It’s, more often than not, a particular sort of person that says that kind of thing. I’m not referring to Jimmy Manyi’s comments about “coloureds” but to his use of the economic phrase “over-supply”. He could have been discoursing about barrels of oil, or bushels of wheat, or any other commodity but he was talking…
One of the better observations made by a local commentator in the wake of the WikiLeaks disclosures, was offered by Richard Calland, who suggested that the “purely nation-state, Westphalian view of the world” was increasingly in question. Calland wrote of a compelling anarchist narrative informing WikiLeaks’s direct action. He is quite right but the point…
Examine the latest available Human Development Index (HDI) figures — a measure of education, life expectancy and standard of living — and you will find that the 2010 World Cup hosts are ranked 129 out of 182 UN member states. Or a whole 19 places below both Gaza and the West Bank. The effect of…
A hat tip to Mphutlane wa Bofelo for pointing out the subtext to the ANC’s claim to the “shoot the boer!” song: For is it not the case, as wa Bofelo points out, that the attempt to establish a heritage status for the song locates the struggle in the past? And what of the new…
On October 2nd the Irish electorate will be pressed into voting again on a treaty that they rejected as long ago as last year. There have been no changes to the Lisbon Treaty itself as, indeed, there was little to distinguish it from the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe that Dutch and French voters…
Forgive me for being so presumptuous, but I suspect that even the well informed are unaware of some of the most remarkable international news in recent weeks. Now if this supposition is correct then ask yourself, dear reader, for we will surely agree about the significance of the following — whether a corporate dominated media…
In spite of being unsuccessful last week’s attempt by the Guardian columnist George Monbiot to arrest as a war criminal the former US ambassador to the UN, and Under-Secretary Of State for Arms Control, is a salutary reminder of civic duty. The charge against John Bolton, who was speaking at a literature festival in Wales,…
On 21 April 2008, the American Defence Secretary Robert Gates, told the West Point Military Academy’s cadets that they could expect “years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world” for — note well — “there are no exit strategies”. At the Academy, much is made of their claim that “the history we teach was…
Recently a friend asked me what I, as a former member of the organisation, now make of the ANC Youth League. Her question resulted in me googling the names of my former comrades, who in the early Nineties had been activists in a range of Congress-aligned associations at the formerly named University of Port Elizabeth….
These six simple words are widely acknowledged as one of the greatest short, short stories. Ernest Hemingway wrote it, and with it won his barroom bet to that end. A Cape Town tabloid once came close with “Man dies kak death”, but I think you’ll agree that, despite its gain in brevity, it lacks the…
