In this week’s edition, the Mail & Guardian published comments made by former Democratic Alliance parliamentarian Raenette Taljaard on her growing isolation and ultimate separation from the DA in her book Up in Arms: Pursuing Accountability for the Arms Deal in Parliament. Reflecting on her last speech as a DA parliamentarian, delivered on November 9 […]
identity
Posted inGeneral
South African enough to take to lunch?
By Duncan Scott What’s in a nationality? In a country in which political rhetoric and common sentiment towards foreign nationals is often belligerent, quite a lot. A South African – let’s call him K – recently put it to me, “When it comes to nationality, like in every other civilised country in the world, there […]
Posted inNews/Politics
From Jewish South African to South African Jew
By Martine Schaffer The question of my South African identity was first raised when I went to Israel after school to study for a year at Hebrew University. I had been educated at Carmel College in Durban and brought up in an environment where my character was very much formed around being Jewish. In Israel, […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
‘Look, a Black Piet!’
By Marthe van der Wolf Being black and having an Afro most of my life, I heard this once too often. Probably every black person in the Netherlands has been called a “Black Piet” at least once in his or her life. Especially in the weeks prior to December 5. It hurts, it always has […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What makes you a bad black?
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a bright-eyed bushy-tailed little black Sipho was born with a defect, which doctors would later recognise to be a dictionary, in his mouth. Little Sipho was a curious little boy, reading anything he could get his tiny Zulu hands on (of course, relative to other kids his […]