 | It is difficult not to get despondent about South Africa’s future when, as a collective, we’ve allowed a marketing campaign to define our legacy. The 24th of September, once Shaka Day; was entered into The Public Holidays Bill under the more homogenous , one size fits all title of Heritage day. It was to be used as a day to commemorate how far we’ve come as nation and to celebrate our attempts at unity. Unfortunately, our harmony largely exists at ...read more |
Message in a Skottel
Monday, September 26th, 2011 by Lindokuhle Nkosi
Lunch In Orania
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 by Max Barashenkov, images by Luke Daniel
 | “Watdoenjy?!” Rina Wiid snarls from behind the wheel of her BMW, “Geen fotos van my nie!” We freeze on the backseat, me mid-question, Ricochet Daniel with the camera in his paws. She proceeds, in rabid and venomous Afrikaans, to tell us that all photographic material acquired at the Doornbult concentration camp must be cleared with her before publication. Later, she will make us sign forms, swear fealty to the old South African flag and take a picture of us, for ...read more |
Intervention on Nugget
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 by Andy Davis
 | On Nugget Street, opposite the nondescript piece of downtown Johannesburg roadside where groundbreaking musician Gito Baloi was gunned down, in April 2004, a new semi-legal artwork has sprung up to memorialise the spot and celebrate the memory of the Tananas front man. Breeze Yoko is, in his own words, “an artist of different kinds” ...read more |
The Minister’s MacGuffin
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 by Brandon Edmonds
 | The last time a South African official yelled “diplomatic immunity!” they were shot in the head by Mel Gibson. In 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2. Now life isn’t as murderously succinct as a summer blockbuster – except when it is, as it was ten years ago, when zealots with box cutters got stuck between kaboom and New York city. The Minister of International Relations & Co-operation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, isn’t about to be shot in the head for yelling diplomatic immunity ...read more |
An African Tarantino
Monday, September 19th, 2011 by Colin Macrae
 | You would not expect a Congolese movie to be bringing home an MTV movie award, not when there has not been a movie made in the Congo in 25 years and especially not when, until recently there was not a single movie house to show it. This, however, is no ordinary African movie, gone is the pedantic pandering, the look what we have done wrong hand wringing, the exotic romanticism. ...read more |
Online Gaming vs. The American Health System
Thursday, September 15th, 2011 by Max Barashenkov, illustration by Nolan Dennis
 | Somebody is emailing me bullets, a shower of woodchips and that uncomfortable whistling above the head. I hit the dirt, crawl and try spot the bastard as my guys are dropping like flies around me. There he is, the fucking Bush Wookie, smug in his ghillie suit, sniping from on top of a bridge. The brain kicks into overdrive, reflexes sharpen, instincts take over – flank left, from rock to rock, watch another one of your fools run straight ahead ...read more |
Dead Air
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 by Brandon Edmonds
 | You’re away on a team-building weekend, and you’ve been drinking. You drink a lot. You even tweet about drinking. This is a calling card in your game. It’s a badge of belonging. It affirms your place in the culture. A masculine sports culture and fan culture and broadcast media culture underpinned by drinking. Getting fucked up is okay. Getting wasted is cheaper than therapy. You’ve even made this joke before. You’re a good talker. ...read more |
“Have you forgotten whose sons and daughters you are?”
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 by Lindokuhle Nkosi
 | I sort of have a thing against seated venues. I’m not sure of how I’m meant to behave. The forced formality limits the enthusiasm of natural response. It feels a little like being seated on the proverbial high-horse, all kings and queens on our thrones, smiling politely to ourselves as the jesters on stage bend over backwards to entertain us. ...read more |
“Proud to be labelled Racist”
Thursday, September 8th, 2011 by Sean O’Toole
 | Seven years ago, the Druid of Kensington, a big bearded man with unkempt hair, kindly smile and encyclopaedic knowledge of language, exhibited his stuff – stones, bread rolls, old tools, 96 full bibles, 18 maps, two “manipulated” puzzles – at a Parkwood gallery. His mood at the time was unsettled and confused, but not immune to surprise, possibly even delight. Which is why he entitled his exhibition of stuff Nonplussed. ...read more |
Creeping in the Shadows
Thursday, September 8th, 2011 by Rob Cockcroft, illustration by Luis Tolosana
 | Whether Cape Town’s infamous League of Shadows are rocking a ghetto park jam or opening up for heavy hitters like Ras Kass they definitely keep crowds aflame with their brand of ominous lyrical sorcery. ...read more |
