The Disappeared (2013-14) is a devastating and powerful documentary about the deadly and obscure fate of those deemed to be “traitors” by the IRA, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. “If there was a hierarchy of the victims of the Troubles,” says Darragh MacIntyre, the film’s presenter, The Disappeared were at the bottom. The invisible […]
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Posted inBusiness, Environment
The mining multinationals in Mozambique: Is it a win-win situation?
By Antonio Macheve Jr The generic stories of multinational companies extracting natural resources from poor resource-rich countries often maintain a strong emphasis on exploitation of cheap labour, environmental degradation, poor local economic and social development, and unresponsive corporate social responsibility policies as the most direct effects of such operations on the population, particularly around the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Buti Manamela’s moment of truth: Luthuli House rules
Buti Manamela, ANC MP and leader of the Young Communist League, caused a stir in Parliament this week when he stated bluntly that he acts on orders from Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters. He was speaking at the meeting where the ANC used its parliamentary majority to shut down the ad hoc committee tasked with […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Condemned to obscurity: The state of our population register and the right to vote
By Liesl Muller I recently attended an election-observer training session in preparation for next month’s elections. I was inspired by the chance to play my part in the democratic process shaping the future of our country. Voting is an opportunity many South Africans did not have in the years before democracy and which South Africans […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What are ‘(post)apartheid conditions’?
This may seem like a straightforward question, requiring – and allowing – straightforward answers. Nothing of the sort, it turns out, and if one had any such illusions, the new book, (Post)apartheid Conditions – Psychoanalysis and Social Formation (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013) by psychoanalytical theorist Derek Hook, rapidly disabuses one of them. Hook, of […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
The uncomfortable truth about white masculinity
Africa Check has published an article intimating that white women are more likely to die at the hands of their husbands, boyfriends and partners. This, and other research, directly challenges the notion of a “white genocide” carried out by “unknown black men”. Lisa Vetten, the researcher behind the article, along with journalist Nechama Brodie, Professor […]
Posted inMedia
Semantic sorcery: Using words to bewitch, conjure and transfigure
For 21 years the writer Alan Moore has been a practicing magician. He says in this interview that on his fortieth birthday, “rather than bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a mid-life crisis, I decided it might be more interesting to terrify them by going completely mad and declaring myself to be […]
Posted inNews/Politics
When a ‘spoil-your-vote’ campaign might be effective
The Sidikiwe! (We are fed up!) campaign has been launched, calling on potential voters – particularly among those who might have supported the ruling ANC in the past – to repudiate the ANC in its current form in the forthcoming elections. The leaders of the campaign – including a former minister and deputy minister in […]
Posted inGeneral
Where do we go from here?
When the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) recently published its most comprehensive and most drastic report on climate change to date, the president of the United States, Mr Barack Obama, called it a “call to action”. It remains to be seen if the leader of the biggest economy on the planet will live up […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
How will our society be measured on corruption?
Rita* fled the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa in 2009 after suffering unspeakable horrors and grave violations to her rights amid ongoing violence. The department of home affairs immediately recognised her as a refugee but when she was asked to pay a large amount of money to receive her refugee permit, Rita refused […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Theatre of terror at the trial of Oscar Pistorius
The trial of Oscar Pistorius has turned into a horror movie, bringing home the reality of an alleged femicide, and the trauma of crime in South Africa. In the hero’s tale, the villain brings conflict until the hero is able to resolve. State prosecutor Gerrie Nel has undertaken this heroism in the courtroom at the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
India, SA risk forsaking their proud histories on human rights
India and South Africa are increasingly tarnishing their reputations as democratic and rights-respecting nations, most recently by unsuccessfully seeking to undermine a resolution on the right to peaceful protest at the UN Human Rights Council. Wrangling at the world’s premier human-rights body this March has marked another low in international relations for India and South […]