Christopher Nolan’s recently released feature film Dunkirk not only fills a long-existing gap in cinematic coverage of important historical (particularly wartime) events; it also highlights something of contemporary significance: the glaring difference between the world of the 1940s and that of today, namely the strong sense of community that animated people back then, and which, […]
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Posted inEnvironment, General
‘Only when the last fish has been caught, will you realise that you cannot eat money’
‘Only when the last fish has been caught, will you realise that you cannot eat money’. We are moving perilously close to the actualisation of my paraphrase of these words from the well-known saying attributed to Alanis Obomsawin of the Abenaki tribe northeast of Montreal in Canada. The usual wording of the saying is: “When […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, Tech
Selfies, the disappearance of the natural world and nihilism
I don’t like shopping malls; they remind me of the weakness of our species when it comes to commodities that they ‘must have’, according to the spurious ethos of the prevailing economic system. Hence, when the woman in my life asked me to accompany her to that monstrosity known as the Baywest mall, outside the […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, Health, Tech
The technology that is threatening life as we know it
We are currently witnessing a pervasive and accelerating recording, modelling and processing of data pertaining to human beings as well as other living species (and even inorganic things) on a scale that surpasses what most of us can imagine. This has been made possible by bio-technologies which seem as if they are the incipient actualisation […]
Posted inEnvironment, General
Our troubled world
A number of things have struck me since we arrived in Europe to attend a number of conferences, travelling from Ghent in Belgium through Munich in Germany to beautiful Venice in the Veneto of Italy, and they do not augur well for the future of human society or the planet. These range from observations in […]
Posted inEquality, General
An important conference for Afrikaans in Europe
Summer is a good time for attending conferences in Europe, and 2017 has proved to be no exception. This afternoon we had to brave a thunderstorm that would hold its own against any Highveld thunderstorm in South Africa, and that in Venice, Italy, just after our arrival here from München by bus. We were on […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
South Africa’s future becomes clearer
For good or bad, or for better or worse, the future of South Africa is becoming clearer. The signs are everywhere for everyone to see. It is better to deal with a clear future than an uncertain one, even if the future might look ugly. Now that South Africa’s future becomes clearer, we can all […]
Posted inEquality
Combine the Chapter 9s? How about some time?
Yesterday (Tuesday) I noticed a call from Parliament’s website to comment on the Feasibility of Establishing a Single Human Rights Body. The call notes that in 2006, Parliament appointed an Ad Hoc Committee to undertake a Review of Chapter Nine and Associated Institutions. One of the key recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee was the […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
10 things Ramaphosa should do in his first 100 days as president
Let’s imagine for a minute Ennerdale and Coligny have stopped burning. The knife-fight in the ANC is over and the 2019 elections have come and gone. Now Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa – and will have inherited a deeply flawed country with a stagnant economy and a […]
Posted inEquality, General
Equality and intellectual emancipation
How does one achieve the intellectual emancipation of students, or, for that matter, of anyone, including yourself? The answer most people would probably give to this question, is that it is done through education and learning. To be sure, but what one learns from the French philosopher, Jacques Rancière, is that a great deal depends […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
The fatal hermeneutic divide in South Africa
Many people are bound to have thought of Alan Paton’s novel, Cry the Beloved Country, in the wake of recent events in South Africa. And everyone who have thought of it as a suitable response to these events may be forgiven. But there’s a saying, that people get the government they deserve, and it is […]
Posted inEquality, General, Health
Blood Brothers and socio-economic inequality
At the dramatic culmination of Willy Russell’s gripping musical, Blood Brothers (1983), one of the twins who were parted soon after birth, Mickey, expresses his resentment at his mother, Mrs Johnstone, for not having been the one (Eddie) who was given away to a rich, childless woman, exclaiming something like: “I could have been him!” […]