Last year a close friend and neighbour who lived two houses away was murdered. As he lay bleeding to death on the floor of his bedroom after being hit on the back of his neck by a laptop — so hard that the laptop bent — I am sure my friend would have been pleased…
To hear a South African you’d swear that we won liberation from apartheid oppression all by ourselves. It was us who suffered. We who conquered. And when it comes to today’s failures, then there are a host of ‘them’ and ‘they’ and ‘others’ we can blame. Triumph is a cloak we all wear; failure is…
Love’s constant companion is heartbreak. And in every enterprise that is spurred by hope, we know that disappointment is shadowing us. Cynicism is an exercise in futility, it is fundamentally anti-human; it is in the nature of every person to believe that obstacles can be overcome, that healing follows pain and challenges are, as the…
The worst evil in the world is not committed by the tyrant, the bigot or the thief; the gravest evil is that performed by those we should be able to trust, a person whose very title demands respect: daddy, mommy, priest, lover, teacher, boss, political leader, spouse. Hospital wards and institutions are filled with far…
I love to cook and so there came a point during the struggle, where I gave up full-time journalism, became a full-time activist, part of the underground, and after long, endless meetings, would cook for strugglistas. Murphy Morobe loved my veal Marengo, Cyril Ramaphosa would call at 11pm after going to mines and speaking to…
Outside lies snow almost two metres deep. Snowfalls across the United States have hit record levels this month, with New York receiving an all-time record of 37 inches so far. That is a lot of shovelling off sidewalks — you get fined if you don’t shovel your sidewalk — and digging out cars, garages are…
US President Barack Obama delivered his most important State of the Nation address this week. The man who seemed to respond to so many dreams is, as president, as emotionally stiff as the way he carries his body. And to be in the US is to realise that one is in a nation that has…
This year three friends have died and one was murdered. The day after Keith died this week, a friend told me of a member of his congregation who had given up his battle at the same time as Keith, except that he had shot himself after shooting his wife, leaving their two sons. Thank God…
“What we need is a bill of rights that will protect us against predatory governments now and for the next 200 years while we try to adjust ourselves to what freedom means and to resist all attempts to take it away again — which is the nature of all governments however democratically elected they may…
When Mastercard sent the emergency card ydy they said cash could not be drawn at an ATM, but at any bank. Last night Mastercard supervisor Michael Monk phoned to apologise for the lack of service I had received and said I would have no problems with the card. Today before my Italian class at 8.30…
