David Cesarani ISRAEL: A HISTORY by Martin Gilbert (Doubleday, R219,95) Israel’s 50th birthday celebrations are in disarray, a muddle produced by fiscal stringency and ideological confusion. Plans for costly, symbolic events have been scrapped amidst popular apathy. According to the Jerusalem Report, “There’s little sense of unity, and not really much agreement on what it […]
Ferial Haffajee One of the biggest problems with solving unemployment in South Africa is that the government does not know the scale of the crisis. Politicians and statisticians bicker about the real picture. Unemployment has not been costed to understand its impact on the bottom line. Neither have calculations been made to assess how people […]
Ferial Haffajee The ruby red BMW roadster races down the main road in Eldorado Park, past rows and rows of grim council houses. At full throttle, the front doors open and close to simulate a bird in flight. The Majimbos are in town – the gang’s symbol is a flying bird and Eldorado Park, south […]
Neil Manthorp Cricket Few tours begin with such mutual agreement on the key factors; the turning point, if you like, has been firmly decided upon, even though the tour-bus has hardly left its London garage. The four most talked-about men since South Africa arrived have been Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Alec Stewart and Michael Atherton. […]
For a few weeks in May ’68 in Paris, students and workers united in a wave of strikes and demonstrations that seemed poised to overturn the old order. Peter Lennon was in the thick of things I don’t remember the precise incident that made it clear to me that this time, this particular turmoil was […]
Michael Nurok Given that the number of people who die each year of malaria is equal to the cumulative number of Aids-related deaths in 15 years, one would expect at least equal amounts of money to be spent on research. Yet less than 10% of the amount spent on international HIV research goes into malaria […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Deja vu. The Springbok captain is involved in negotiations to form a players’ union, Louis Luyt is in the news and euphoria over Springbok success has died down to a hoarse croak. Take yourself back to August 1995, less than two months after South Africa had won the World Cup. Louis Luyt […]
Suzy Bell On show in Durban Totally disarming in tweety-bird yellow, casual cotton shirt teeming with tiny fish, a Zulu beaded choker resembling a Smartie box of colours, brass bangles, and a genteel, generous-hearted demeanor – that’s our poet/playwright/artist, Breyten Breytenbach. Being the Buddhist he is, if you swing the conversation to China, Tibet and […]
Phillip Kakaza strolled down Yeoville’s Rockey Street and noticed it is ready for reinvigoration Rockey Street, in the heart of Yeoville, is probably South Africa’s most famous jolling street, lined with watering holes and clubs, rocking till dawn. Some say it has gone downhill in recent years, but it still draws the crowds at night. […]
Krisjan Lemmer Mrs H Bingham, a resident at a Johannesburg retirement village, would like it to be known that her name is Henrietta, not Hugh. And no – she does not know the whereabouts of that aristocratic desperado, Lord Lucan. Henrietta has been inundated with calls from investigative journalists convinced she is Hugh Bingham, the […]