As instructed, I kept my alter ego secret — in fact, few people today have any idea I was once a secret agent. Let alone what a bad spy I was. Six weeks after the hurly-burly of starting a new life in a new world, I was contacted at Jan Smuts House and two colleagues […]
apartheid
Posted inGeneral
When I was a spy
If tomorrow belongs to the youth, yesterday must be ultimate egalitarianism. Yesterday belongs to everyone. While the future is vague, diaphanous, ethereal, the past is unambiguous, immutable and solid. We can all change the future. None can change the past. If, like me, you feel a little like a stranger in a strange land in […]
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle
When I was a prison guard
Having identified 36 jobs for which I’ve actually been paid in my 60-year lifespan, I’m sharing the ludicrous, the lucrative, the lugubrious and the lessons learnt. In no specific order, here’s Chapter Two … I never fancied being a Prison Guard. But it was one of those unanticipated side-jobs you had to do as a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
No future for white South Africans?
Do white people have a future in South Africa? According John Simpson, the world affairs editor of BBC News: Yes, there is a future for the prosperous white middle class and the upper-class whites (who remain shaded from poverty by their apartheid booty). This is not the case for the poor whites and white farmers. […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Pandering to apartheid
The DA has recently launched a poster campaign entitled “Know Your DA”. It attempts, I think, to bring to light the “untold” role that some of their founding members played in the fight against apartheid. Typical of South African politics, supporters of opposition parties countered these claims with a series of spoof posters, intent on revealing […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Why workers can survive on peanuts
By Roshila Jarosz At around 12.20pm last Wednesday afternoon I was stunned. Actually, for a brief moment I thought my ears were deceiving me, then I realised there was no such luck. In part it was my fault — I was listening to student radio station Tuks FM (what’s an alternative rock girl to do?). […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Forget apartheid, time ANC government took responsibility
By Zipho Shusha There has been a clash among the ANC top brass concerning Trevor Manuel’s utterances. Manuel said it was time for the government to take responsibility for its actions. “We [government] should no longer say it’s apartheid’s fault.” He further said that “we should get up every morning and recognise we have responsibility. […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
There are many Oranias in SA
By Athambile Masola As a product of a Eurocentric, former white educational institution, I was once very quick to embrace non-racialism (that race should no longer be used as a marker to understand our experiences). I’ve been living in Cape Town for over a year and have come face to face with the politics of […]
Posted inGeneral
Ben Ngubane and Piekniek by Dingaan
Ben Ngubane – till recently the chairperson of the perpetually dysfunctional SABC board – was appointed as the first minister of arts, culture, science and technology after the historic 1994 elections. It was a euphoric time for the arts sector. The right to freedom of creative expression was guaranteed in the interim Constitution. Apartheid’s censorship […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The problem in SA is not the ANC
The oldest liberation movement on the continent, the African National Congress, is facing a crisis of great magnitude. Not only are there power struggles within the organisation but a sense of resignation towards the organisation in broader society. The masses have evolved from a state of defeatism — induced by the post-1994 euphoria — to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why I no longer tell my brother to wear his pants properly
Saggy pants is a popular form of displaying rebellion to teenage respectability by young men who wear their trousers far down their waists, often times generously exposing their underwear. Saggy pants are mostly associated with black male masculinity, which has been highlighted by the imagery often associated with mainstream hip-hop culture. Of course today this […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Europeans must leave South Africa!
For ages, the country today known as South Africa was no more than a loose band of separate communities. The Nguni tribes, which settled on the Southern tip of Africa around the 10th century, neither considered themselves a single nation, nor did they consider the Khoisan people already inhibiting the area part of their collective. […]