Recently, a new method of braaing became fashionable in South Africa. It’s called the “MultiChoice Decoder and Satellite Dish Braai”. It’s more a roast, actually. This kind of braai did not appeal to me, to be honest. In the first place, I wasn’t sure how tasty it will be. I wouldn’t be able to chew […]
post-apartheid politics
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Beyond Trevor Noah and Mandela’s rainbow: Towards a politics of empathy
I’ve been thinking about Trevor Noah’s op-ed in the New York Times, and its angry critiques, since the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa on December 16. Reconciliation is a thorny topic in our moody democracy, a reminder that the road to postcolonial hell is paved with good intentions. If you missed it, Noah argued […]
Posted inEquality, Health, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Grand racism vs petty racism
By Sduduzo Mncwabe In South Africa racism and psychology had a difficult marriage consummated by Professor Hendrik Verwoerd in 1948 and dissolved by Professor Sathasivan “Saths” Cooper and company when the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) was founded in 1994. As a profession we have gone from having “one of our own” construct the […]
Posted inEquality, General, Media
Is psychology serving humanity?
By Suntosh Pillay Do we have the intellectual courage to ask what is “post” about “post-apartheid” South Africa? This question was, interestingly and perhaps not coincidently, raised at two separate conferences happening at the same time in Durban last year September. At the Steve Biko National Conference, Veli Mbhele raised this provocative and necessary question […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Did we expect too much from Mandela?
When our Big Five were herded aside a few weeks ago to make space for the visage of our most (only?) loved politician, we began facing daily reminders at every purchase that this country truly is ubiquitously contoured by Nelson Mandela. How will we even begin to explain who he was to future generations of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
How should we remember Zuma’s presidency?
History is a complex social construction but a few grand narratives tend to stick out. Among other stories we’ll remember Mandela as the reconciliatory president, asking us to throw our “pangas into the sea” and forgive. We’ll remember Mbeki’s poetic appeal to our African identity, an aloof renaissance man and, bitter-sweet, as the statesman who […]