Opinion
LitNet contributors voice their opinions about current affairs.
About Beauty: A love letter
2013-08-12 "This is a love letter to some of the most remarkable full stops in the world, and to their friends. It could also have been an essay about beauty, but I’d rather treat it as the former."
lKh? da !hoa 2013: Press release
2013-08-06 "By means of the first Namibian Word Festival, the lKh? da !hoa, I want the public to acknowledge and give hope to the people in our country who create art even if they are poor and not always in a position to have the luxury of studying."
The spokespeople that won’t speak
2013-08-05 Why is the beautiful but earwormish “Adiemus” one of the theme tunes to a Johannesburg journalist’s life? It is provincial government’s ”hold” tone.
St James Church shooting: Twenty years on
2013-07-25 On 25 July 1993 a shooting was carried out at the St James Church in Cape Town. Twenty years on, Naomi Meyer speaks to the rector, Mervyn Eloff.
A history of violence – and bullfighting
2013-06-28 "South African writer John M Coetzee’s public appeal to Spain’s Cultural Committee contemplating the decision of whether or not to legally protect bullfighting as a 'cultural pastime' essentially pleads with the country’s lawmakers ... to be 'nicer' to unaware and unfortunate bulls."
World Press Freedom Day 2013
2013-05-03 Pieter Dirk-Uys launched a political "movement" on World Press Freedom Day 2013 to unite those seeking an alternative democracy in the country. He addressed journalists at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town on 3 May 2013. Read the full text of his speech.
Our needs differ. What to do? (Advice from a life coach)
2013-02-11"If you are the partner who pretends to be asleep to avoid your partner’s sexual advances, then – out of your love for and commitment to your mate – please seek the help you need."
Teen sex law: what changed and why?
2013-01-22 "Unfortunately the criminalisation of consensual sexual acts between adolescents, which has been the status quo in this country for decades, has not been shown to have any effect in preventing sexual activity between consenting young people. It does not prevent young people from choosing to engage in sex, nor does it provide them with the tools they need to make healthy decisions."
Imraan Coovadia responds to Ian Glenn
2013-01-07 "And all this, right to the edge of racial hatred, to prevent the fair or unfair scrutiny of a book and a writer?"
Every generation has its struggle
2012-12-04 "As Trevor Manual identified in 2011, education is one of the most pressing problems in South Africa, the other being unemployment." Lyndal Pottier talks about how Equal Education wants to transform society.
I benefited from apartheid
2012-11-15 "I truly just find myself quite irritated with people who say things like, "Apartheid was 20 years ago, why can’t just we get over it?" The fact is that white people in general can be very lazy about transformation, and the lazier they are, the more vocal they are on this level."
Writing in prison: Ampie Coetzee responds to Helize van Vuuren
2012-10-23 "Breyten's prison writing – Afrikaans poetry, of which little has been translated into English – comprises an anthology of 448 pages! The quality of these verses has been maintained in the more or less 20 books written since then."
Eish! The succession is with us again
2012-10-09 "As the murky road to Mangaung assumes a character of a dog-eats-dog fight, unlike a pig that eats its offspring, the ANC needs to demonstrate that its known resilience is equally fit to withstand conditions of legality, 'ruling-party-ness' and incumbency."
Who is African and who is not?
2012-09-06 "Well, I am an African and owe it not to my blackness, brownness or whiteness, but to my Khoisan, Malabar slave, Xhosa, Dutch, French, German and Scottish forefathers who embraced this continent with their hearts and souls, who made it their home and who developed this country."
Darryl David on the third Midlands Literary Festival
2012-08-20 Founder and director of the Midlands Literary Festival, Darryl David, talks to Naomi Meyer about this exciting event, now in its third year.
Anti-fracking rally in Nieu-Bethesda
2012-07-26 Nieu-Bethesda's anti-fracking rally and workshop takes place from 27 to 28 July. One of the organisers, Michael Wentworth, answers some questions about the event.
The meaning of Mangaung 2012
2012-07-26 "A cheetah’s beauty and characteristics represent a combination of colour schemes that support its ability to blend with its environment, and the ANC should emulate the cheetah as it congregates at the place of cheetahs, Mangaung."
Blacksheep TV #34: Sangoma
2012-06-19 The blacksheep characters discuss the mysterious ways of the sangoma in today’s cartoon.
Raising the Spear or dropping the ball?
2012-06-06 "The general feeling among most panellists was that, indeed, freedom of expression and other democratic freedoms and rights are under threat from the ANC and its alliance partners." The Cape Town chapter of Arterial Network South Africa hosted a forum to discuss the significance of the Spear controversy for the local arts sector.