Today we launch our new travel and global affairs column by Canada-based Sarah Laurence. In her first post, she looks at the lacklustre focus by the South African media on our participants in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
A South African remembers London
BY JADE ADAMI
The morning of revelation, as I have coined it, started with my waking up to an alarm of deceit I had set the night before. I woke up with a spritely stretch following the 4:30am wake-up call I’d set to ensure I’d have enough time to endure the daily torment of a one-hour-long [...]
Semenya: it’s about gender not race
BY KHAYA DLANGA
Let me start off by saying that Caster Semenya is a chick until proven a dude. Oh, hang on, she has been proven to be a chick by her parents, her teachers and her friends, mind you.
The accusations of racism levelled at the IAAF have been a bit excessive. But one can understand [...]
South African women still second-class citizens
BY ALEX MATTHEWS
In South Africa, Women’s Day on August 9, commemorates the march of thousands of women to Pretoria’s Union Buildings in 1956 in protest against apartheid’s evil pass laws that sought to restrict the movements of non-white South Africans.
Across the country, males will doubtless be wondering why can’t there be a “Men’s Day” too. [...]
My State of the Nation – flapping elephant’s ears
Michael Mulcahy says that the South African glass is very clearly half…ja, Well no, you know… in some sort of dynamic equilibrium. Not having the ability to solve for the x-factor and work out equilibrium, he’s have decided to keep filling the South African glass, so that maybe one day our cup will runneth over.
I’ve become a born-again South African
Africa’s top Digital Citizen Journalist, Khaya Dlanga, writes that he’s recently become a born-again South African. His faith in this country was renewed by the debates he saw, the interest young people showed in politics for the first time. He argues that, for all its imperfections, we live in a new South Africa again.
Zimbabwe’s government of national unity is a failure
Alex Matthews argues that the MDC serves merely as a legitimising mechanism for Zanu PF’s totalitarian agenda. Little wonder, he says, that the country is still falling apart when Zanu PF shamelessly grips onto power. Stalling reforms proposed in the GNU agreement, it’s sent a clear message that it remains the party calling the shots.
Holding South Africa back
SL writes that apartheid dinosaurs – who hanker after the “old days” and see differences in pigment and diversity of culture as dangerous – are the biggest threat to South Africa’s true transformation. This is because of the sheer number of them that still exist, the intensity of their hatred and their refusal to change.
Cultural diversity: mosaic or melting pot?
Sarah Laurence explores the debate around Canada’s approaches to immigration and cultural diversity. She argues that while South Africa’s diversity problems might seem newer and rawer, complicated by other social problems, it’s not the only country wrestling with the challenges that sociocultural diversity presents.
A tale of two countries
A South African doctor compares the approach South Africa and Canada has in the way they treat their public servants.
