by Thando on May 22nd, 2013
Jonathen Jansen, author of Letters to My Children, wrote a column for Times LIVE about the difference between schooling and education, which he defines by explaining that, “An educated person, as opposed to one merely schooled, is guided by values such as humility” and pointing out that “To be educated is to have the courage to act on principle and not on the basis of ethnic or political or religious partisanship.”
Read Jansen’s column:
I have bad news for you. While most of you have been schooled, few of you have been educated. There is a difference.
Those of you who have had schooling followed the rules of the school, attended your classes, did your homework, wrote the tests, passed, and received a certificate of some kind. When you fell out of line, and came late or missed an assignment deadline, you were punished for this bad behaviour.
Jansen was interviewed on 567 Cape Talk by John Webb about what values he feels are needed in the education system:
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by Thando on May 22nd, 2013
The heartbreaking, harrowing and exquisitely beautiful stories that fly from eco-adventurer Patricia Glyn’s lips will make your hair stand on end. They will also make you weep and laugh, sometimes at the same time. This was the consensus of many who were at The Book Lounge last week to hear the author describe the remarkable events that went into the making of What Dawid Knew: A Journey with the Kruipers.
The erstwhile radio hostess held the capacity crowd spellbound for almost an hour as she recalled her adventures in the Kalahari with Dawid Kruiper, an elder of the Khomani Bushmen clan. She shared the frustrations and triumps she encountered as she recorded and archived their heritage sites in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where the elders of the community set about sharing a long-held secret that would teach the youngsters about their history and rapidly disappearing culture.
Glyn described Dawid Kruiper as one of the most renowned Bushmen in South Africa. She emphasised that this was the term he chose to define him and his kinfolk due to the negative associations with the word “San” include “thief” and “dirty”. “Dawid is the elected traditional leader of the Khomani people, who live on the outskirts of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where until the early 1900s, Dawid’s ancestors lived and hunted freely.
Glynn recalled the claim won in 1999 against the apartheid authorities that had robbed the Khomani of their ancestral land. The 25 000 hectares of land inside the Park that was offered by way of restitution, along with farms outside it, on which the community could live and run tourism businesses, represented a human rights victory in theory.
Glynn said that in the intervening years many factors including a lack of transport into the park had conspired to prevent the community from accessing all but a small portion of the land. Dawid Kruiper, in his late 70s, was desperate to return to some of the places of great historical and cultural significance that he hadn’t seen since his youth, places his grandchildren had never set eyes on. Aware of his impending death, he approached Glyn with an urgency. “The old man knew that when he died much of his knowledge would vanish with him,” she said.
With South African National Parks’ (SANParks) permission to camp and walk anywhere they needed to visit, the extended Kruiper clan set off with Glyn and her team of film makers to visit a range of sites, both sacred and profane. Battle grounds and hunting grounds, birth places and burial grounds were recorded for posterity and form the core of the story which Patricia was requested to tell.
* * * * * *
Liesl Jobson tweeted live from the event using the hashtag #livebooks:
.
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by Thando on May 22nd, 2013
South Africa has the world’s largest number of people living with HIV. South African AIDS Activism and Global Health Politics offers a history of AIDS activism in South Africa from its origins in gay and anti-apartheid activism to the formation and consolidation of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), including its central role in the global HIV treatment access movement.
What did South African AIDS activists contribute, politically, to early international advocacy for free HIV medicines for the world’s poor? Mandisa Mbali demonstrates that South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) gave moral legitimacy to the international movement which enabled it to effectively push for new models of global health diplomacy and governance. The TAC rapidly acquired moral credibility, she argues, because of its leaders’ anti-apartheid political backgrounds, its successful human rights-based litigation and its effective popularization of AIDS-related science.
The country’s arresting democratic transition in 1994 enabled South African activists to form transnational alliances. Its new Constitution provided novel opportunities for legal activism, such as the TAC’s advocacy against multinational pharmaceutical companies and the South African government. Mbali’s history of the TAC sheds light on its evolution into an influential force for global health justice.
About the author
Mandisa Mbali is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Stellenbosch. She is a Rhodes scholar and obtained her doctorate in Modern History at the University of Oxford, UK. Mbali completed postdoctoral training at Yale University, USA and has published a journal article and book chapters on post–apartheid AIDS activism and policy-making.
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by Thando on May 21st, 2013
LitNet’s Elzette Steenkamp interviewed Cat Hellisen, author of When the Sea is Rising Red, about the “resurgence of interest” in South African science fiction and speculative fiction, which Hellisen says is “not so much a resurgence of interest, as it’s simply easier now as a South African to query and submit novels overseas”.
Hellisen also discussed the traditional dominance of male characters in the genre and offered advice to entrants to LitNet’s science fiction writing contest for high school learner: “Don’t send in your first or even second draft. Revise, revise, revise. And write free and unfettered by convention, but edit with publication in mind”.
It may come as a surprise to some, but South Africa has a rich history of science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction, most notably the “hard” science fiction adventures of Jan Rabie, and the speculative fiction of JM Coetzee, Karel Schoeman and Eben Venter. Why the sudden resurgence of interest in South African SF&F and speculative fiction?
People also forget Dave Freer, who’s been writing for Baen for many years, though he’s since moved to New Zealand. He often slips South African characters into his novels and draws on our military past and mindset. I think there is not so much a resurgence of interest, as it’s simply easier now as a South African to query and submit novels overseas. Before publishing accepted that the internet was not going away, it would cost a fortune to post work overseas, and now there’s a wealth of up-to-date information freely available online, so South Africans can hone their craft without having to go to university.
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by Thando on May 16th, 2013
Eusebius McKaiser, author of A Bantu in My Bathroom: Debating Race, Sexuality and Other Uncomfortable South African Topics, has written an article for The Star about being approached by a a young man who said that in societies where homosexual people are accepted the population decreases, “So, what is the difference between a homosexual like yourself and a terrorist like Bin Laden?”
McKaiser writes that he initially responded angrily but after a tense chat where the man asked him to help him understand why that was an offensive statement, they “proceeded to have a beautiful and long conversation about morality, philosophy and critical thinking.”
So there I was minding my rib-eye steak, possibly originating from a cow but who really knows in these horsey times? It looked juicy, though, just like the picture on the restaurant’s menu, until my protein enthusiasm was drained by what was about to happen.
An enthusiastic 21-year-old recognised me from a book event I did at the University of Johannesburg. He wanted to ask a question. I obliged. His slight frame, innocent brown eyes and hesitant body language did not prepare me for what was to come.
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- A Bantu in My Bathroom: Debating Race, Sexuality and Other Uncomfortable South African Topics by Eusebius McKaiser
EAN: 9781920434373
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by Thando on May 15th, 2013
Join Tony Leon at Kalk Bay Books for the launch of his new memoir, The Accidental Ambassador: From Parliament to Patagonia.
Leon will be in conversation with John Maytham on Thursday 30 May at 6:30 PM for 7 PM.
Don’t miss it!
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by Thando on May 14th, 2013
The Daily Dispatch and the University of Fort Hare invited Frank Chikane and Mondli Makhanya to take part in their series of Dispatch Dialogues.
Chikane and Makhanya discussed “The Mbeki Controversies” in light of Chikane’s recent book, The Things that Could Not be Said.
Watch the video:
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by Thando on May 13th, 2013
The master of South Africa’s favorite past-time, Jan Braai, recently made a road trip from Cape Town to Mossel Bay to explore the back roads of the Southern Cape.
Braai writes that the N2 is not at all unpleasant, despite his initial misgivings, and shares his experiences in the towns along the way. For tasty braai recipes, get your hands on Jan Braai’s Fireworks:
There may be worse stretches of road that I don’t know of, but in my world the most unpleasant is the N2 highway between the Hermanus turn-off and Mossel Bay. For the first bit from Cape Town, you still see False Bay. Then the road snakes through the mountains past the edge of Grabouw, but beyond the Hermanus turnoff, it’s a vast desert of fields in various shades of dust and heat. It’s a three-hour chasm you want to cross safely, with minimum damage to your wallet, both in terms of petrol expenses and traffic fines.
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by Thando on May 10th, 2013
Picador Africa and Protea Bookshop invite you to join Tony Leon in conversation with Prof Hermann Giliomee about Leon’s latest release, The Accidental Ambassador: From Parliament to Patagonia.
The discussion will take place on Thursday 16 May at 6:30 PM for 7 PM.
Don’t miss it!
Event Details
- Date: Thursday, 16 May 2013
- Time: 6:30 PM for 7:00 PM
- Venue: Protea Bookshop,
Bergzicht Plaza
Andringastreet
Stellenbosch | Map
- Guest Speaker: Hermann Giliomee
- RSVP: proteaboek@mweb.co.za , 012 882 9100
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by Thando on May 10th, 2013
Picador Africa and The Book Lounge invite you to join Patricia Glyn in conversation around her latest book, What Dawid Knew: A Journey with the Kruipers.
The event will be held on Thursday 16 May at 5:30 PM for 6 PM.
See you there!
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Download this eBook at LittleWhiteBakkie.com
