Russian roulette
READING Peter Fabricius’s ‘Russian roulette’ (DM 168, 8 April 2023) one is struck by the parallels between South Africa’s growing closeness to Russia and Brexit. Both are based on mythology about the past and a […]
there is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
READING Peter Fabricius’s ‘Russian roulette’ (DM 168, 8 April 2023) one is struck by the parallels between South Africa’s growing closeness to Russia and Brexit. Both are based on mythology about the past and a […]
THE photo that accompanies this piece indicates that whatever their level of current despair, South Africans have yet to lose their sense of humour, often the only protection against absurdity. A number of potholes in […]
Fred Bridgland, The Guerrilla and the Journalist: Exploring the Murderous Legacy of Jonas Savimbi (Johannesburg: Delta, 2022) THE Portuguese empire in Africa ended chaotically in the mid-1970s making civil war almost inevitable. This was particularly […]
Max Hastings, Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 (London: William Collins, 2022) IT is generally agreed that the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was the closest the planet has come in the nuclear age […]
OVER the years the South African definition of long weekend has expanded. Traditionally, it involved a Monday or Friday public holiday. But nowadays only a rare Wednesday holiday does not create a long weekend. President […]
Nechama Brodie, Farm Killings in South Africa (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2022) AMONG some white South Africans there is a belief that a genocide (volksmoord) is being perpetrated against them and showing up as an […]
Antony Altbeker, Fruit of a Poisoned Tree: A True Story of Murder and the Miscarriage of Justice (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, new ed., 2022) IN Stellenbosch in 2005 a 22-year-old student, Inge Lotz, was fatally beaten […]
FOR months there has been mounting anger in all sectors of South African society about the downward spiral of Eskom, including from those who don’t pay for what it produces. A revolving door of loadshedding […]
T.J. Strydom, Koos Bekker’s Billions (Cape Town: Penguin, 2022) JUDGING by the number of published titles, the reading public appears to have a fascination for the lives of businessmen who have raked in billions, even […]
AT the head of the march of 2 000 workers was a man holding aloft a red flag. This was Durban fifty years ago on 9 January and the flag was simply a warning to […]