John SeilerSOUTH AFRICA, LIMITS TO CHANGE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TRANSITION by Hein Marais (Zed/UCT Press, R150) Hein Marais is not the first observer of post-apartheid South Africa to point to the burgeoning African professional and entrepreneurial classes and their conspicuous consumption patterns. The recent book Comrades in Business captures this dynamic pithily in its […]
Krisjan Lemmer The man who gets this year’s Groot Marico public conscience award is Aboobaker Ismail. This week he went further than any other African National Congress official in owning up to responsibility for some of the horrors perpetrated by the “good guys” in the liberation struggle. Appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in […]
Libby Young `Salaam za Afajiri. Nawatakia wote siku nzuri yenye mafanikio mema tuu,’ says Nuru.” It’s just an ordinary statement in Swahili. But what makes it different is that it’s posted on the Internet. The Internet, we all know, is almost entirely colonised by English, or more accurately, American culture, the same one that has […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi Labour and business are becoming increasingly impatient with the government’s reluctance to set a date for the long- awaited presidential jobs summit between the government, organised labour and business. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and Business South Africa (BSA) are ready and waiting for the summit, but say they are […]
Robert Kirby: Loose CannonAmong Africa’s sorest afflictions has been, of course, its missionaries. This pessimistic breed started pouring into those parts of Africa closest to Europe – from where all the best hypocrites emerge – a few hundred years ago and have been here ever since. Not only still here, but still arriving. What is […]
Victoria Brittain The former prime minister of Rwanda has become the first person to plead guilty to charges relating to the 1994 genocide in which a million people were killed within three months. At the United Nations’s tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, last week Jean Kambanda admitted genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement […]
Alex Sudheim was pleasantly surprised by musical developments at this year’s Splashy Fen festival For the first time in the nine- year history of the music festival, Splashy Fen rocked. Resolutely folk-oriented until now, the event took on a radically enhanced contemporary element this year with the inclusion of bands that would have previously been […]
Suzy Bell An advert running in the local Durban newspapers has caused quite a stir among some verkrampte readers, who have deemed it perverted and pornographic. It may be vaguely shocking or clichd titillation, but it’s also an artistic image. Two of the Fantastic Flying Fish dancers are surrounded by a soft pink glow, created […]
Suzy Bell `Have you heard there’s a female Muslim artist in Durban making porn art?” I heard someone say. So I scooted off to the University of Durban-Westville to meet the Durban arts graduate, Asiya Swaleh. The artist was, at first, quite measured in her response. “People may come to my exhibition purely to be […]
The black don of South African advertising has clinched one of the biggest empowerment transactions, writes Ferial Haffajee It’s been a buoyant year for advertising guru Peter Vundla, who has sealed a R1,8-billion deal for a top food company in the third-largest transfer of wealth from white to black hands in South Africa’s history. His […]