The missing black swimmer
The athletes who did the Capital K open water swim at Midmar Dam in early December were true to stereotype, but didn’t show the real story of black swimmers in South Africa.
By: Noxolo Chalale
16 Dec 2019
16 Dec 2019
Features
Gastronomy and power: India’s daily bread
From tales of good demons to the quirks of bunny chow fillings and ordering beef in Bangalore, there are many ways to stick it to the Brahmins and the BJP in India.
By: Niren Tolsi
13 Dec 2019
13 Dec 2019
Laying bare Cape Town’s chronic dysfunction
Academic and writer Crispian Olver has released the second in a series of three books aimed at exploring why South African cities are moving so destructively close to the edge.
By: Telford Vice
12 Dec 2019
12 Dec 2019
From the Archive | In search of Es’kia Mphahlele
In this first of a two-part interview, the writer, educator and activist who would have celebrated his centenary this year shares how his childhood shaped his sense of place and people.
By: Chabani Manganyi
12 Dec 2019
12 Dec 2019
No path to peace without women in Afghan talks
Reports show that involving women in peace negotiations drastically increases the chance of maintaining that peace. It is also vital for women to fight for their rights in such talks.
By: Haris Zargar
10 Dec 2019
10 Dec 2019
Cartoon | Loyal Rebel
ANC veteran Ben Turok, who helped write the Freedom Charter, has died. He was an unusually independent and steadfast voice in the party, speaking out against its repressive and corrupt factions while never giving up his membership.
By: Carlos Amato
10 Dec 2019
10 Dec 2019
Book Review | The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ first work of fiction, which reflects on the power of memory, follows an enslaved man with superhuman capabilities who joins the underground resistance.
By: Zanta Nkumane
10 Dec 2019
10 Dec 2019
Book Review | The Night Trains
For over half a century harrowing 600km train journeys between Mozambique and the Witwatersrand goldfields were a central feature of gold mining under racial capitalism on the Rand.
By: Dennis Webster
9 Dec 2019
9 Dec 2019
Radio as a form of struggle: Scenes from late colonial Angola
The Portuguese colonisers were not the only ones who could use radio for control. A new book tells how popular radio broadcasts from Angola’s liberation fighters were used as weapons in the struggle.
By: Marissa J Moorman
9 Dec 2019
9 Dec 2019
Sócrates, Brazil’s footballing philosopher-activist
It’s been eight years since legendary footballer Sócrates died. But the inspirational Brazilian’s legacy lives on.
By: Nation Nyoka
6 Dec 2019
6 Dec 2019
Long Read | The legacy of Mexican exile
The Latin American country has a long history of offering sanctuary to the world’s radicals and revolutionaries. Now it has opened its doors to one more: Bolivia’s ousted president.
By: Phakama Mbonambi
5 Dec 2019
5 Dec 2019
Township spelling-bee winner inspires
A 15-year-old Nyanga pupil, who lives in a shack and goes to school in a dangerous area, has been named the best speller in the Western Cape – and the sixth best in Africa.
By: Michael Nkalane
5 Dec 2019
5 Dec 2019
From the Archive | Letter on meeting Martin Luther King, Jr
After a lunch with the civil rights leader, CLR James wrote about how the Montgomery Bus Boycott, started on this day in 1955, and compared it to recent mass action in Ghana.
By: CLR James
5 Dec 2019
5 Dec 2019
From discovery to recovery: an HIV timeline
Ever since HIV was identified as the cause of Aids, researchers, drugs, people and governments have been fighting back. Here’s a look at 60 years of action on HIV and Aids.
By: Tebadi Mmotla
4 Dec 2019
4 Dec 2019
Africa’s oldest ‘tin soldier’
Thozi Mciki has a rare condition that has rendered him increasingly immobile, but he has travelled the world to find out more about FOP and raise awareness about this incurable disease.
By: Michael Nkalane
4 Dec 2019
4 Dec 2019
To be transgender in Tunisia is life threatening
LGBTQIA+ people in the conservative North African country live in fear of being beaten or killed and desperately seek opportunities to flee – but most don’t have the means to move.
By: Carl Collison
3 Dec 2019
3 Dec 2019
The realities of being queer in Tunisia
A group of LGBTQIA+ youths speak about what it’s like to fight for their rights in a country where same-sex relations are punished with prison time.
By: Carl Collison
3 Dec 2019
3 Dec 2019
Book Review | Pulses in the Centre of Silence
In the face of dwindling writing about South African jazz, bassist and composer Carlo Mombelli’s new offering is not only a workbook for musicians but also a repository for future historians.
By: Gwen Ansell
3 Dec 2019
3 Dec 2019
Cartoon | Lying Kings
In this week’s cartoon, the newly passed Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Bill drags millions of rural South Africans back into the Bantustan era, giving fresh legal cover to traditional leaders’ widespread exploitation of their “subjects”.
By: Carlos Amato
3 Dec 2019
3 Dec 2019
‘They told me homosexuals have no place in this world’
After fleeing Uganda to escape persecution, a transgender asylum seeker ended up in a Kenyan refugee camp – only to be targeted by groups there.
By: Aarti J Narsee
3 Dec 2019
3 Dec 2019
Colombia on strike: ‘This government has to fall’
Colombia’s national civic strike is paving the way for a rural-urban coalition of protesters and movements that together can take on President Duque’s right-wing government.
By: José Antonio Gutiérrez D
2 Dec 2019
2 Dec 2019