While sitting in a queue at the Hillbrow police station yesterday morning, I started chatting to the woman next to me – a young African woman, there to lay a charge against her boss – he had slapped her that morning. ‘For no good reason’, she said. She had done nothing wrong. And when she [...]
In Capital’s Shadow
It was June 2000. As the last rays of sun kissed us goodbye and the night lights of New York city took their places, my sister and I quickly found seats as part of an audience in the shadow of the World Trade Centre. We were here to listen to Bra Hugh – Masekela. It [...]
The Monster Intellect Of Ronald Suresh Roberts
Just two chapters into Ronald Suresh Roberts’s book about Thabo Mbeki and I’m already seething. I guess what pisses me off most is the fact that Mr Roberts sets as his standard for measuring ‘native intelligence’, the very white society that he wants us to believe he (and the President) have surpassed intellectually. [...]
A Nation Of Pimps
I don’t listen to the radio too often. But twice in the last month I’ve had the luxury of driving with sound. The pleasure of tuning into, among others, Gauteng’s ‘leading youth station’, Y-fm. On the first occasion, driving past groups of protesting public sector workers making their way into Braamfontein [...]
It’s Not About A Woman President
I cringed one night many months ago when an Italian friend of mine asked us to sing ‘the Zuma song’ – ‘Awulethu ‘mshini wami’. Unknowingly, with his few words, he was erasing years of different memories and representations of a song that, I am sure, is a favourite of many who grew up in the [...]
