Yes, you’ve read correctly. You may not know who Rana Foroohar is, so let me inform you that she is a highly respected business and economic journalist working for TIME magazine, who has just published a book called Makers and Takers, published in May (Crown publishers), in which she makes this (to some startling) announcement. […]
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Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
We are rebuilding an economic apartheid instead of dismantling it
In the mid-1980s South Africa’s prime overdraft rate went to 25%, inflation rocketed to 20.9% and the apartheid government abolished the financial rand exchange rate system in 1983 as international banks refused to renew credit lines for South Africa. The world was punishing South Africa for being a pariah, a scum state, violating the fundamental […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Slowly, slowly I merge into Germany’s ‘right’ stream…
One never really contemplates how traffic is routed in various countries, until one starts to travel. I am therefore rather blasé when it comes to crossing the road, assuming that I will be fine. Surely sticking to the right hand side of the road is or will be easy? I don’t intend driving in Münster […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Decolonising course content. Whatever does that mean?
Discussions around “curricula decolonisation” are notoriously unfruitful and unstructured. There are two principal reasons for this. The first is that these discussions occur in a jargon which is vague and imprecise. The second, leading on from the first, is that the subject matter under discussion inherits this vagueness and imprecision. One is tempted, then, to […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality
Concerns raised over way repossessed homes are sold at public auctions
By Mbalenhle Budaza Lawyers for Human Rights, together with many legal non-governmental organisations, have noted with growing concern the manner in which repossessed houses are sold at public auctions. The fact that a reserve price is not mandatory for sales in execution as well as the lack of judicial oversight over these processes has led […]
Posted inNews/Politics
‘We haven’t failed, someone is deliberately making us fail’
President Jacob Zuma is using all the wiles of a spoilt child trying to get his parents to buy a coveted toy. Except that this particular desired bauble – a new presidential jet with all the bells-and-whistles – will cost around R4 billion. And that’s a price tag to be picked up not by affluent and […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
SA’s UN vote against press freedom NGO is a vote against diversity of perspectives
By Caroline James This week, South Africa was one of eight countries in the United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations that voted to deny the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) observer status at the United Nations (UN). South Africa voted against accreditation along with countries like China and Russia who are not known for their […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Zapiro, monkeys and red herrings
Editorial cartooning must be one of the most difficult jobs out there. Not only must the cartoonist be technically adept when it comes to caricature, he or she also has to find the humour in situations that often, on the surface, aren’t especially funny. Day in and day out, cartoonists have to generate ideas and […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
What does Africa really want?
As we celebrate yet another Africa Day, the question of what Africa really wants (and or what Africans, wherever they are, want) cannot be avoided. This question is forever lingering, and it becomes sharpened when Africa interacts with the rest of the world. The question must be confronted or posed directly especially given the fuzzy […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Decolonising knowledge doesn’t contradict ideal of academic excellence
By Shose Kessi Real and lasting social change does not take place without theory. Theory crafts, guides, sustains and legitimises social systems. In order to dismantle the social systems we live in, which are characterised by racism and other forms of oppression, we need to advance our theories. These theories should and must emerge from […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zuma washes his hands of a looming crisis
To state that South Africa is spinning towards a serious crisis is not hyperbole. There are many factors causing this, including failed governance and delivery, but at its nub it is triggered by greed and powered by a ruthless determination to subvert our democracy and the mechanisms that protect it. This is not yet the […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Health, Lifestyle
We’re all born naked, everything else is (a) drag
By Pierre Brouard When Caitlyn Jenner recently visited the Academy for Young Writers, an LGBTI-friendly school in a working-class New York neighbourhood, she was expecting some flak. In particular, from two youngsters, living non-binary lives, who had been vocal in their criticisms of her. Caitlyn was privileged, they said, had made disparaging remarks about “men […]