Opinion
LitNet contributors voice their opinions about current affairs.
South Africa's response to Uganda's Gay Law
2014-02-27"People like you make me ashamed to be seen as a South African."
The crisis of immoral academics
2014-01-06 “In Jean-Paul Sartre’s epistolary novel Nausea, the novel’s misanthropic protagonist Roquentin regards the existence around him in the French ville where he lives. Sitting under a chestnut tree, he becomes enraged at the ‘monstrous lumps of gross, absurd being’ that surround him. ‘Filth!’ he shouts. ‘What rotten filth!’”RQTN: Simplicity with French flair
2013-11-12 “You probably haven’t heard of RQTN. The name is far from ubiquitous in South African musical circles. However, this regional anonymity is not due to a lack of talent. Far from it. It’s a matter of proximity. The one-man musical project hails from France, some 9 000 km away.”South Africans should celebrate Halloween
2013-10-28 "After speaking to a few friends and consulting a religious group, it became clear to me that many people think that Halloween is evil."African languages in the print media
2013-10-23 "The dominant view is that African languages have no future as languages of print. For purposes of this talk the designation 'African language' excludes Afrikaans, and the word 'print' is used inclusively to refer to both paper and digital print."Rethinking Thinking: Modernity’s “Other” and the transformation of the University
2013-10-10 "This book is about the need for the transformation of higher education in South Africa. It problematises thinking about universities, and thinking in universities."A response to Jonathan Jansen’s Percy Baneshik Memorial Lecture to The English Academy of South Africa
2013-10-08 "One cannot, therefore, have a sustained democracy operating in a language in which most people are functionally illiterate. President Zuma is probably the only post-democratic president to have realised that (and to some extent former President Mandela), often speaking in isiNguni (collectively understood by approximately 45% of the population)."Why English should be the language of South African universities
2013-10-08Jonathan Jansen, Percy Baneshik Memorial Lecture of 2013: "What English does is level the playing fields in the historically Afrikaans universities for common engagement."