Thought Leader

A welcome break from medical politics – I wrote this a long time ago … it still applies just as much now as it did then. All a doctor’s knowledge, skill, patience and dedication are valueless without intuition. When all else lets us down, all the tests and special investigations, it is often the small…

On Saturday April 6 the Joburg leg of the Holi One We Are One festival took place at Emmarentia Dam where people congregated to throw colour into the air and at each other to celebrate the fact that “we are all one”. There were no VIP tickets sold but one did have to purchase bags…

One supposes it’s nice to know we aren’t the only ones who dissolve into giggles whenever anyone mentions koek. Only this time, it really is a koek: red velvet sponge by the look of it. Meant to represent and symbolise … well, daai ander koek. Confectionary’s (nudge nudge, wink wink) still big news (or, as…

I spent the last four months surrounded by tourists in the Transkei eating roughly 80kg of mielie pap at a rate of 1kg of pap per day. I ate the pap for breakfast. I ate the pap for lunch. I ate the pap for dinner. It was delicious. It was nutritious. I wouldn’t swop it…

By Charles Mafa I am a journalist from Zambia who has worked in the media since 1999. I have a wife and three lovely kids. In 2002, I joined Catholic Media Services and six years later, I led a crew that filmed and edited a programme that won the CNN Award for the best HIV/AIDS…

By Fundile Majola There was a mixture of excitement and anxiety in the Port Elizabeth air on that sunny Monday morning of November 24. I was ready for my last matric examination paper, Geography. I was also ready to be made and declared a man – the initiation process was to start that evening. I…

This morning, re-reading Nietzsche’s early essay of genius about the strife between the ancient Greek gods, Dionysus and Apollo – The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music – I was struck anew by the utter superficiality of the (global) culture we live in. This superficiality was captured succinctly by Theodor Adorno in…

Critical psychologist Desmond Painter, writing on the 50th commemoration of Frantz Fanon’s untimely death, says: “Fanon was interested in forging new categories of thought, new subjectivities and new modes of being and becoming. To this end, he challenged European thought [and the cultural and political category of 'Europe' as such] with a forceful refusal —…

T-shirts that are offensive towards women, ignorant of the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa, or are simply offensive are a reflection of a culture that says we shouldn’t care about these things, because misogyny, HIV/Aids and women’s rights are not something to be taken seriously. When a major brand like Foschini chooses to produce shirts…