Staff Reporter

Give Phumzile respect Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s trip, which was duly approved and authorised, is one of the prices we must pay to ensure that she is safe, and can continue to contribute significantly to South Africa’s development. She is the country’s second citizen — let’s accord her the respect she deserves. It is mischievous […]

Encouraging free thought A million thanks to the Mail & Guardian for “The God rush” edition (April 13). What a great contribution you’re making in encouraging free thought and open debate as the hallmark of a mature and modern South Africa. You hold out the vision of a diverse society in which religious practice and […]

Ethanol is not green Kevin Davie’s article “Green fuels start now” (Feburary 10) seriously overstates the advantages of ethanol auto-fuels. Ethanol may be 45% cheaper than petrol in Brazil, but anyone who has driven in that country will know that you get significantly fewer kilometers per litre from it than from petrol. Brazilian E85, which […]

Build and be damned It is a sad day in our country when eminent persons with an admirable track record in government, such as Mike Muller, feel compelled to rubbish the mandated custodians of South Africa’s rich natural heritage, SANParks, “and their allies”, for objecting to appallingly poor planning decisions (“SANParks retreats to its old […]

Heed your subjects’ cries! Paul Harris, you are my banker. Invest wisely: R20-million would help hire and train more than 20 000 more policemen and women. You cannot stay on the sidelines and expect the government to provide all the time. Be ingenious. Come up with plans in tandem with government. Do not seek personal […]

Mindless vilification The opprobrium heaped on Ronnie Kasrils by the Zionist lobby (Letters, September 8) has a lengthy pedigree. Writing in 1970s Britain, Labour MP Christopher Mayhew and journalist Michael Adams provide an insightful analysis of Zionist rancour in their book Publish It Not (The Middle-East Cover-Up). Particularly ludicrous and threadbare is the accusation of […]

In Cyril we trust If Cyril Ramaphosa makes himself available for the presidency, it could be the best thing ever to happen to the African National Congress and the country. Unlike Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, he has tasted the mood of both business and labour by being a union and business leader. As he […]

Good riddance, Carroll As a 25-year-old Indian woman who grew up in Durban, I remember the days before the release of Nelson Mandela. I remember going to a school for Indians only. I remember going to Addington beach as part of a protest when it was whites-only, and I remember a policeman with a rifle […]

Mangcu: the real issue Xolela Mangcu’s resignation from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has been presented in the Mail & Guardian as an assault on academic freedom (December 15). But the issue is not quite so easy. There is a much weightier question of the status of South Africa’s research councils. If Xolela’s resignation […]

Prove it or shut up! Since May this year, the Mail & Guardian has fed us a series of articles on police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s alleged “links” with people allegedly under investigation by the so-called elite crime-busting unit for alleged contraband networks. Yet to date no one has been charged with crime related to […]

‘Literary gent’ hits back Drew Forrest painfully exposes his colonial cultural cringe when he calls me an “Oxford-trained literary gent” (June 30). Then he shadow-boxes with his own “stripped” and “boiled down” rewrite of what I wrote, rather than arguing with what I actually wrote. Forrest’s “Mbeki” has “embraced privatisation”, but the real Mbeki has […]

Welcome — but don’t affirm Many people must look on in amazement at the heated debate in the church on homosexuality — particularly in a society like ours, which feels it has moved on. Last week’s article by Bishop David Russell (“It is time to repent”) was in an appropriate vein — one of humility […]

Money still lily-white The article “The new colour of money” (December 23) misleads the South African public by painting a glossy picture of black people and a bleak picture of whites. It wants us to believe that black people have finally arrived and that the future of white people in this country is as good […]

I hear the Arch I refer to the outraged responses to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s wish that whites would say “I’m sorry” and “thank you” to “the vast majority of people in this country who have been so forgiving about the past”. The fact is that any white people who lived in South Africa before 1994, […]

Revealed: Bleek Hoax It appears that the hallowed Bleek records, housed at the University of Cape Town (UCT), could be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the German linguist, Wilhelm Bleek, aided and abetted by his sister-in-law, Lucy Lloyd, and his daughter, Dorothea. This bombshell was dropped at a conference on marginalised languages by Bleek’s great-grandson, […]

Is this animal welfare? I refer to the Mail & Guardian‘s article (January 18) about the tragic story of Frida the Romanian lioness, so cunningly misused by Vier Pfoten International (VPI). Last year, our department of trade and industry asked me to comment on VPI’s application to establish a sanctuary in the Free State for […]