Mphoentle Mageza
Guest Author
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/ 1 June 2005

Flush in GP

I was with Ali G the other day. I had collected him from the airport as he landed from Kazakhstan, and he was carrying a magazine with its title "i" turned upside down so it looked like an exclamation mark. Nifty. On the cover stood four young, black people in designer suits. The headline read: "The Colour of Money". He informed me that this was "breaking news", in a Kazakh accent — charming.

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/ 1 May 2005

Trust fund baby

We, the ”original buppies”, got through high school, with my younger sister, Rirhandzu, and me attending the Deutsche Schule, first in Johannesburg and later in Pretoria. We had grown up in Germany and were highly sought after by the German school as they sought to deracialise it. Anyhow, growing up in Germany from the age of five (not in exile), I near lost my real mother tongue, but never my ear for a good story.

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/ 1 March 2005

In search of the ark

By the time this column is published, tens of thousands of people globally, would have made their way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for February’s Black History Month celebrations. Some historians may muse that these pilgrims have probably gone in search of the biblical Ark of the Covenant. According to the Kebra Nagast, the Ark was secretly moved from Israel to Ethiopia by King Menyelik I, the son of King Solomon.

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/ 1 January 2005

‘Tis the season to be writing

Quoted by a buddy on my previous column, having described black economic empowerment as ”the insatiable gratification of the gilded holy grail”, my conversant commented, ”You write very nicely, but are you saying you’re for or against BEE?” Writing in the South African landscape can be a tricky thing, with our highly politicised minds automatically arming our cerebral antennae.

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/ 1 December 2004

BEE in my bonnet

I am certain I am not the only one whose head sometimes spins from trying to keep up, decipher, interpret, reinterpret and pronounce on the monotonous debates, rantings and declarations on black economic empowerment. The incessant commentary has reached such a fever pitch that I am beginning to empathise with Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the movie <i>Catch Me If You Can</i>.

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/ 1 November 2004

Do make me over

Every time I flip channels and come across the American television programme Extreme Makeover, I am astounded. Men and women write in to the show, requesting extensive surgical intervention to help change their lives for the better. One family that submitted a request was introduced as ”the Bushes”. Their son, a former alcoholic, philanderer and military service vagabond, was in need of an Extreme Makeover.

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/ 1 October 2004

Exercise of the intellect

”I have read that this and the other person is an intellectual. I too want to be an intellectual,” wrote Mr X to the Mail & Guardian some years ago. All communists and black consciousness proponents consider themselves intellectuals. It simply wouldn’t feel right if the average capitalist tagged himself as such. One has to be at least a little socially disgruntled to qualify.

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/ 1 September 2004

Buppie burnout

I suppose I would have enjoyed my schooling years had I not had to get up at 5am in the dark winters and wait for several minutes for the school bus to collect and take us to suburbia. We were apartheid’s guinea pigs, the first black test-tube babies — and the experiment failed. We were the original buppies. One would have expected us to be today’s captains of industry, wouldn’t one?

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/ 1 August 2004

Disappearing acts

Man oh man, is King Mswati a troubled king. The biggest scandal of the century has rocked the royal house. Two of his 11 wives have recently run away and are hiding in foreign lands. In my short lifetime, I have witnessed a significant phenomenon of men changing their minds about the kind of woman who has become acceptable to them.

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/ 1 July 2004

Fanciful commitments

The very first time I visited friends at Dainfern Golf Estate and Country Club in Fourways, scrutinised by high-security fort personnel, my sister and I laughed and squirmed alternately. Never had we imagined that we would one day end up on the local set of <i>The Truman Show</i>. But then there is the little concern, that Dainfern and <i>The Truman Show</i> have too many things in common.