A `necessary pretence’ seems common practice in politics worldwide. David Beresford wonders if South Africa will suffer the same fate The most intriguing aspect of Thabo Mbeki’s recently released collection of speeches (Africa, the Time Has Come, Tafelberg Mafube, R80) is not the speeches, but the introduction which contains a brief biography of the man, […]

The ugly: Corruption Andrew Muchineripi South Africa scaled new heights this year by competing in the World Cup for the first time and achieving results that compared favourably with those of previous debutants in the football showpiece. A heavy loss to hosts and eventual winners France in the opening Group C game on a cold, […]

era Mail & Guardian reporters The past took on the future. Like a dying man who knows his time is nearly up, the 20th century picked this moment to have one last flourish – for old time’s sake. It had some scores to settle, some unfinished business to complete. Next year would be too late: […]

Julian Borger `If ‘im come here, ‘im see the world not so bad a place after all.” Sitting in the shade of an almond tree, waiting for morning Mass, the brothers and sisters of the Moravian Church had been discussing the possibility of a Second Coming when Sister Joyce offered this radically optimistic interpretation. She […]

Urban legends, made in the US of A, have a uniquely South African flavour, writes Arthur Goldstuck After the 1994 elections, South Africa began to resemble most other countries in the world of urban legends. In other words, people stopped believing everything they heard. Of course, that meant they could still believe half of everything […]

The technology of the future may seem like science fiction, but it’s more than just talk, writes David Shapshak In the home of the future, people will talk to the walls. And the walls will listen. You’ll walk into your home, it will greet you, turn on the lights, select your current favourite music or […]

I have been a regular reader of your newspaper since it began and many are the pages from it which have been stapled to the walls of my multicultural classrooms. You consistently present alternative positions to generate debate and discussion. Over time, though, questions arise for which we don’t appear to be able to find […]

JG Ballard:The most interesting novel of the year was Alex Garland’s The Tesseract, a moody psychological tale set in the Philippines, and an intriguing follow-up to his bestselling The Beach. Could Garland be the new Graham Greene? He is now 28, Greene’s age when he wrote Stamboul Train. Will Garland head for the Hollywood Hills […]

Much like a father at the birth of his first child, most politicians who reach the top flirt, at least briefly, with an image of their own immortality. And it is one of those irritating paradoxes of which religious people are so fond, that to live on beyond our own deaths a little, a large […]

dream of freedom Anthony Holiday If the year 2000 marks the border of humankind’s entry into a futuristic fantasy, then the year 1999 places us on the fringes of that reverie. It will be a year of a dream about a dream wherein we taste the first false fruits of the promised land of an […]