Thought Leader

Recently the BBC published an article by Hugh Schofield entitled “Why does France insist school pupils master philosophy?” His answer, seen through paternal eyes, is that it has opened a “world of knowledge” to his daughter. Reading the article in/from South Africa one could ask, as is the liberal trend, whose knowledge is being reproduced,…

Reality TV is funny business. Everyone in the industry knows that you score massive ratings, sometimes even in spite of viewer scepticism, when you allow an audience a window into the so-called real day in the life of a celebrity. As spectators we have a love-hate relationship with reality television precisely because it allows us…

In Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s latest book Declaration (Argo Navis, 2012) — although, probably given its brevity (just over a hundred pages) compared to the books comprising their trilogy (Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth), they refer to it as a “pamphlet” — they articulate the global crisis of the present era in terms of four…

So the Mail & Guardian is launching a women’s website. A website I presume that is written, curated and read by women. A website that speaks to the various concerns of “professional women, working and stay-at-home mothers”, I am told. And while this seems like a fairly benign prospect, the beginnings of what sounds like…

The government does not need to fight or over-invest in the media. In fact, it can afford to keep its distance and insist on factual, accurate, correct and truthful reporting. It is an open secret that not only is the media overly juniorised but its professionals are so underpaid and demoralised they cannot uphold their…

Thanks to City Press, we now have an idea of how the New Age, a newspaper without audited circulation figures and little advertising, survives in the competitive daily newspaper market. The Gupta family, who are said to be close to President Jacob Zuma, created the New Age as a deliberate counter to the mainstream commercial…

It was on the first day, the opening of the 2010 Fifa World Cup when I heard a voice behind me say “sorry, I need your help”. I turned around and saw a short, old man with cameras and lenses strapped to his body. They looked heavy on him. He was wearing a balaclava, rolled…

Perhaps you believe our democratic settlement was merely a ruse to get the old white regime to hand over power. When our living legend, Nelson Mandela, finally crosses the ultimate great divide, the whites will at last be driven into the sea. Perhaps you believe the TRC was a trade-off, and the Constitution an elite…

This is an extract of a keynote presentation I gave at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre on Thursday, June 21 2012. The advanced development of the internet and the cornucopia of information it provides has only been in existence for just over 18 years. The internet at its current growth rate and development stands to be…

Communism, as formulated by Germans Marx and Engels in their industrialised continent far from the African situation, is seminally Eurocentric. When the South African Communist Party was founded by white, middle class manufacturers and merchants, disproportionately Jewish, Soviet leaders felt blacks weren’t yet advanced enough for Communism. During the 1921 Rand Revolt, the communists were…