some areas things have actually deteriorated. […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
All hail women!
An article in a recent TIME magazine (“The last Politicians”, by Jay Newton-Small; TIME, October 28, 2013, pp46-50) has brought home to me, once again, how different women are from men, and what a pity it is that they, our human “sisters”, have not remained in the social leadership positions that, according to several accounts, […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Mind your language, South Africa
The Tower of Babel grew a foot taller yesterday. At the top of the tower stands Jacob Zuma’s younger brother, Michael. The younger Zuma sloppily admitted to negotiating a contract for Thabo Ntshiqa, honcho of Khumbula Property Services. Like a half-baked court scene from Boston Legal or Judge Judy, the admission was a thing of […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics, Tech
On voluntary tech servitude
I’m one of the many Android users who recently installed the Blackberry Messenger (BBM) application on their phone. Big deal. Doing this as I did, however, on the day Germany and Brazil were introducing a draft resolution on the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age at the UN General Assembly, I found myself confronting […]
Posted inNews/Politics, Sport
IOC: Five rings and no balls. Sochi pity!
Excellence. Friendship. Respect. So whose motto is that? Boy Scouts? Alcoholics Anonymous? Who would guess that these are the watchwords supposedly encapsulating the modern Olympic movement? Actually, says the International Olympic Committee (IOC), it’s not merely a slogan, but the organisation’s ‘life philosophy’. Funny thing that, the gap between imagination and reality. While those three […]
Posted inEnvironment, News/Politics
The normalisation of the unthinkable
We live in apocalyptic times. This is the considered belief of an extraordinary contemporary philosopher, who also phrases it as Living in the End Times — the title of a book that appeared in 2010 (Verso), and which contains between its covers so many intellectual tours de force that I, for one, will not even […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Whiteness is thicker than blood
Mike van Graan’s Rainbow Scars describes the fortunes and destinies of blacks who are raised by whites and those condemned to live in the townships. Much as the play explores relations between a white mother and an adopted black daughter, the most interesting undercurrent is the theme of black identity and whether skin colour is […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The private is political: Ramphele and the Biko affair
I tried to play devil’s advocate in a conversation where Mamphela Ramphele’s affair with Steve Biko came into question. I was stunned that in a group of black women Ramphele was not the hero or the role model of what it means to be an example of a woman to be reckoned with in the […]