Which is more authentic: a game-rich wilderness or a cattle pasture? Fred Pearce traces the birth of a myth Most of us have a vision of “primeval” wild Africa as it was before Europeans arrived: of bush teeming with wildebeest and elephants, lions and zebras. We’ve seen it on TV in endless wildlife documentaries filmed […]

Thebe Mabanga in your ear Well, here’s to a year that was kicked off by a bug that was so menacing, we would not have the pleasure of listening to radio were it to materialise. Of course there are times when listening to radio is not such a pleasure and one cannot help but wish […]

Glenda Daniels In the most significant legal attack yet on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty process, the families of activists slain by Craig Williamson are applying for a judicial review of the pardon given to the superspy. Relatives of Jeanette Schoon, her six-year-old daughter Katryn and Ruth First who were all blown up […]

Neal Collinssoccer Bafana Bafana captain Lucas Radebe suffered the indignity of being dropped by Leeds last Saturday just 48 hours before being asked to pick up his Fifa Fair Play award in Rome and already talk of a move to Tottenham Hotspur is gaining momentum. With Radebe axed to accommodate David O’Leary’s record signing Rio […]

Nicky Blumenfeld It was really surprising to discover that coming to perform in South Africa for the first time is not particularly significant for Burning Spear. He says: “It feels good, as good as if I were going to Australia or Japan or Europe, or anywhere else in the world … it’s the same feelings […]

Nawaal Deane Peter Gaul is 25 years old and brain damaged. He communicates by moving his eyebrows. He breathes through a pipe connected from his throat and is intravenously fed by a tube from his stomach. Six years ago Gaul was the driver in a car accident that resulted in the death of his best […]

Graffiti and candles have damaged Oscar Wilde’s memorial but lipstick may ruin it forever, his grandson says Stuart Jeffries Oscar Wilde’s grave in Paris has put up with a lot in its first century the flying angel headstone has been castrated (twice), commemorative candles have scorched the front and multilingual graffiti are regularly scrawled over […]

‘Yes, I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world.” “A true friend stabs you in the front.” “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” “The only difference between the […]

Debbie Fox South Africa should clean up its act offshore or face unknown damage to the marine environment, says government scientist Lynn Jackson, deputy director of marine and aquatic pollution control in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Jackson says too little is being done to gauge the effects of sewage and industrial effluent […]

Ebrahim Harvey left field Because the Industrial Revolution, which gave rise to classes and class struggles, began in England and Europe there is no doubt that the historical, ideological and epistemologi-cal foundations of Marxism reside with white European intellectuals, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Black people in the Third […]