The Congress of South African Trade Unions this week expressed support for the imposition of race quotas in soccer, pointing to the absence of white players in the national team as a grave social injustice. On the paleface of it, what a breakthrough this is for minorities. Bafana Bafana – The Boys, The Boys – […]
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Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Can SA, India and Brazil reboot the global human-rights narrative?
There is a pressing need for southern democracies to reclaim the human-rights narrative from the strategic imperatives of traditionally powerful western governments. While the ability of India, Brazil and South Africa to emerge as moral voices from the south is not in doubt, their willingness to take the global centre-stage on human rights is certainly […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
The problem with ’emasculating men’
“Gender activist” Mbuyiselo Botha and University of South Africa professor Kopano Ratele recently wrote an article published in the Sunday Independent titled “Capitalism has emasculated black men”. They argue that “the struggle of the mineworkers is part of the long war waged by the black working class and poor men to regain their self-worth”. And […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
An ordinary evening
On a Thursday evening not so long ago I decided to stop by Woolies on the way home. I got off the train earlier, got some groceries, and undertook the walk from Claremont to my house in Harfield. I had underestimated the weather. It was howling with wind and I spent most of the journey […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Of clowns, covert racism and whitewashing black concerns
The furore over the cartoon depicting the ANC parliamentarians and their electorate as a bunch of inept clowns is indicative of how far we still have to go in terms of embedded and unconscious racism in South Africa. There is nothing wrong with critiquing government in satirical depictions, but there is something horribly wrong when […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Finding nirvana in the bosom of the mountain spirit
It is our second visit to Korea, less than two years after the first, and my initial (favourable) impressions of the country have been confirmed on more than one occasion already. I have been invited here by a colleague to present a paper at a conference on science fiction, but because we wanted to investigate […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Mogoeng: Give truth a sporting chance
You know the ol’ Mark Twain witticism: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes?” Well … I got a lesson in that this week. When I got to thinking about it (and I’ll get to it in a sec), this saying sprung to mind, and – […]
Posted inGeneral
A private school with a difference
One usually associates a private school with the highest possible cost of school education, not so? I recall that, when my children went to school, they attended so-called model C schools, partly because there were several excellent schools in that category in the area where we lived, and partly because, even if I had wanted […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Joyce Banda, neither saint nor sinner
Written with Lindiwe Makhunga* The defeat of incumbent Joyce Banda in Malawi’s recent and controversial presidential elections, raises some uncomfortable but necessary questions about what constitutes collective expectations of women’s formal leadership in sub-Saharan Africa. On Saturday, Peter Mutharika of Malawi’s Democratic Progressive Party emerged as the winner with 36.4% of the vote, Lazarus Chakwera […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
Apology for the sexual assault of Jordao College learners not enough
It is Child Protection Week this week in South Africa. Last week a bloodied condom was found in the girls’ bathroom at Jordao College, a private school, in Gauteng. Instead of using this as an opportunity to encourage positive and healthy discussions around sexuality, the principal instructed teachers to conduct “tests for sexual activity” on […]
Posted inEquality
Maya Angelou: A phenomenal life for a phenomenal woman
“There was no need to discuss racial prejudice. Hadn’t we all, black and white, just snatched the remaining Jews from the hell of concentration camps? Race prejudice was dead. A mistake made by a young country. Something to be forgiven as an unpleasant act committed by an intoxicated friend” writes Dr Maya Angelou in her […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Time to have Faith in the ANC’s ‘good story’?
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, is what the mafia don advised. It’s a Machiavellian strategy that President Jacob Zuma has embraced and is taking to absurd lengths with his new Cabinet. It is now a veritable army of ministers and deputy ministers that oversees South Africa’s government. This week’s oath taking ceremony […]