Fine art Sue Williamson `Breaking open the mind,” commented writer Andr Brink in the visitors book for Jane Alexander’s exhibition Bom Boys and Lucky Girls at the University of Cape Town Irma Stern Museum. “Shivers down my spine”, wrote someone else, and another: “Sleepless nights ahead.” If the function of the artist is to cast […]
John Grobler Namibia’s Supreme Court has outlawed the use of leg-irons on prisoners, ruling that it is in conflict with constitutional provisions guaranteeing human dignity. The ruling overturns an earlier judgment that such treatment is lawful, especially for prisoners who are considered dangerous. A full Supreme Court bench handed down the judgment this week in […]
Karen Rutter Like trying to remember signs which read “Whites Only”, it is sometimes incredible to recall the artefacts and archetypes which characterised South Africa under apartheid rule. For a new generation growing up in constitutionally protected freedom, these facets of the past must seem primitive in their basic, unapologetic offensiveness. Yet it was not […]
Mercedes Sayagues In yet another display of dictatorial arrogance, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe last week invoked the Presidential Temporary Powers Act to change prison regulations. The objective was to overturn a court ruling that eased living conditions of the three Americans caught with weapons at Harare airport in March. Through their lawyer, the Americans (Gary […]
The fhrer hated football but he also knew its power – and was keen to exploit a sport that encouraged elimination of a common enemy, writes Kate Connolly In the light of his disdain for the sport, Adolf Hitler’s one-off decision to attend a football match was a fairly momentous one. Motor racing, boxing and […]
Peter Dickson Miners retrenched as a result of the falling gold price are returning to the Transkei to a drought that will eat away the last job opportunities they are likely to find. With unemployment in the Eastern Cape, South Africa’s second-poorest province, at a critical 49% and recruitment for the mining industry coming to […]
Friday night Evidence wa ka Ngobeni It’s another Jo’burg Friday night and as usual I meet Paul at the same restaurant that’s seen us for the last five Friday nights. Waving his “phat” wallet at me, Paul suggests that we hit the town since we have the cash, babes and status to match the attitude. […]
Dale T McKinley Right to Reply Up here on the seventh floor of Cosatu House, in the rarefied air of the “glorious vanguard of our working class” (aka the South African Communist Party head office), we’ve been wondering for some time about the exact nature of Howard Barrell’s 20/20 vision. It would seem that when […]
John Matshikiza With the Lid Off It was seven in the evening. Dumisani Dlamini, a budding film-maker, was trying to deliver a film proposal to an address in Midrand. He never got there. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a movie he never intended to make. He was in a rush to get […]
Barbara Ludman DEATH DU JOUR by Kathy Reichs (William Heinemann) Comparisons are useful, and inevitable, when looking at a series of thrillers featuring a female forensic pathologist. Kathy Reichs treads a path hacked out by Patricia Cornwell; so how does she compare? Reichs’s settings are more exotic: her heroine, the oddly named Dr Temperance Brennan, […]