The absent nation
IT’S a regular feature of a South African February: SONA, the State of the Nation address. This year’s Covid-19-flavoured edition was an improvement in some ways: no corpulent people dressed in red boiler suits disrupting […]
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Slabbert: Man on a Mission
Albert Grundlingh, Slabbert: Man on a Mission (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2021) AN INDEPENDENT thinker and individualist, a believer in the persuasive power of rational thought and logical argument, and possessed of missionary tendencies: Frederik van […]
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The Lie of 1652: A Decolonised History of Land
Patric Tariq Mellet, The Lie of 1652: A Decolonised History of Land (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) PATRIC Mellet has multi-ethnic roots and a family history disrupted by apartheid’s Population Registration Act. This book involves a […]
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Zuma, Sobukwe and the perversion of South African history
FOR many years Jacob Zuma, faced by allegations of corruption around the arms deal of the late 1990s and his later association with the Gupta family, demanded his day in court. Yet this was a […]
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Inside the Belly of the Beast: The Real Bosasa Story
Angelo Agrizzi, Inside the Belly of the Beast: The Real Bosasa Story ([N.p.]: Truth be Told Publishing, 2020) TWO photographs: one shows a slim, 16-year-old trainee chef; the other, a corpulent ageing man with a […]
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Views on life in the continuing crisis: part one
‘The gap between rich and poor can’t be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these’ (Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar). THERE is a post doing the rounds on Facebook, […]
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So, for the Record: : Behind the Headlines in an Era of State Capture
Anton Harber, So, for the Record: Behind the Headlines in an Era of State Capture (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2020) WHEN the nation’s largest and most influential paper publishes a series of stories over several years […]
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Brexit: it’s only just begun
PREDICTABLY an eleventh-hour trade deal was reached to seal the Brexit process triggered by the 2016 referendum in which a majority of self-pitying, self-harming British voters turned their backs on the most constructive development in […]
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Lansdowne Dearest: My Family’s Story of Forced Removals
Bronwyn Davids, Lansdowne Dearest: My Family’s Story of Forced Removals (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2020) THERE has been much contestation over the definition and identity of the South African coloured community. Bronwyn Davids brings her […]
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The Afrikaners: A Concise History
Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: A Concise History (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) THERE is much to be said for concise books: many modern publications are far too long. This one is the progeny of an 18-hour […]