Lukhanyo Am tackles his worst fears
The Sharks captain started the year as a world champion, his challenge to lead the Durban franchise to Super Rugby glory. But Covid-19 had other ideas, forcing Am to contemplate a grim new reality.
A funeral for Angel during Covid-19 lockdown
A young car guard who had beaten his drug addiction died tragically before South Africa went into a 21-day lockdown. His funeral was among the first to be held while restrictions are in place.
In Pictures | How SA looks in the Covid-19 lockdown
New Frame photojournalists capture the first week of the national, 21-day lockdown in the country’s major cities as the government attempts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
State violence is an established reality in SA
Police and military abuses during the Covid-19 lockdown reflect a grim pattern of state violence. Beyond reform, the authoritarian and regressive ideology behind this needs to be challenged.
Burundi football scores amid dearth of matches
Burundi’s Primus Ligue is much more than an antidote for supporters who suffer from football withdrawal following the suspension of most leagues during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Podcasts
Episode 6: Domestic workers under Covid-19
Domestic workers are left exposed by Covid-19 at their workplaces – will they be covered by the law? Travelling under the threat of infection. And, we take a philosophical look at school. What it is and what it should be.
Mixtape 1: Songs of Solace
In these trying times you can’t ask for a better antidote than music. That’s why we’re introducing the Radio New Frame Mixtape – an eclectic mix of music from around the world.
Episode 5: The spy who cried and Fanon on football
Former South African spy boss, Moe Shaik, has just published an amazingly frank account of his life. Also, anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon not only loved football, he was a fine player too.
Editor's Pick
Covid-19 shows what Zimbabwean nationalism means
The country’s elites can no longer jet away to overseas health facilities and must now face the hospital system that could not help Zororo Makamba, a 30-year-old who died of the virus.
The Covid-19 proposals that may save millions
The economic shocks of South Africa’s lockdown will devastate impoverished communities. Proposals have emerged that may be sure bets to soften the blow.
Album Review | We Are Sent Here By History
The new album by Shabaka and The Ancestors is a meditation on history, and asks its listeners to imagine new modes of being.
Domestic workers fear retrenchments amid Covid-19
At the mercy of their employers, domestic workers in South Africa have little legal recourse in cases of unfair and inhumane treatment.
Eritreans hopeful after ‘historic’ Canadian ruling
The door to justice has finally opened for Eritrean refugees who say they were subjected to inhumane treatment while working at a Canadian mine in their home country.
The importance of art now and beyond Covid-19
The always deeply flawed and unequal conditions of labour for the artistic community have been revealed and made much worse by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
COVID-19
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News
Covid-19 pushes Durban’s homeless to the forefront
The eThekwini municipality has long ignored the homeless in Durban. Now the coronavirus lockdown has forced it to acknowledge their existence and rope in help to meet their needs.
eThekwini evictions continue despite moratorium
The hardships imposed by the Covid-19 lockdown have been exacerbated for a group of shack dwellers in Durban whose homes have been demolished.
Covid-19 turns learning into costly data exercise
In a country with vastly unequal access to the internet, online learning will benefit only a few, while thousands may fall behind as the school year progresses.
Kerala is a model state in the Covid-19 fight
This overlooked region of India is a beacon to the world for taking on the coronavirus, with the leftist government setting the bar for testing, tracing and treatment standards.
Citrus picker threatened with unlawful eviction
Farm worker Thandiswa Xali has been ordered to leave a farm where her family has lived for decades. She stands to lose both her home and her livelihood during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Tanzania’s state response to Covid-19 under fire
As the president urges citizens to gather in churches to pray, Tanzanians fear the coronavirus pandemic will overwhelm the country’s ill-equipped hospitals.
Covid-19 hits SA’s mining sector
The mining industry in South Africa has two confirmed infections as essential operations continue during the 21-day lockdown.
Who qualifies for Covid-19 testing
Not everyone can get tested for the coronavirus. There are structures in place guiding health practitioners when it comes to screening patients for testing.
Shack dwellers mobilise to halt Covid-19 spread
In the Western Cape, residents from townships and shack settlements are seeking ways to minimise the spread of the coronavirus. But they still need government aid and support.
Features
From the Archive | Democracy as a community of life
In this second of a two-part series, Achille Mbembe interrogates the salience of wealth and property, and race and difference as central idioms in framing social struggles.
Women’s hostel dwellers want housing
Residents at Thokoza Women’s Hostel, who earn a living through street trading, say better living conditions could improve their small businesses and keep their children safe.
New Books | Queering Colonial Natal
Debates over access to alcohol served to underline the emergent crises of white settler power that would grip the colony in the first decades of the 20th century.
A woman street seller in Durban stands up to authorities
Verushka Memdutt, who has been a trader for almost three decades, fights bureaucratic bylaws and unfair policing all the while supporting her family and community.
Cartoon | Locked and Loaded
By 30 March, two South Africans had been killed by security officers enforcing the Covid-19 lockdown – the same number that had succumbed to the virus at that point.
Culture
Mabandla’s 12-track generous exploration of love
Bongeziwe Mabandla’s new album explores a love story, from start to end, alongside parallel questions of memory.
Text Messages | Flip the Covid-19 script
Like the coronavirus, rumours and panic spread from person to person as elucidated in Homer’s Iliad, increasing the reach of contagion. Used correctly, social media could halt the spread.
Waking up in Shirin Neshat’s ‘Land of Dreams’
Shirin Neshat’s first solo exhibition in 20 years frames American political realities by exploring the Islamic-Iranian culture of interpreting dreams.
Book Review | A Fire Like You
In her third book of poems, A Fire Like You, Upile Chisala writes about the personal and the political. She moves from love and intimacy to race and issues around womanhood.
Farewell, saxophonist great Manu Dibango
The work of the jazz artist who died after contracting Covid-19 established a lingua franca for modern African popular music.
Text Messages | Profiting from pain
As government clamps down on racketeering during the Covid-19 crisis, Graham Greene reminds us that during disasters, the unscrupulous become even greedier.
Covid-19 leaves creative industry vulnerable
As the coronavirus pandemic shuts down all but essential services around the globe, live entertainers are scrambling to find ways to earn an income from home.
Sport
The time for Odion Ighalo is now
The Nigerian forward is living his dream, playing a starring role for Manchester United – the club he grew up supporting. But there were many rivers to cross to get there.
Caster Semenya: ‘I try to do crazy stuff’
The two-time Olympic gold medalist is showing her impressive range by shifting to sprint events while she fights World Athletics to run the 800m without taking hormone-suppressing medication.
Wayde van Niekerk, the eternal underdog
Injury saw the Olympic champion dubbed an underdog going into the race he won in record-breaking fashion in Rio. But it’s a position he knows well, and now he has an extra year to heal and train.
How SA sportspeople in Europe are handling lockdown
South African sportspeople are using the Covid-19 lockdowns to bond with their families, refine other talents and take time out for introspection.
SA swimmers adjust as Olympics is postponed
Tatjana Schoenmaker and Zane Waddell share how they are handling uncertainty during the coronavirus pandemic and the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games by a year.
The making of an African tennis champion
The singular vision behind the Anthony Harris Tennis Academy means giving South Africa’s young talent an equal opportunity to excel, irrespective of background or financial means.
The rebirth of Keagan Buchanan
The Maritzburg United midfielder’s early career was stunted by injuries, but at the Team of Choice he has found his groove and had his best season yet.
Why Italian football remains racist
Italy’s Serie A league is not a hospitable place for black players, and the country’s football institutions doling out mere slaps on the wrist for racial abuse is leading to the spread of racism in the sport.
Gary Player gets top award despite apartheid role
The legendary golfer who helped prop up the apartheid regime will be awarded a prestigious prize by a president who has been accused of being a white supremacist and has made racist statements.
Editorial and Analysis
How labour movements foster change
Noam Chomsky speaks about the Bernie Sanders campaign, the obstacles standing in its way and why the US business class will bitterly resist any attempt at social democratic reform.
Lockdown must not lead to creeping mass eviction
As South Africa navigates the uncharted waters of its lockdown, what it holds for people confined to densely populated and under-serviced shack settlements is of grave concern.
On movement, human rights and Covid-19
Meditating on human rights and the coronavirus in South Africa, Pumla Dineo Gqola posits that the landscape of freedom after apartheid has cemented an old regime of movement.