By Michael Jones “I’m sorry, I simply do not see them” is an often-quoted response I hear when talking to high-end South African tourism brands about marketing their products in the China outbound travel market. Strange considering that official government statistics are adamant that South Africa received 132 334 Chinese tourists in 2012 making it our […]
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Posted inNews/Politics
In memoriam: Justice Pius Langa
I As I write it, I realise that I have chosen the title of this post deliberately, trite as it may be. In memory. Is that not where we are? And what we are in mourning? Memories. And, moreover, of justice. Those who know, tell us that mourning is the business of memory. In mourning […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why are young people buying into Malema’s party?
I had the privilege of being one of the founding members of the Economic Freedom Fighters when it was established a month and a half ago. One of my responsibilities in the organisation was to do data capturing of volunteers who wanted to join the economic freedom vehicle. In less than a week of the […]
Posted inGeneral, Health
The healing power of ice cream
(This guy is a hero in my opinion. We could all learn from him.) The phone conversation, as my dad, in the bed next door, recalls it, went something like this. “Hello?” “Hi, is this Jim? Where are you?” “No, it’s not Jim. I’m John, and I’m in hospital.” “Oh sorry, John, I […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
FHM: When a rape joke trumps the news
By Vincent Clery For a long time I have been sitting on the sidelines of an issue that has really irked me. Like most people I am a poor conscientious objector, I keep my opinions to myself, I cowardly express my grievances in safe, dim-lit places. Bars and dinner parties, the occasional early morning coffee […]
Posted inEnvironment
How do ‘world-class cities’ deal with their waste?
The waste crisis in my own suburb in Jozi has abated … for now. Last Friday residents flurried about with their stinky, overloaded bins in obviously excited gratitude as the Transman truck heroically crested at the top of the hill. I rushed to tell my neighbour from across the street to bring her bins out, […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
JK Rowling’s anonymous stunt is not unprecedented
Yesterday the news leaked that a well-received crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling by debut novelist Robert Galbraith was actually penned by JK Rowling. The story made headlines just in time for the Sunday news cycle – traditionally a quiet phase in world media. A story of that magnitude should by rights have dominated all talk […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Internal conflicts the new norm of 21st century
We have entered a time where clashes within nations have eclipsed clashes between nations. The mass street demonstrations sweeping across the globe have pitted governments against their people. Even in democracies the people are distrustful of their own governments as many are more interested in acquiring and then maintaining power than in the well-being of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Egypt needs a Mandela
The tumultuous tides of human protesters on the streets, bridges and squares of Cairo and Istanbul, speak of frustration with the world as it is and a yearning for a better life. A clear and precise vision of that better life as articulated in the Freedom Charter by our visionary Nelson Mandela is what contributed […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Malema’s problems will be over soonish
Let me tell ye how it shall be! The sun will be a blazing mass in the sky, rivers and oceans will run dry, massive swarms of locusts will roam the planet as human beings wither and die, blood will boil and turn to scabs as animals suffocate and drown in their own vomit … […]
Posted inEquality, Sport
I am a feminist
There, I said it. In public. My friends – one in particular – have been trying to get me to recognise it for a while. Why has it taken me so long? I guess it’s because I’ve never identified with the fierceness and passion with which some women speak on women’s issues. Friends like C, […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Health, News/Politics
Deadly circumcision and initiation practices should be outlawed
Nelson Mandela in his autobiography The Long Walk to Freedom recounts his childhood experience during this rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. He writes: “When I was sixteen, the regent decided that it was time that I became a man. In Xhosa tradition, this is achieved through one means only: circumcision. In my tradition, […]