Roger Jardine: RIGHT TO REPLY Charl Blignaut accuses the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology of not delivering (Friday, February 27 to March 5). This is based on what he sees as the inability of the department to transform the performing arts councils. This transformation process is, in fact, progressing according to schedule. A […]
Krisjan Lemmer There has been much excitement in the Groot Marico – protests in the back room of the Dorsbult Bar, resolutions calling the volk to arms, death threats etc etc – over reported plans to remove Paul Kruger’s name from South Africa’s biggest game park. In the end calmer heads prevailed and the burghers […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Not that last year’s Super 12 left South African teams with any reasons for complacency, but if anyone thought that the new regional system was a fast track to success they had better think again. Two- thirds of the way through the 1998 Super 12 and there are three South African teams […]
If the South African classical concert scene were truly Eurocentric, it would feature a lot more African music. That paradox is largely ignored in the confused debate around the future of our culture. While European concert halls currently offer hospitality to serialists, tonalists, aleatorists, minimalists, African composers and jazzmen all, the defenders of the classical […]
Robert Kirby: LOOSE CANNON It is hard to hush one’s scepticism when, within hours of the mindless shootings on the Benoni smallholding, up pop grave-browed politicians in various displays of rue and distress. Her face set in scrupulous wrath, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was in court when the gunman appeared. Her ex-husband was at the shoulder of […]
Ann Eveleth A government probe into job reservation at a private construction giant blamed a single official for racist hiring practices, but ignored the role of three managing directors when it effectively exonerated the company. Thuso Ramaema, the department chief director tasked by Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Kader Asmal to probe allegations of […]
Hermann Wittenberg On show in Cape Town If you’ve recently seen too many clever installations, provocative experimental exhibitions or deeply relevant conceptual art, take a look at Till Mayer’s remarkable sculptural works at Cape Town’s Mau Mau Gallery. Vital Functions is an exhibition of wooden sculptures which not only display an unusual technical virtuosity but […]
Ferial Haffajee The government has slashed the Independent Broadcasting Authority’s (IBA) budget by millions, and the organisation is haemorrhaging skilled staff who are leaving to avoid a troubled merger with the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra). Five departments are without heads and insiders say other essential staff are “looking [for work] or leaving” before […]
General Sani Abacha is nothing if not blatant. Nigeria’s military ruler is not pussyfooting around like some other former-military- leaders-turned-civilian-presidents who organised elaborate elections with the trappings, if not the substance, of democracy. Abacha banned all political parties after seizing power in 1993. He subsequently legalised five new parties, all of which just happened to […]
The Discovery Channel will show films made by South Africans in its upcoming South African Visions series, reports Janet Smith Isicathamiya is not only about singing in perfect harmony, wearing white gloves and a three-piece suit. It is also about heartbreak and love and survival, as viewers in the process of re-educating themselves about this […]