[For an update to this post see An apology to my fellow countrymen by Sandile Memela] Would Oscar Pistorius be on trial for murder if Reeva Steenkamp had turned out to be a black man? In fact, on Valentine’s Day last year when Pistorius fired four fatal shots at close range through a locked bathroom […]
Oscar Pistorius
Posted inMedia
And the Oscar goes to hypocrisy
The Oscar frenzy has commenced. And I don’t mean the one with the shiny gold men. The trial of the century has begun, you guys. And it’s making me ashamed to work in the media. Look, I’m no legal expert so I don’t have much of an opinion on the proceedings. Except one. Oscar killed […]
Posted inGeneral
Pistorius, and how evidence is in the eye of the believer
Here we go again. It’s the OJ Simpson trial all over. Oscar Pistorius, famous sportsman shoots his partner and faces trial for murder. The “facts” of both cases at first glance suggest that crimes were committed, but the next few weeks as Pistorius goes to trial will see heavily contrasting stories of events. Lawyers and […]
Posted inGender violence
Oscar Pistorius and how Valentine’s Day kills
Today is Valentine’s Day — a day when capitalist consumption and heteronormative myth-making are in full swing: red roses (for the women, of course), images of happily-ever-after coupling (mostly of a heterosexual bend), and the coming together of brand “Hetero-Love” in a frenzy of consumerism and schmaltz. This day is yet another consummation of a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Pistorius case highlights the failings of social media
Oscar Pistorius is an inspirational icon whose fierce love for his woman inadvertently had nightmarish consequences. That’s what the cloyingly vociferous fans on his website would have us believe. Oscar Pistorius is an ego-on-stilts with temper issues which, due to his arrogance, inevitably resulted in violence. That’s what his detractors punt on social media sites […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Behind the shock and awe, the violence is ‘normal’
The murders of miners at Marikana by brutal state apparatus, the rape and murder of Anene Booysen by a group of men, and the killing of Reeva Steenkamp by her male lover have common threads. All three reflect a confluence of systems of violence that span centuries. Each is a product of past and prevailing […]
Posted inGeneral
Zuma to transfer Lulu and Oscar to Manchester United
Every time an English Premier League prima donna gets left out of an important game or is criticised by his boss the media goes tilt trying to figure out when he will be sold, for how much and to whom. A good case in point being Wayne Rooney who was benched for the vital Champions […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The Oscar Pistorius case: Time magazine is wrong, Lulu is right
Two mainstream media companies have turned the Oscar Pistorius case into an opportunity to ruminate on the perils of post-white rule. Time magazine and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) have both in their recent coverage used Pistorius’s defence to weigh in on the South African “culture of violence”. It is notable that these media companies […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Lynching black men
On March 1 we watched in disbelief and horror as a young Mozambican man, Mido Macia, was forcibly handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged behind the vehicle as he cried out for them to stop. When the car eventually arrived at the police station eyewitnesses say he was further beaten by […]
Posted inNews/Politics
South Africa and that Time cover
Alex Perry’s story about Oscar Pistorius and South Africa’s culture of violence has inevitably attracted a great deal of attention from the Twittering classes. The general consensus is that the piece, which draws a link between Pistorius’s shooting of Reeva Steenkamp and the endemic violence that characterises our national culture, is poor journalism and full […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Would stricter gun control have saved Reeva?
So Lulu Xingwana thinks we need better gun control. “Domestic violence is exacerbated by easy access to guns. We are making a call for stricter gun control,” she said at a media briefing last week. “As a country we need to wage a sustained and effective campaign against the availability of guns in our homes […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Anene, Reeva media frenzy reveals a nation’s shallowness
For the past three weeks we have been treated to a feeding frenzy around the deaths of two women due to violence in South Africa, by the media, by politicians and by commentators (myself included). But I am wondering if we are not losing sight of what is really at stake here. As a commissioner […]