Thebe Mabanga Veteran theatre practitioner and community worker Phyllis Klotz takes her 12-year-old outfit, the Sibikwa Community Theatre Project, to the National Arts Festival this month. Sibikwa has produced prominent stage and television talent like Grace Mahlaba and Isidingo’s bitchy maid-cum-businesswoman, Tina Jaxa. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed and were rewarded with Vita awards […]
One of South Africa’s most scenic and sensitive natural areas in the Eastern Cape is dotted with illegal homesteads Fiona Macleod The government is planning a new national park on the Wild Coast of Pondoland, in the Eastern Cape, which is expected to end the illegal development of holiday homes by rich whites along the […]
Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH Sometimes I can’t help feeling that the “education” that we got in school was invented by a con artist, sold by a charlatan and taught by a mountebank. In my day, for example, we were often forced to memorise “recitations” containing high-minded maxims that were supposed to guide us […]
PALM STALKER by Rocco Bergh (Penguin) Naval architect Robert Arquette has had an interesting beginning – a father lost at sea, a mother who died giving birth on a Zululand beach, the child reared first by a hard-drinking Scot living a lonely life in the bush, then by a shady missionary. Found by his uncle […]
Barry Streek The Royal Dutch/Shell group has allocated R4,5-million to two South African educational programmes concerning energy use over the next three years. This is part of the new Shell Foundation, which has received initial funding of more than R200-million for social and environmental projects relating to energy use throughout the world and which was […]
Whatever the outcome of the election in Zimbabwe this weekend, Robert Mugabe has a tough time ahead David Moore Call me an individualist, but the crisis Zimbabwe faces for the next few weeks could be fixed by one man: President Robert Mugabe. Even if a huge Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) or Zanu-PF majority floods […]
delays Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The Northern Province public service commission has launched a probe into alleged irregularities involving the selection of prescribed textbooks for the province’s schools – irregularities that could lead to serious delays in textbooks reaching pupils. This comes less than a week after Minister of Education Kader Asmal announced the appointment […]
Marianne Merten When Hansie Cronje sat down for his second day of cross- examination this week few expected another bombshell from the Proteas’ disgraced and apologetic ex- captain. Instead he revealed he wished he had accepted the $250 000 offered to the team to throw the 1996 match in Mumbai. “I was annoyed with myself […]
Luvuyo Kakaza THEATRE The toll of apartheid on South Africa’s domestic workers has been well documented in literature, in television documentaries and in fiction film. These days, though, it’s rare to find a stage interpretation of the lives of household “servants”. But one is currently playing that could very well bring some guilty “madams” close […]
A report released recently shows that Johannesburg women have accepted sexual abuse as the norm Brenda Atkinson Young women in greater Johannesburg’s Southern Metropolitan Local Council (SMLC) have internalised their daily risk of sexual assault to the extent that most do not even consider forced sex to fall within the definition of sexual violence. This […]
Mercedes Sayagues In a last, desperate move to win the election, Zanu-PF militia are confiscating identity documents from villagers and farm workers across the country. ID documents are needed to vote. A replacement costs Z$250, or three days of work. At Shaka farm in Wedza, militia collected all ID documents, as well as Z$16 a […]
What’s new Getting vehicle and household insurance online is not only becoming easier; South African companies, like Nsureline (www.nsureline. com), are pushing the envelope in what’s possible over the web in the first place. The company, which is part of the BoE group, recently launched a secure site that delivers an impressive range of services […]
Neal Collins South African cricketers everywhere have been hit hard by the wild swinging of Cronjegate. You might have found an angry little knot of them at Lord’s last week, looking embarrassed while, in Cape Town, their game and their nation were being dragged through the mud at the King commission. While Cronje confessed to […]
New proposals could see water being delivered by private companies on the basis of financial sustainability, not need Glenda Daniels South African public sector unions have been caught off guard by the government’s announcement to fast-track regulations to privatise water delivery. Unions said this week they were still trying to work out the implications in […]
Nicholas Lezard BODY LANGUAGE Jared Diamond asks an interesting question in the title of his recent book Why Is Sex Fun? To which the first answer could be: is it? I remember one bookshop which put The Joy of Sex in its fiction section. This is not just a joke. It illustrates that there are […]
Kathryn Smith REVIEW OFTHEWEEK The commission for a monument to the women of South Africa was recently awarded to the combined team of sculptor Wilma Cruise and architect Marcus Holmes. As part of the Cabinet’s Legacy Project, administered by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, construction has already begun in a vestibule and […]
Stephen Bierley TENNIS Lleyton Hewitt, the brilliant 19-year-old Australian who so spectacularly defeated Pete Sampras in the Stella Artois final at Queen’s last Sunday, found his Wimbledon path heading back towards the reigning champion this week when the draw was made for the championships beginning next Monday. Hewitt, the seventh seed, who pulled out of […]
Paul Kirk The number of arrests in the Durban suburb of Chatsworth has soared since the entire management team at its police station was flushed out after they were accused of corruption, brutality and incompetence. In the two weeks since new management has been installed, the police station has arrested 355 criminals for crimes ranging […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION Even though it was two weeks ago, I feel I should respond in kind to the good- natured invective from Roberta Durrant which was published while I was taking a break from this column. Roberta was complaining about a critical notice I gave to two of her searing new local tragedies, Big […]
Parks Mankahlana CROSSFIRE The Mail & Guardian carried an assessment on the first year of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency by Professor Sipho Seepe in which he shows total disregard for facts, logic, history and the obligation among scientists, natural or social, to add empirical value to national discourse. In his assessment of the presidency, Seepe alleges […]
Barry Streek Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Ronnie Kasrils has bluntly admitted that the government’s strategy of providing all South Africans with clean water has not been as successful as originally planned. He says the water programme has served more than 5,6-million people with water – 2,6-million to Reconstruction and Development Programme standards – […]
Robert Kirby LOOSE CANNON It makes me extremely happy to announce that I am also suffering from deep clinical depression. What’s more I didn’t own a shade of the material assets acquired by Hansie Cronje during the period in which I became so deeply clinically depressed. I got my deep clinical depression without any help […]
John Young CRICKET Cricket’s transgressors and confessors probably haven’t noticed, but every morning as they pass through the portal of the Centre for the Book at 62 Queen Victoria Street, they are greeted with an impassive stare from one of South African cricket’s original sponsors. A bas-relief bust of Sir Donald Currie, owner of the […]
hard place Marianne Merten The University of Stellenbosch is fighting a battle on two fronts: not only is it trying to convince black students that it is no longer a Broederbond bastion, but it is also struggling to honour its commitment to remain a centre of the Afrikaans language. After taking office in 1993, rector […]
John Saul, veteran Canadian anti- apartheid activist and widely published author on Southern African affairs, reflects on his recent stay in South Africa After a term teaching sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, my strongest impression of the new South Africa is just how easy, in many circles, it has become to be considered […]
Barry Streek OBITUARY Mary Benson, the passionate and committed South African author who died on Sunday June 18 of a heart attack at the London Free hospital, went out, as she did in her own life, in some style. Three months ago, a party was held at South Africa House in London for her 80th […]
Shimmer Chinodya The day his father sent him to see Mr BV he put on his cream-coloured, long-sleeved shirt, his flared grey “something else” trousers and his black moccasin shoes. His mother had suggested he put on a tie and insisted on his having a solid lunch, and his father had dropped hints about him […]
Whoever wins Zimbabwe’s election – and however flawed the poll is adjudged to have been – we can be sure of one thing: a massive effort will be needed to prevent our neighbour’s economic collapse and descent into worse anarchy. This will require an end to invasions of productive farmland and acceleration of land reform […]
Howard Barrell A Security Council resolution has given South Africa a brief respite from having to make good its various undertakings to provide military support personnel – and perhaps combat troops as well – for the United Nations peace support mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The council has decided to suspend any further […]
Belinda Beresford Eighty guns for hire sat proudly on the Linder Auditorium stage in Johannesburg on Wednesday, plying their trade for love and in the hope of money. It was the inaugural concert of the new Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO), created by musicians from the now defunct National Symphony Orchestra (NSO). The NSO finally collapsed […]
The dust is settling after Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel ended the acrimonious Nedcor-Stanbic battle Belinda Beresford In an age where bigger is better, the government has finally put the brakes on the growth in size and power of the “big four” banks. In refusing Nedcor permission to go ahead with an attempted hostile takeover […]
Valentine Cascarino A new exhibition by artist Keith Dietrich called Bodies, Traces, Identities has meanings so intricate it’s enough to send viewers into a frenzy of deep thought. Consisting of 150 unframed watercolour fragments, the almost satirical works depict various body parts (some of them quite frightening) that seem to raise a sea of questions […]