Creator
Milisuthando Bongela
Milisuthando Bongela is the Mail & Guardians arts and culture editor. She is a multi award-winning writer, blogger and collaborator. She has experience in the arts having worked in fashion, music, art and film as well as a decade-long career in consulting, entrepreneurship, blogging and cultural activism. She is also directing a documentary about hair and black identity, a film she calls the report card on the rainbow nation project.
All the knowledge we do not know yet
"Recovering ancient hidden knowledges, as long as we are responsible with them, is important considering how many ills there are in our society."
The art of everyday help
If we can relinquish the smallest of responsibilities under the guise of creating employment, what of the bigger responsibilities on a national level?
Heal yourself by healing your ancestors
"Our very presence on Earth is to heal the broken parts of ourselves in collaboration with those who came before us."
What we are hinges on respect
"Iintloni are mere reminders of who we are underneath it all."
The quest for intonga yam
"I’m loathe to say we are the only ones in the world, but she is right about us being a people of song."
Learning to trust curiosity over fear
"What a funny sight it would be to see power dynamics neutralised by something as ordinary as friendship".
What should journalists be writing?
"Who is speaking to this overwhelming sense that you are stranded in this tender yet violent place and you don’t know why or what it’s for?"
Where and from whom do we come?
"Should I be forgotten a hundred years from now, I want my relatives to know there are ways to remember that cannot be erased".
The chores that made us
"We had roles in our small domestic community. Roles that rendered us responsible and independent from our parents for things to do and ways to be."
Punishing rapists isn’t good enough
Is the articulation of anger helping to create more value around women’s safety, our lives and our needs in relation to the men in our society?
What is normal in a big, bad world?
"I felt compassion for the fact that they are cops in Johannesburg and, to them, this is a normal way to treat another human".
We are not meant to be alone
"uKukhapha is the bedrock of isiNtu. This untranslatable notion of uMntu ngumntu ngabantu".
What does blue-ticking mean for building trust?
How has our digital communication affected our relationship to the concept of seeing each other’s humanity?
The art of being opaque: Why Zeitz should open its books
The alleged improper conduct of the Zeitz MOCAA curator has raised questions about the transparency of a museum that is subsidised with public money
‘It’ was as delightful as it was disconcerting
As the decolonial project progresses, it’s important to learn to look outside of what written responses to colonisation can offer.