Four days after the bloodletting that has become known as the Marikana massacre, my Inside Labour column supported the call for a comprehensive and independent inquiry. And it noted, reflecting a widespread view within the labour movement: “The Lonmin tragedy is a wake-up call that South Africa will ignore at its peril.” Now, 19 months later and with the strike on the platinum belt having gone on for nearly two months, that warning seems even more appropriate. Below is an updated commentary that first appeared on the first anniversary of Marikana.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 10 March 2014
“I am not a Coloured, I am Khoi,” says Colin Meyer. “The apartheid era imposed the identity of being Coloured on us, but that is an invention.”
Fergus Turner
News | 7 March 2014
“Boxing saved my life… without boxing I would be dead”. Thembani Gqeku was telling me about his childhood and his experiences as a young professional boxer. Gqeku started boxing in East London in 1978, when he was nine years old. He had fought 18 professional fights, with five losses and a draw.
Adam Armstrong
News | 6 March 2014
A few years back you wouldn’t be seen as an ignorant person in Khayelitsha if you didn’t know what fencing is. But that is slowly changing, with the introduction of this unusual sport in the township.
Siyabonga Kalipa
News | 5 March 2014
A Zimbabwean woman, Sandra Chinyanga, is unhappy because her daughter was dropped from the Techno Girl Programme after three years of consistent participation. Now she has been told that her daughter should never have been allowed to join the programme, because she is an immigrant.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 5 March 2014
This slim volume, containing nine essays, is at once ambitious and humble. In their introduction, editors Megan Jones and Jacob Dlamini explain that they tried to capture a variety of deeply personal lived experiences.
Joshua Maserow
News | 5 March 2014
Jam That Session is an initiative that boosts the arts in Cape Town and provides an unconventional environment for musicians to connect with their fans and fellow artists.
Dumisani Dabadini
News | 5 March 2014
Sex workers and sex worker advocates in Durban, Polokwane, Cape Town and Johannesburg took to the streets on Monday to honour International Sex Worker Rights’ Day. Similar marches were held in cities and towns all over the world. The protesters were calling attention to the human rights abuses suffered by sex workers and demanded legal recognition of sex work as a form of employment.
Marlise Richter
News | 4 March 2014
Uganda’s brutal new anti-gay law puts Dembe Ainebyona (not her real name) in a difficult situation because she may never see her country of birth again.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 4 March 2014
Last year the health department gazetted changes to the Medicines Act which, over about five years, will require complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) to be registered with the Medicines Control Council (MCC).
Koot Kotze
News | 4 March 2014
The ANC is increasingly accused of breaking the promises it has made to the South African public. What is less widely discussed is how their promises contradict one another.
Gilad Isaacs
Opinion | 4 March 2014
On Friday 21 February, the first round of public sittings of the Khayelitsha Commission came to an end. There will be no public sittings until 17 March, when senior SAPS officers will continue to give testimony.
Adam Armstrong
News | 3 March 2014
The rescue and subsequent arrest of zama-zama — (those prepared to) “have a go” — miners from an abandoned mine shaft near the East Rand city of Benoni made world headlines.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 3 March 2014
Capitalism is not dead. But it is severely ill and its chronic contagion is spreading through the economic and social fibres of the world.
Terry Bell
News | 3 March 2014
The leaders who spoke of an African renaissance and who brought about the African Union ignored gay rights. We are seeing the consequences of their omission today.
Leon Linz
Opinion | 3 March 2014
I really support their plea. Many of our senior citizens are taking care of youths who are unemploy… Read more
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