Thought Leader

For me, the iconic photograph of George W Bush was of the American president reading to a bunch of kindergarten kids. It was conceived as standard pre-election pap, a photo opportunity to show the caring side of the nation’s most powerful man. But as it happened the date was September 11, 2001 and the picture…

It has been formally announced that the direct descendants of its invention have formally redefined Ubuntu, the concept formally defined, as: “We only exist because of each other” and similar. The new definition has been proclaimed as follows: expedience ownership heartlessness industrious stupidity abuse of the elderly, infirm or powerless homelessness (also homes that are…

Reality TV is funny business. Everyone in the industry knows that you score massive ratings, sometimes even in spite of viewer scepticism, when you allow an audience a window into the so-called real day in the life of a celebrity. As spectators we have a love-hate relationship with reality television precisely because it allows us…

Who cares about the rights of Mr Mandela and Mrs Suzman? It’s all about the rights of politicians to brand themselves to death. Let me say this loud and clear. I am sorry in advance for having so little respect for politicians everywhere. Mostly, I am sorry because we are landed with them, these public-relations…

“I’ll get stuck in a small room with you Any day now, any day now” Karen Zoid Recently, I took part in a video shoot on Robben Island. The day’s work entailed that I had to spend several hours in Madiba’s old jail cell, the little space where he had spent seventeen of his twenty…

There is probably nothing as tiresome, irritating and reactionary in contemporary South African discourse as the knee-jerk accusation of racism in response to anything critical of the ANC government, of any black person or of any institution that happens to be managed by black people (in the broadest, Biko-esque sense of “black”). Ironically, this knee-jerk,…

Racism is alive and living in the confines of the whiteness construct. This year alone has thrown up many local and global racist incidents that prove that we are a long way off from a post-racist society. It seems to me that whiteness is losing the plot and in serious need of deconstruction — hence…

When our Big Five were herded aside a few weeks ago to make space for the visage of our most (only?) loved politician, we began facing daily reminders at every purchase that this country truly is ubiquitously contoured by Nelson Mandela. How will we even begin to explain who he was to future generations of…

Marikana is a name like Soweto, June 16. Like Sharpeville. It is a turning point. History will record it. Future generations will shudder. There are few South Africans whose hearts are not broken by those eight letters. Here where I live in the United States, Americans have bought into the South African Dream, the Rainbow…

By Shireen Mukadam I had a dream. I was lying on the grass of the Boston Commons surrounded by three new friends. A Jordanian-Syrian, studying in Australia. A Catalonian Spaniard working in Colombia. And Marube from Kenya — a 52-year-old, who has aspirations of resuming his law degree, which he commenced at 26 in 1986…