Posted inNews/Politics

Stealing rooibos

It has recently been reported that an unidentified French firm is attempting to register a number of trademarks including the terms “South African rooibos” and “rooibos”. It is not the first time a foreign company tried to trademark rooibos tea. I have two problems with the fact that the French want to trademark rooibos. Firstly, […]

Posted inGeneralNews/Politics

Is hierarchical democracy an oxymoron?

I sometimes wonder if the constitutional notion of “participative democracy” is not just an impossible, idealistic dream. We are eighteen years down the road since our 1994 elections and the only hard evidence I have of my participation in our new democracy has been making my mark on a few ballot papers. The countless thousands […]