Dr Shahieda Jansen Right from the start of my career as a psychologist, I struggled with a sense of alienation, with feelings of resistance to the very idea of “being a psychologist”. After qualifying as a psychologist I self-identified as a researcher in health program development for many years. I finally surrendered and ventured into […]
decolonization
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, Gender violence, Media, News/Politics
Raising hair, crowning glory: A poem to thank Pretoria Girls High
By Thirusha Naidu Raising Hair, Crowning Glory Thank you Pretoria Girls High You have introduced us To future heroes. Yesterday, asleep In the soft arms of their mothers Now roused. Coldly, by bleached fingers, from childhood sleep. Dragged by the hair, Protesting, into womanhood . Thank you Pretoria Girls High By your Amazing Grace Africa’s […]
Posted inGeneral
The South Africa we do not want to know
There is a real South Africa. There is a fictional South Africa. Perhaps there is one in-between. This is a country, not a nation as Christine Qunta persuasively argues in her new book, which got its political independence – not real freedom – 22 years ago. Until the latest and newest African country – South […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Decolonising course content. Whatever does that mean?
Discussions around “curricula decolonisation” are notoriously unfruitful and unstructured. There are two principal reasons for this. The first is that these discussions occur in a jargon which is vague and imprecise. The second, leading on from the first, is that the subject matter under discussion inherits this vagueness and imprecision. One is tempted, then, to […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, News/Politics
Violence is a necessary process of decolonisation
By Zinhle Manzini On February 25 it was reported that two buildings and a car were burnt at the North West University Mafikeng campus, yet this incident is not the only occurrence of violence that has disrupted some of South Africa’s universities. One would recall that a bus was also set alight a week ago […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, Lifestyle, News/Politics
If Rhodes must fall, art must burn
By Zinhle Manzini Last week it was reported that the Rhodes Must Fall students had removed paintings from the university’s walls and set them alight. While some people remain unclear about the motive of such an act, some were quick to see it as property damage. Rumours have it that the paintings that were set […]
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle, Media
The pointless hypocrisy of pretending to be homeless
The eThekwini Municipality recently offered “an opportunity of a lifetime” for residents to sleep on the streets – for a night. Along with I-Care, a non-profit helping homeless kids, the purpose was to give people a taste of the hardships experienced by being homeless. “Participants will spend one evening with homeless people of the city […]