New Frame steps back
After close to four years of intense work we must now reimagine how journalism can and should be done in a moment when the coils of social and political crisis squeeze ever more tightly.
S8 Episode 7: The Billy Bragg interview
In an exclusive interview, singer and activist Billy Bragg talks about making music with meaning, Marx, refusing to give in to Boris Johnson – and passion on an Italian volcano.
When you kiss nyaope, you marry it
The low-grade form of heroin continues to strip the youth of their future and the young women living in a drug house in Ekurhuleni say the police do not take them seriously.
At play in the realm of political assassinations
A drama from Limpopo tackles the disturbing reality of politicians killing each other for positions. It is a cry from young South Africans for this deplorable situation to change.
Prisons are for profit, not our safety
In Abolition Geography, contemporary thinker Ruth Wilson Gilmore looks at crime, incarceration and alternatives that focus on social upliftment rather than the prison-industrial complex.
Editor's Pick
Izishoshovu zokuhlaliswa kwabantu zisengozini eThembisa
Ngenxa nje yokuba nesibindi sokubuza ngokungaphumeleli kohlelo lokutholelwa indawo entsha kwabantu abahlala emikhukhiwni besuswa kwenye sekufake amalungu Abahlali baseMjondolo enkingeni yokuzingelwa yizinkabi namaphoyisa kamasipala.
Kasi life through a new lens
Kombonation disrupts perceptions of the township by exploring its seldom celebrated beauty and rich culture. The founders’ new Kaofela Kaofela residency conjures the spirit of togetherness.
A new stage for the National Arts Festival
The organisers had to get inventive to hold the festival in Makhanda again this year, but are passionate about ensuring that it thrives for artists as well as audiences.
Izitiya ezidolophini sesinye isisombululo kubuqhophololo nendlala
Izifundiswa nabalimi bezitiya ezisecaleni kwendlela bathi ukulima ezidolophini kungayigxoth’ indlala, kucuthe umgama wonikezelo lokutya, kuncedise kutshintsho olukhawulezayo kwimeko yokuhlala, luphinde ludibanise uluntu obelukade lungaboni ngasonye.
From courage to collapse
The disintegration of the ANC’s integrity and its capacity to drive a social project is part of a wider crumbling of progressive politics.
WATCH | Artists find new horizons in Dakar
After a two-year hiatus, artists from across Africa as well as Cuba have gathered to exhibit their work at the Dak’Art 2022 biennale in Senegal’s vibrant capital of Dakar.
Podcasts
S8 Episode 6: What of our mother tongues?
With more than 7 000 languages globally, we look at mother tongues. Can Kiswahili be Africa’s lingua franca? And we explore two people’s complex relationships with their languages: Setswana and Arabic.
S8 Episode 5: Black Afrikaans | Mandela and MK
To mark June 16, we unearth Afrikaans’ Black roots and focus on contemporary Black Afrikaans. Also, a new book on how Nelson Mandela led Umkhonto weSizwe to war against Africa’s strongest army.
S8 Episode 4: SA’s sterilisation shame | Saxonwold Shebeen
Shamed by 2020 exposés of forced sterilisations at public hospitals, the health department vowed to act – but victims still await justice. Also, is the Saxonwold Shebeen open for a drink?
News
Housing activists under threat in Thembisa
Daring to question the botched relocation of shack dwellers from one settlement to another has brought Abahlali members to the attention of hitmen and the metro police.
Overworked Eastern Cape education assistants unpaid
Young people hired under the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative in the province are teaching classes without supervision and some have not been paid last months’ stipends.
Fleurhof housing no safe haven for the elderly
The development, touted as one of South Africa’s premier integrated residential projects, is failing to live up to the expectations of residents, who complain about shoddy workmanship.
High court finds protest fee unconstitutional
The Johannesburg high court has ruled that the City of Johannesburg charging convenors a levy to provide traffic control and policing during demonstrations violates the right to protest.
Yeoville market fire devastates traders’ livelihoods
A fire at the Yeoville African Market in Johannesburg has left some sellers destitute, with shopkeepers saying vigilante group Operation Dudula threatened a week earlier to burn down the market.
Refugees camped outside UNHCR face eviction
Having been released from detention following their 2019 protest, a group returned to the pavement outside the UN refugee agency’s Pretoria offices. But residents and landlords don’t want them there.
Police leave East Rand shack dwellers out in the cold
A group of people who organised a new occupation, have been left homeless and brutalised after their shacks and belongings were destroyed. They blame an uncaring government for their plight.
Urban gardens one solution to corruption and hunger
Academics and pavement gardeners say growing food in the city can alleviate hunger, shorten the food supply chain, mitigate climate shock and bring previously divided communities together.
Township residents without power for three years
Beleaguered residents of Palm Springs in the Emfuleni local municipality in Gauteng have been living without electricity and with sewage running in the streets.
Features
Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary spirit lives on
A new collection of essays uses the works of the psychiatrist and radical political philosopher to explore how a community’s language and capacity for thought and wit threaten the state.
Cartoon | Paper pogrom
In this week’s cartoon, Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi torches the rights of thousands of Zimbabweans who have held South African residence permits for more than a decade.
Sharp Read | Reflections on death
As a society, we are uncomfortable with death. But hidden in grief and tragedy is potential transcendence, if we allow ourselves to contemplate our own inevitable demise.
Paediatric surgeons take care to a new holistic high
Confidence in the public healthcare system is at an all-time low – often for good reason. Surgeons for Little Lives shows us how simple interventions lead to dramatic improvements.
Cartoon | A bit more red
In this week’s cartoon, Latin American socialism continues its resurgence with Gustavo Petro’s victory in the Colombian presidential elections, giving the country its first left-wing government.
Culture
Pierre Kwenders’ evolution will not be silent
The artist’s third album traverses a new musical terrain as he keeps on expanding his sound and working with friends from around the world.
Artists in residence reflect their Makhanda life
Two collectives, Spaza and orangcosong, took up residencies at the National Arts Festival and created projects that speak to the town and the spaces they found themselves in.
The good works of the Sir Alba Arts Academy
Dancers from the small academy in Etwatwa are winning locally and qualifying internationally, but will never compete overseas unless the institutions meant to support such initiatives actually do so.
Facing the beast of rape, femicide and child murder
Gender-based violence is highlighted in several heartbreaking performances at the Makhanda National Arts Festival.
Long Read | Frida Kahlo: A ribbon around a bomb
In this extract from her recent lecture at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, Helena Chávez Mac Gregor reckons with the memory and place of Frida Kahlo in our contemporary imagination.
Greer Valley’s curatorial practice of care
From Stellenbosch to KwaZulu-Natal and Senegal’s Dak’Art Biennale, the curator’s exhibitions sensitively explore land, belonging and the violence of the archive.
Green light spells danger
In Text Messages this week, monomania takes many forms. Most deadly perhaps is Jay Gatsby’s hunt in the present for the possibility of bringing the past back to life.
Sport
Denis Odoi, a new star for the Black Stars
A good work ethic saw the Belgian-Ghanaian defender go further in his football career than expected. Now he has the chance to play for Ghana in the World Cup in Qatar.
Next up for Zintle Mpupha? World Cups
The Springbok rugby player jumped at the chance to play league rugby in England, the first South African woman to do so. Now she has her sights set on the upcoming Sevens and 15s World Cups.
Jennifer Cudjoe fights on and will not be silenced
The popular United States-based player is speaking out about the shameful state of women’s football in Ghana, where players have been marginalised in many ways for way too long.
Test cricket is dead, but not for the eager Proteas
Even before the demise of this format of the game was predicted, the women’s team had little opportunity to experience and enjoy it. They are keen to change this while they still can.
Mongezi Mata is thinking big
The European 90kg champion from Addo hopes his international success will inspire and help facilitate the next generation of bodybuilders from the Eastern Cape.
Netball is the centre circle for Leonard Masao
The former provincial player did what every netballer does, but in his own remarkable way. He pivoted and changed direction to become South Africa’s highest-ranked male umpire in the sport.
The woman behind Ghana’s first skatepark
When Sandy Alibo visited in 2015, she connected with Accra’s small but vibrant surfing and skating community. It was enough for her to move there and help grow the sports in the country.
Ayrton Sweeney is on point for his pool performance
The first male synchronised swimmer to represent South Africa has only been at it for a few months, but he’s glad he switched from his previous events to embrace this graceful yet difficult sport.
Thato Mokeke knows his path
The footballer who has had much success in Cape Town knows through personal experience that playing careers don’t last, so he’s already planning his next move.
Editorial and Analysis
Behind Day Zero is a metro that has failed to care
When the taps run dry in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, it will be the failures of the political class that plunge more than one million residents into disaster.
Safa needs reforms, not simply a new leader
Regardless of who is elected president of South Africa’s football governing body on 25 June, the issues plaguing the game will persist because the leading candidates are part of the problem.
Let the people make their own history
History has shown that the only way to achieve democracy, dignity and freedom is through mass struggle and organising. The people of Swaziland and Morocco continue to fight.