Posted inNews/Politics

Through the haze of that race cloud

My biggest fear in entering the debate about Jimmy Manyi’s comments on coloured people is that I will be seen as a coloured person speaking about coloured issues. My fear is that, because of this, my views will not be taken seriously. Unfortunately, our post-apartheid society has become so racialised that we no longer look […]

Posted inGeneral

A birthday with strangers

I have just spent my 50th birthday with a group of strangers in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Well, most of them were strangers until two days ago, but by the time of my birthday on Saturday/Sunday (depending on which time zone you followed), most of them had become close friends. The occasion was an “International Dialogue for […]

Posted inLifestyleNews/Politics

What’s in a proper noun?

Amid all the political and other chaos in South Africa last week, we missed a potentially very important story: and that involved the planned changes to Scrabble. The producers of this popular board game announced that they intend to introduce a rule that would allow the use of proper nouns, something that has never happened […]

Posted inLifestyle

Lessons from India

Before I went to India, I was warned that it could potentially have a life-changing impact on me. And it did. Days after I returned from Mount Abu, via Ahmadabad, Mumbai, Doha, Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg, I am still struggling to get to grips with what I had experienced and how it has changed […]