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Many common political arguments come pre-packaged in an old and dusty box - but the self-evident truths are not, in fact, so indisputable. Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh sets out to dismantle that box. He argues that free education is far from impossible, the ANC's liberation narrative is too idyllic to swallow, land reform is not the first step to chaos, and the media is not free. A fresh perspective on South African politics.
This book explores the student discontent a year after the start of the 2015 South African #FeesMustFall revolt #FeesMustFall, the student revolt that began in October 2015, was an uprising against lack of access to, and financial exclusion from, higher education in South Africa. More broadly, it radically questioned the socio-political dispensation resulting from the 1994 social pact between big business, the ruling elite and the liberation movement. The 2015 revolt links to national and international youth struggles of the recent past and is informed by black consciousness politics and social movements of the international left. Yet, its objectives are more complex than those of earlier st...
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'Gripping' Guardian 'Pacy and stylish' Jeremy Vine 'It was never meant to be like this. Sabotage, yes. Propaganda, yes. All of that and more - but not this. Not murder.' South Africa has become a powder keg. Its precious land is being sold off to the highest bidders while the country's corrupt elite pocket the profits. As the dreams and hopes of its people are threatened, frustration turns to violence. With the shocking murder of one of the country's bright young hopes, the fuse is well and truly lit. Conflict mediator Lindi and her childhood friend Kagiso find themselves in the heart of the chaos, fighting to save themselves and their country as events are set in motion that no one - least of all they - can control.
Born on the cusp of democracy, the crew of young friends in Born Freeloaders navigates a life of drinking, wild parties and other recklessness. The siblings at the centre of the novel, Nthabiseng and Xolani, have been raised in an upper middle-class family with connections to the political elite. Nthabiseng is lauded by her peers as she whimsically goes through life, unable to form her own identity in a world that expects her to pick a side in the fractured classifications of race. Xolani, not having known his late father, longs for acceptance from an uncle who sees him and his generation as the bitter fruit borne of a freedom he and countless others fought for. As the story moves across multiple spaces in the nation’s capital over a weekend, Born Freeloaders captures a political and cultural moment in the city’s and South Africa’s history. Interwoven is an analogous tale of the country’s colonisation and the consequences that follow. And alongside the friends’ uneasy awareness of their privilege is a heightened sense of discomfort at their inability to change the world they were born into.
Khadeejah is a hard-working and stubborn first-generation Indian woman who longs for her beloved homeland and often questions what she is doing on the tip of Africa. At 37, her daughter Summaya is struggling to reconcile her South African and Indian identities, while Summaya’s own daughter, eleven-year-old Aneesa, is a girl who has some difficult questions of her own. Is her mother lying to her about her father’s death? Why won’t she tell her what really happened? Gradually, the past merges with the present as the novel meanders through their lives, uncovering the secrets people keep, the words they swallow, and the emotions they elect to mute. For this family, faintly detectable through the sharp spicy aromas that find their way out of Khadeejah’s kitchen, the scent of tragedy is always threatening. Eventually, it will bring this family together. If not, it will tear them apart.
We must look beyond the now, the current economy on our doorstep, and ... reach out to a humanity that lies dormant in all of us. While the depth and sophistication of South Africa's financial and capital markets are lauded by indices the world over, South Africa is also considered to be the most unequal society in the world. The Economy On Your Doorstep probes the reasons for this tragic paradox of South African life and tries to go through and beyond the graphs, margin calls, trading updates, indices and earnings reports to explain how economic 'actions' frame the lives of South Africans in a transitional society faced with the challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. The econom...
About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa's wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans – and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Weise, to name a few. Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as 'The Stellenbosch Mafia', the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert not only on Stellenbosch but more broadly on South African society? Author Pieter du Toit begins by exploring the roots of Stellenbosch, one of the wealthiest towns i...
It was 1987: the time of 'total onslaught'. The trial of the MK unit that planted the Magoo's bomb on the Durban beachfront dominated the news but few knew the real facts of the brave young people who brought the armed struggle to KwaZulu-Natal. This is the remarkable story of McBride and his comrades: the substation sabotage spree, rescuing a compatriot from hospital and smuggling him to Botswana, the devastating Why Not and Magoo's car bomb that killed three women, the dramatic trial and McBride's 1 463 days on Death Row. Now updated to include McBride's controversial life after the end of a.
‘Dr T’s voice – contemporary and thoroughly African – is vital in a country where too many women are taught to be ashamed of their bodies and their sexual desires, and too many men believe they should shame women.’ – SISONKE MSIMANG The indomitable Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng – affectionately known as Dr T – is passionate about making sexual health and well-being services available to all, regardless of their sexual and gender identities and their economic status. This updated edition of her bestselling book is filled with the specifics of sexual anatomy and health as well as advice and facts about pleasure and sexual rights, and includes additional resources along with new sections on coercive control as well as sex and pleasure during the time of COVID. Dr T, with her typically honest and warm approach, makes the reader feel comfortable reading about topics that are not always discussed freely, providing ALL the information that demystifies sex and sexuality in a way that is entertaining and enlightening.