A closer look at Rhodes, before the fall
When University of Cape Town (UCT) students finally woke up from a long state of unconsciousness to call for the removal of Cecil Rhodes’ statue from their campus, most of us were happy that it all happened, finally. I was not really happy but relieved. To be quite honest, the relief was not necessarily from calls to take down the statue itself but the fact that finally a flame of consciousness was starting to ignite at the UCT. I was relieved that finally the political train had young black and white passengers from South Africa’s most intransigent institution, the least…
Chasing foreigners won’t make problems disappear
Despite being a fledgling democracy with a healthy economy and a positive government, South Africa also has a mixture of its own problems. There are challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. There is corruption in both the public and private sectors. Crime and violence also constantly besiege our beloved land. Most, if not all, South Africans, really wish these problems and challenges to disappear. And we express these wishes in different ways. Some amongst us work hard to work towards arriving at solutions for these problems. Others attempt to analyse the causes of these problems, with the hope of prescribing…
Big Brother in the newsroom: When anti-establishment becomes the establishment
Freedom of the press has become a loaded concept. Is the press really free if it is forced to become anti-establishment, just because to be anything else is viewed with constant and pervasive disapproval? Not to mention the steady trickle of criticism regarding “standards dropping” – which, unsurprisingly, usually occurs along racial lines. Contrary to what many outside of the media have believed, South African newsrooms have always been contested spaces. One must sympathise with those who will find this hard to believe. That is because in general and in broad terms, the narrative in the mainstream media has remained…
