Heribert Adam: CROSSFIRE An unfortunate feature characterises the reasoning of Crossfire’s columnists about the role of the black bourgeoisie. Legitimate questions around empowerment and Afro-pessimism are racialised. The colour of Afro-pessimism’s face should be as irrelevant as whether black fat cats emulate white fat cats. What matters is their common exploitation, their undeserved perks at […]
Charlene Smith Despite a recent drop in interest rates, and a further 1% to 2% drop expected later this year, property markets remain in the doldrums. Banks are under pressure too as defaults on mortgage bond payments increase. Housing sales are weak and industrial, commercial and retail rentals are stagnant or declining. The only city […]
Alex Sudheim: On show in Durban ‘I do not care about fashion, only about permanencies,” proclaims neo-modernist Jeanette Winterson, tireless defender of the timeless, transcendent nature of great art. A point of view which has been heavily denigrated with the establishment of postmodernism’s hypercriticality. “What is certain is that pictures and poetry and music are […]
Herman Lategan: On stage in Cape Town Pick-Ups is the first play in Australian Alex Broun’s trilogy on the current state of easy sex, dysfunctional relationships and the fragility of the human condition. So what’s new? For years these clichs seem to have been the universal leitmotif in most of the world’s literary genres. But […]
Bill Buford: GRAFFITI I am privileged to be among the first to address a concern that has been neglected for too long: toenail fungus. Later tonight, when you get home or as you get ready for bed, take a look at what you’ve got down there, discoloured, at the end of your toes. A little […]
Working overtime may lead to promotion, but it can ruin your life, writes Charlotte Denny The Japanese have a name for it: karoshi – death through overwork. During the recent Japanese financial crisis, a 38-year-old accountant employed by the failed securities firm Yamaichi worked 14 days straight without a break and then went home to […]
Peter Vale: A SECOND LOOK We made the military, now the military makes us: to recognise this bromide is to understand the inevitability of what historians one day will surely call Georg Meiring’s Folly. Far too quickly for democratic comfort have searching questions over the military been driven to the corners of our national life. […]
This week two new councillors took office at the IBA. Ferial Haffajee profiles the new kids on the block The two thirtysomething councillors add to an Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) that has grown younger and younger since it was established in 1994. It is led by lawyer Felleng Sekha, herself just on the cusp of […]
Dawood Dithato When Sir Ketumile Masire retired last week, the bitter pill of leaving Botswana’s highest office after 18 years was considerably sweetened. The size of the former president’s retirement package comes as another indication that his departure from public life was not the magnanimous gesture it was widely heralded to be, but a negotiated […]
Janet Smith Since the 1950s in the United States, television has defined generations, with some programmes becoming objects of special public attention, even fanaticism. It’s no wonder a channel devoted to popular and cult series has finally been created, capitalising on the nostalgia of the television age before the digital generation overtakes it in the […]