Every now and again, I pick up some object and find that, to my astonishment, it is not made in China. It seems that so much is, from cheap clothing to iPhones. So it’s not surprising that China is now South Africa’s biggest trading partner. Perhaps the big increase in trade is behind an assumption…
We all know that politicians twist words to suit occasion, but the use of nationalisation is the most egregious yet. At times, nationalisation is taken to mean state intervention, for instance by setting up new companies, though that is not the general meaning. My friend Steven Friedman has argued that the ANCYL specifically means selective…
It would be the ultimate irony if the phone-hacking scandal in the United Kingdom that led to the sinking of the News of the World dragged press freedom down with it. The signs are not encouraging. It has been forecast that the scandal will probably see the demise of the UK press self-regulatory body, the…
Pick ‘n Pay recently rolled out its Smart Shopper card, one of those loyalty cards that allows you to amass redeemable points. Do I smell the influence of the recent move of US retailer Walmart into South Africa, via Massmart? It’s a possible small example of the benefits of competition or the threat of competition….
A new pointer for Pravin: Keep it simple, keep it short. While I was preparing for a recent radio interview with Ashraf Garda on the Sunday SAfm media slot about jargon in the budget speech and journalists’ responsibility to simplify that, it occurred to me to look at budget speeches elsewhere. I looked at only…
Musician Frank Zappa famously remarked that communism collapsed because people want stuff. That is an oversimplification, clearly, because a closer look at the history of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe shows that each country was different. Moreover, the desire for democracy rather than simply material well-being should also be considered. Yet there is…
Dear Jeremy, I am deeply disappointed in the South African Communist Party and in you personally for supporting censorship in the form of a media tribunal. You have lost my respect as an intellectual and as a democrat. The occasion for my letter is your article in Umsebenzi Online. I would respond directly online, but…
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has appealed for calm when discussing the ANC’s proposed media tribunal and not go on the offensive. On the contrary we all should, whether we are in and of the news media or not, forcefully resist this attempt to curtail freedom of speech. Let’s be blunt. Whether it comes in the…
For the sake of all that’s sensible, can we stop reporting that South Africa has the greatest level of inequality in the world? It has become South Africa’s biggest cliché, and it crops up in many stories written about the country, even one as balanced as the New York Times take on the Soccer World…
Sitting down every morning to face an email inbox that never empties has prompted me to make this list. Dealing with email is Sisyphean in nature. Sisyphus was the guy whose punishment was to roll a rock up a hill only to have it roll down again, eternally. Email: * Makes it too easy to…
