We can’t ask him, because he’s six-months dead, but I’d be surprised if Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki thought South Africa’s transition from apartheid was a miracle. I didn’t know him at all, so wrapping my thoughts around his shoulders, as I do now, as he did the blanket that earned him the nickname in the press…
No wonder Anglo American Platinum, the world’s largest platinum producer, is fixing to lay off at least 14 000 workers. According to the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, the remuneration of a mineworker increased by an average of 30% each year between 1999 and 2011. I highly doubt the average mineworker increased his or…
Azza is an Egyptian media professional and blogger I met in Berlin this year, in early spring. As clunky as it may be, more so to point it out, I mention the season for its symbolism. Spring is a time of renewal. In the spring young shoots sprout from where old, frost-bitten branches hang and…
Everyone’s favourite whipping boy, the SABC, has done it again. Unspoken commands from the outside have barged in and, at the last minute, dictated an editorial policy. Either both the Metro FM show’s producer and host neglected to acquaint themselves with the said policy, or the policy did not exist until five minutes before the…
The defence of the indefensible. This is how George Orwell described political speech and language. But such is not the sole domain of politicians. The verbal gymnastics used to justify bigotry often reminds me that within us there exists a potential muddier of thought against whom we must guard steadfastly, lest we defend or commit…
It’s poor form for a so-called writer not to be able to express this without beckoning the aftertaste of half-digested Gouda but so be it: we are the leaders we’re waiting for. This is true and has been said many times, often with a Coelho-esque earnestness that’s left those with the misfortune of hearing it…
It’s time to admit it. You’re white and you benefited. This is the challenge that Roger Young and Leonard Shapiro have set for white South Africans. The pair created and is selling T-shirts that read across the front: “I benefited from apartheid.” They say the T-shirts are their attempt at beginning “an important conversation about…
I’ve come to despise elections because they’ve been used to warp democracy. Invariably, each time I’ve said this, one of you lot has had a conniption because you’ve misinterpreted this as me saying people should not vote. Don’t assume. Read — and exercise your atrophied comprehension muscle. There’s an accounting principle known as substance over…
Considering the Babel of languages spoken in South Africa and how each developed verbal cues and connotations in state-sanctioned isolation, I think we’d all do well to ask, before assuming, if we’ve understood what the other is saying. This goes doubly so in instances when we think the other person has said something preposterously outrageous,…
