When the cloud of apartheid still hovered over our heads, an atmosphere of fear pervaded the country, pushing its way into the thoughts of every activist — the fear that the car trailing you might pull you into detention, the jolt of adrenalin that woke you when a car stopped outside your house at night, writes Kumi Naidoo.
British finance minister Gordon Brown has announced his country’s backing for a global education rapid reaction force designed to provide schooling for millions of African children in war zones or fragile states. In an attempt to replicate the success of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres in health, Brown has provided £20-million to flood areas where education systems have broken down with “clusters” of skilled personnel.
Are we a nation of navel-gazers? Have South African economic commentators become so complacent that they no longer care about disinvestment? Or is it a sign of being grown up as a country that we now take in our stride a figure that may hint at foreigners’ lack of interest in the country’s long-term investment prospects?
I just love my ”hos”. Don’t you? For those less familiar with transatlantic English, I mean ”dem rump-shakin”, bling shinin’, skanky, bad-ass bitches in bikinis strutting their stuff in Snoop Dog, R Kelly and Mister X, Y or whatever’s videos. Not that I need to see the merchandise first, I’ll still get the CD.
The government’s “no fee” policy has set alarm bells ringing at the country’s poorest schools, with some of them finding that they are now even poorer. Since the start of the school year in January, their mounting financial difficulties have affected the supply of textbooks and stationery, the repair of school property and security services.
Few things seem to excite car designers more than the concept cars they wheel out at international motor shows. Each year, gleaming displays of futuristic styling grace the circuit, revealing ever sleeker lines and tantalising technology that promises to do away with the car’s deadly addiction to carbon-based fuel.
The gap might be closing but, on the eve of the first round of France’s presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy is still the clear frontrunner. The candidate of ”the France that wakes up early in the morning”, Sarkozy is hailed by the Economist magazine as ”France’s chance”, the man to bring about Thatcherite economic reforms.
The Israeli journalist Amira Hass describes the moment her mother, Hannah, was marched from a cattle train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. ”They were sick and some were dying,” she says. ”Then my mother saw these German women looking at the prisoners, just looking. This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable ‘looking from the side’.”
British scientists are developing a force-field to protect astronauts and spacecraft from hazards on future missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. Although the shield is unlikely to withstand a full-on assault from the Klingons, it is designed to act as a “virtual umbrella” to shelter astronauts and sensitive electronics from the violent blasts of radiation that erupt from the sun.
Author and women’s rights activist Mmatshilo Motsei launched her new book, The Kanga and the Kangaroo Court: Reflections on the Jacob Zuma Trial, this week. She spoke to the Mail & Guardian‘s Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya, about the book and the feminist movement in South Africa.