“I hope to arrive at my death late, in love, and a little drunk.” Atticus. “I will arrive at my death late, and drunk with love.” Charlie Mathews. I never thought I’d fall in love. I am not talking about that delusion that’s a bit like a moulded jelly dessert – which, when left out […]
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Posted inGender violence
Nine ways to make our universities safer
By Esmeralda Sayagues Several South African universities have recently been rocked by student protests deploring the high incidence of campus rape and sexual violence. The students have demanded that universities implement fair procedures that yield justice for complainants and punishment for offenders. In order to address these issues it is useful to look at the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The princess waitress and the dark forces
Myth and myth-making can be traced back to the origin of our species and is the archetypal language through which our spiritual and creative selves make sense of our world and fashion meaning. The mythic imaginary though, is not entirely free of religious or political bias. While certain archetypes are common to the collective human […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Live by the legal sword, die by it
Recourse to the courts is often the first refuge of the scoundrel with deep pockets. A deliberately protracted judicial process can be used by the wealthy to delay, to avoid, to obfuscate, and to bully their adversaries into submission. It’s an approach that has worked well for various South African rogues, embezzlers, crooks and unsavoury […]
Posted inGender violence
Rape is not…
Rape is not something that can be avoided by good behaviour. Rape is not something that is brought about by a woman’s “bad” behaviour. Rape is something that a rapist chose to do. Rape can happen to anyone. The only person responsible for a rape is a rapist. Rape is not your fault. Rape […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Home is where the soul grows
I don’t like the idea of “nationalism”, it sounds divisive and exclusive, but on days like Freedom Day I secretly wish I could hold a more legitimate claim to this country, which has adopted me. In thinking about this, a poem I came across on Facebook recently comes to mind. It is entitled “Diaspora Blues” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
How to get government services to step up their game
By Trevor Watkins Everyone knows we have a great Constitution. Hardly anyone knows what it contains, particularly most “civil” servants. How could this be changed? Most people are really only interested in things that affect them directly – saving money, saving time, cool things, interesting experiences. Tell them that Teazers can stay open because it […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Outlaw speech: Contesting sexual coercion on campus
To law falls the privilege of demarcating and controlling a particular territory as its own. That which it cannot, or will not, claim is pushed beyond its borders to become that which is without law – or outlaw. This is one way to think about the release of a list of men accused of rape […]
Posted inGender violence
A response to Charlene Smith’s #RUReferenceList Facebook post
This post is written from a position of deep respect. I have followed Charlene Smith’s writing and activism for years, and have nothing but admiration for her. Her work has revolutionised the way hospitals treat rape survivors and she has been instrumental in getting antiretrovirals administered after sexual assaults. Her writing has helped thousands of […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The TRC as biopolitical imperative (Part 2: The ‘Tumult Commission’)
In the previous post, I mentioned that Sitze (2013) argues that the TRC had its jurisprudential origins (or precedents) in “colonial sovereignty and governmentality”. I discussed how Sitze argues that the indemnity convention originated in the theory of parliamentary (political) sovereignty of Dicey’s English constitutional law. I then discussed how the indemnity convention, as an […]
Posted inGeneral, Tech
Gelernter: A dissenting voice in the field of artificial intelligence
The relationship between the human mind and body is something that has occupied philosophers at least since the father of modern philosophy, René Descartes, bequeathed his notorious “dualism” to his successors. For Descartes the mind was a different “substance” compared to the body – the former was a “thinking substance” and the latter an “extended […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The leader we want after Zuma
President Jacob Zuma is dominating headlines and dinner conversations, sadly. Between calls for him to fall, calls for him to stand down and calls for him to step up and take responsibility, the president is either the most fighting fit or thick-skinned leader of a democracy anywhere — Humpty Dumpty seems glued to the seat […]