Not so very long ago, as recent as 1977, the exponents of Black Consciousness (BC) taught us that there were two nations in South Africa: one European, oppressive and privileged; the other African, oppressed and dispossessed. The minority Europeans were aware that they were outnumbered by the natives. So, they went out of their way […]
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Posted inNews/Politics
President Zuma, not in our name!
It is a very sad day in the life of Africans when those who are tasked with the responsibility of championing unity undermine it. This morning was saddening for the delegation of South Africa that is attending the Land and Agrarian Reform Conference taking place in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, a delegation that […]
Posted inGeneral
Are we facing an ethical vacuum today?
In Living in the End Times (Verso, 2010, p. 324), the man who has been described as the “most dangerous philosopher in the West” (New Republic), Slavoj Žižek, makes the following remark: “The task [today] is to restore civility, not a new ethical substance. Civility is not the same as custom (in the strong sense […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Seeing red: This is what hate speech looks like
What is the Red October movement hoping to achieve through its hate-based hodgepodge discourse that is a bizarre combination of radical left communist speak and backward racist doctrine, peppered with obtuse analysis and expedient misinterpretation of social statistics. No really — what do they see at the end of this tunnel vision? Do they think […]
Posted inGeneral, Health
In the arms of the angel
We all need an “angel” now and again. Life gets in the way of our plans and dreams, and these angels offer an escape for a while, a respite from the real world, a safe place in our search for comfort. These angels are not your stereotypical spiritual beings, but the kind recorded in the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Voting is no favour to any political party
By Gugu Ndima There is a growing concern at the rate in which the loosely categorised “born-frees” or “Mandela generation” is registering to vote. The current percentage of young people eligible to vote between the ages of 18 and 29 currently sits at 8.4%. As a nation this should be of grave concern given that […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Stealing black people’s pain
By Gcobani Qambela and Simamkele Dlakavu The results of the last South African census revealed a South Africa deeply divided along racial lines, with the black majority “still at the bottom of the rung” according to President Jacob Zuma. In terms of average annual income, a white household earns about R365 000 while a black household […]
Posted inEquality, General
Enough about penises – let’s talk about c*nt.
While the world is only just coming to terms with saying the word vagina out loud, cunt remains a term that takes people’s breath away as they cringe at the sheer power it contains. Pushed underground, banished from conventional language, cunt has long since been appropriated by patriarchs and misogynists and used as an utterance […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The ‘new’ South Africa #BroughtToYouByTheANC
I was reading through status updates on Facebook when I saw one in particular that caught my attention. It was a photo of a DA billboard with lettering that reads: “E-tolls, proudly brought to you by the ANC”. I then decided that I’d provoke a discussion on my wall about what people thought of the […]
Posted inEnvironment
Poaching, poisoning and the consequences
Recently in Zimbabwe while the country was preoccupied with its general elections, the press almost completely ignored a catastrophic chemical poisoning of animals. Ivory poachers killed more than 80 elephants by poisoning water holes with cyanide. The elephants had constituted one of the world’s biggest herds, and were slaughtered in Zimbabwe’s largest park, the Hwange […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Glenn Greenwald vs Newsnight – when did the BBC become the lackeys of the security state?
Something deeply disturbing is going on in Britain, right under the nose of one of the oldest democracies in the world. Watch the video embedded below to see what I mean. For those of you unable to see the video, it’s an interview of Glenn Greenwald by veteran BBC journalist, Kirsty Wark. Her first question […]
Posted inMedia
Cinematic African magic: Cisse’s ‘Yeelen’ at iMPAC short-film festival
In a discussion of African beliefs in magic, Ryszard Kapuscinski (in The Shadow of the Sun, 2002) describes the strange nocturnal behaviour of a group of men, carrying someone on a stretcher on the outskirts of a village where he and his guide were spending the night, dashing furtively from shrub to shrub instead of […]