Thought Leader » Sarah Britten

Why the rhino poaching issue matters

Sarah Britten — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:55:41 +0000

I’ll bet my Friday was more interesting than your Friday. If you want proof, here’s a photo: That’s me in the screaming pink Hello Kitty cap. Next to me is my friend Mbekezeli Khumalo. The guy in the shorts at the end is Mark Boucher. The story about how the two of us came to...

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Into the aerotropolis

Sarah Britten — Sun, 12 May 2013 14:09:26 +0000

The best place to spot planes in Johannesburg is on Jan Smuts Road off Yaldwyn in Boksburg. You park right next to the runway, just beyond the razor wire, and wait. On Saturday my brother and I achieved a haul of a Kulula 737, three SA Express Embraers and an SAA Star Alliance Airbus. I...

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Freedom to be our own worst enemies

Sarah Britten — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:44:50 +0000

It’s Freedom Day. Nineteen years ago today, I was in Hoedspruit, listening to reports of the queues on the radio and reflecting on stories about the AWB telling farmers about MK flying into the airforce base, warning them to hide in the shower with their guns. If South Africa were a person, it would be...

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Alcohol in Australia: Some observations

Sarah Britten — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:20:04 +0000

So we’re facing the prospect of something that the advertising industry has been fighting for years: the banning of alcohol advertising. Having just visited one of the great nanny states, Australia, I thought it would be interesting to share some observations of how alcohol issues are handled there. The fact that I was able to...

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Back to Australia

Sarah Britten — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:08:50 +0000

I’m typing this as I sit in the airport. I’ve been bawling ever since I said goodbye to my parents at the Gautrain and the waterworks have been going like a burst mains on and off ever since. Some of the strangers passing me might have noticed the tears streaming down my face and assumed...

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South Africa and that Time cover

Sarah Britten — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:37:56 +0000

Alex Perry’s story about Oscar Pistorius and South Africa’s culture of violence has inevitably attracted a great deal of attention from the Twittering classes. The general consensus is that the piece, which draws a link between Pistorius’s shooting of Reeva Steenkamp and the endemic violence that characterises our national culture, is poor journalism and full...

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Would stricter gun control have saved Reeva?

Sarah Britten — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:05:30 +0000

So Lulu Xingwana thinks we need better gun control. “Domestic violence is exacerbated by easy access to guns. We are making a call for stricter gun control,” she said at a media briefing last week. “As a country we need to wage a sustained and effective campaign against the availability of guns in our homes...

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Where were you when you heard the news?

Sarah Britten — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:07:12 +0000

I was somewhere outside Frankfort on my way to the Clarens Craft Beer Festival when I heard the ruling. I can’t be sure exactly, but I know I was on the R26 and there were potholes, and SAFM was the only station I could pick up. 702 had kept me company from Johannesburg, onto the...

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Why are we obsessed with the Oscar case?

Sarah Britten — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:36:44 +0000

A week is a very long time these days. In our addiction to new news, we’ve become a society with ADD, The half-life of any given story is a day, if that. Since the story that Oscar Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day, we have spoken and tweeted...

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Will Agang take off?

Sarah Britten — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:05:28 +0000

So Mamphela Ramphele, South Africa’s last great hope if we’re going to break the impasse of our current political landscape, which cynics might summarise as a choice between self-interested thieves and self-righteous prefects, has finally announced what we’ve suspected for some time: she’s launching a political party. Wait, not a political party, a political “platform”....

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