Opinion
LitNet contributors voice their opinions about current affairs.
200 years ago – The Battle of Grahamstown and the name change to Makhanda
2019-05-29"Or, is it a bitter sop to the reality of the all-powerful English language and the foundations of Grahamstown’s university and elite schools, its historic churches and much more, rooted in the culture of the British Settlers and their descendants – not to mention the roadside name boards identifying ownership of the numerous prosperous farms in the region once known as the Albany – the Zuurveld?"
25 years later: Karabo Kgoleng reflects
2019-05-07It has been 25 years since the first democratic elections in South Africa. With the 2019 elections around the corner, Karabo Kgoleng shares her memories from 27 April 1994.
25 years later: Christi van der Westhuizen reflects
2019-05-07It has been 25 years since the first democratic elections in South Africa. With the 2019 elections around the corner, Christi van der Westhuizen shares her memories from 27 April 1994.
In the shadow of Brahms – Robert Fuchs and his First Piano Trio
2019-04-30"This article deals with the relatively little-known composer Robert Fuchs, who used developing variation – a composition technique associated predominantly with Johannes Brahms – in his First Piano Trio."
Some remarks about Handré Brand’s remarks about The man who killed apartheid
2019-04-26"The main question is Tsafendas’s motive, and the fact that, for more than 50 years, people believed that Tsafendas killed Verwoerd because of a tapeworm, and that he was an apolitical idiot."
UNISA's Breyten Seminar: "in the calyx of your thoughts" – topological deformation in a few texts and paintings by Breyten Breytenbach
2019-04-18"This is an example of what I call the eighth petal of the sacred lotus in Breytenbach’s work. It indicates the ways in which Breytenbach plays with and stretches language and cognitive frameworks."
Revisiting the end of the world: an interview on language identity and displacement
2019-04-17"Humans have participated in mass migrations since the earliest dawn of human society. ... Understanding how the Patagonian Afrikaans community has negotiated their identity and their relation to place is, therefore, a very current topic, and can be of value to the understanding of current migrant communities."
A letter from Emily Hobhouse to Mr Rees-Mogg
2019-02-26"I implore you to change and listen to your conscience, as a fellow English patriot. To be brave. To admit the truth about this atrocity. For the sake of history."
The rise and fall of Mmusi Maimane
2019-01-31"Over recent years, the DA has attracted South Africans of different backgrounds with diverse ideological views. Maimane is under enormous pressure to keep these different interest groups with different backgrounds happy in the party."
Zimbabwe: another false dawn
2019-01-24"Zimbabweans have now woken up to the fact that they were once again sold a dummy, and that 18 November 2017, like 18 April 1980 when Zimbabwe attained its independence from Britain, was another false dawn."
The art of prayer (in Zimbabwe)
2019-01-22"The day after #ShutDownZimbabwe, the weight of the Big Fear still heavy and tangible on our tongues, and the twisted compass of the Big Confusion whirling bigger and bigger storms in brains and bodies and hearts alike – on this day, at a time that still saw the sun climbing towards his throne at the top of the sky, in the immigration office in Harare, the genial officer at the front desk smiled and laughed with two women waiting for assistance."
Open letter to President Ramaphosa: support the true arts in this country
2019-01-04"To use arts and culture money to record the favourite struggle songs of Jacob Zuma is a slap in the face of every artist and writer in this country."
Intercontinental entanglements: slavery, Dutch colonialism and post-colonial identifications
2018-12-20"The questions that need to be asked, are: 'whose history is under discussion here?' and who is the 'us' 'who call themselves the Dutch'?"
In memoriam: Justin Cartwright
2018-12-18"That was Cartwright's gift. A vein of laconic comedy runs through almost all his work which draws on his preoccupations with movies, advertising, American oddities as well as British pretensions and to which he gave exuberant rein in novels like Look at it This Way ..."
Video: Keynote and public lecture by Achille Mbembe
2018-12-14Internationally acclaimed Achille Mbembe was a keynote speaker at the international conference Recognition, Reparation and Reconciliation: The light and shadow of historical trauma.
Video: Keynote lecture by Homi Bhabha – A memory of neighbours: On history and the afterlife
2018-12-14"Internationally acclaimed Homi K Bhabha was the keynote speaker at the international conference Recognition, Reparation and Reconciliation: The light and shadow of historical trauma."
Afrikaans is a major African asset – Dele Olojede
The more we eliminate this diversity, the lesser we become, says Africa’s first Pulitzer Prize winner
2018-11-22
What does Afrikaans mean in the context of Africa? And what can an institution such as Stellenbosch University gain, should it make work of ensuring there is no lesser place for it? Willem de Vries spoke to Dele Olojede, who has become a supporter of the campaign, Gelyke Kanse (Equal Opportunities).
Jakes Gerwel Memorial lecture: Imagining a post-apartheid future
2018-11-14"To realise our dream of a truly free, fair and equal society, we have to take action. And I think that at the heart of any action we take, we have to 'invest' in young people. They are the future, here and in the rest of Africa."
(How) can decoloniality inform "educational (curriculum) knowledge" selection?
2018-11-01"The call for decolonising education is thus nothing less than the full incorporation of all of humanity’s knowledge systems, past and present, and in anticipation of future knowledge constellations, into the knowledge selection systems of universities."
In response to Marlene van Niekerk’s poem, “Fallist art”
2018-08-15"Words hurt, and Bongani Mayosi paid the ultimate price for this kind of hurt. Let us be critical, by all means, but let us give more thought to how our words might affect one another."