I think we’ve all more or less figured out sex by now. If publications like Amper Twaalf, It’s Perfectly Normal and general sex education didn’t raise suspicion – late night e.tv movies and plain instinct would have led you to the inevitable conclusion that there is something going on down there. Why then do lifestyle […]
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Posted inNews/Politics
Anything but the ANC
By Liz Molomo Watching silently from the side-lines over the last few months, as our country slowly unravels, many feel the restlessness of a nation at war with itself. It is not a war of guns and bombs. Neither is it a war of the pen and the sword. It is a war of words, […]
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The technology and theology of ‘Battlestar Galactica’
One of my all-time favourite science-fiction series, Ronald D Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, which ran for four seasons in the US – from 2003 to 2009 – and was an expansion of and imaginative re-elaboration on the Glen Larson 1978 television series by the same name, is much more than meets the eye. This is true […]
Posted inNews/Politics
After 33 years of stability, the labour landscape shudders
The tragic shootings at Lonmin’s Marikana mine is a wake-up call to South Africans who imagined that the hard yards had ended with the advent of democracy. It is also a seismic shock to a labour-relations system that has weathered more than three decades. At the very least, the shooting to death of 34 miners […]
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Tightie whitie vaginas
Last December, during the Cop 17 United Nation’s Climate Change Conference in Durban, I found myself alongside a Nigerian, Senegalese and Kenyan woman in the International Convention Centre’s prayer room. They were speaking in hushed tones when I entered but I soon gathered that the topic of discussion was how best to tighten their muscles […]
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Tales from a mine shaft
Ever since I was a child many people – young and old – from my village have worked in the mines, from uncles, cousins to friends. One thing remains common, despite their hard work digging precious metals, they have very little to show in monetary terms. They come home at end of the year with […]
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Farewell, my queen, farewell greed
The French Revolution, triggered by the storming of the Bastille in 1789, was an “event” in Badiou’s sense of a history-changing occurrence made possible by a large number of individuals acting in concert to achieve a certain goal. This event is vividly brought to life – albeit from a distance – in Benoit Jacquot’s wonderfully […]
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Commissioner Baai — gone too soon
It’s heart-wrenching to lose someone who led a true cause, especially since it involved ensuring poor people have access to basic food. More so when we live in a world where those who have the power to change things show little or no regard for vulnerable sections of our society. Gladstone Sandi Baai was a […]
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Reconciliation at the Jewish Boer monument
Last week, I participated in an unveiling ceremony for a new monument in memory of 12 Jewish fighters who died serving on the Boer side in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. The monument is located near the Burgher Memorial on Platrand, a ridge bordering Ladysmith to the south-west, and was erected as a joint initiative […]
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The ‘crystals’ of time
It seems to me undeniable that the human sciences – short for the social sciences and the humanities – are facing a crisis of perceived irrelevance in a world suffused in unreflective technophilia and, concomitantly, indifference to the potential value of the humanistic knowledge represented by, and archived in these sciences. Among the many ways […]
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Women’s lives remain unchanged
This month is dedicated to women and the struggles they go through on a daily basis. I was wondering how I could pay tribute with an article to their heroism — as a son of a woman myself and a little brother to my sister. Then my new colleague and boss, Pregs Govender, wrote something […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Gay men for women’s rights
By Lwando Scott The women’s struggle is often talked about as something only women should be involved in. This is wrong, it’s a struggle for us all, and yes that includes gay men. There’s often a silence on the part of gay men when it comes to women’s rights. This is unfortunate because the sexual […]