Archive for the ‘Academic’ Category
by Thando on Apr 8th, 2013
Picador Africa and Exclusive Books invite you to join Tony Leon and Peter Bruce in conversation around Leon’s latest book, The Accidental Ambassador: From Parliament to Patagonia.
The event will be held at Exclusive Books Hyde Park on Wednesday 10 April at 6 PM for 6:30 PM.
Don’t miss it!
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by Thando on Apr 5th, 2013
Moeletsi Mbeki believes “there is a great deal of exaggeration about China’s relations with African countries”. On Redi Tlhabi’s talk show, South2North, on Al Jazeera, Mbeki discussed foreign aid, saying that he feels it is the regulation of the African countries that is problematic, rather than China itself being the problem.
Watch the full show:
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Scribd.com book preview:
Architects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing
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by Thando on Feb 23rd, 2012
In his latest column, Jonathan Jansen responds to the claims made by Pieter Mulder, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, who caused an uproar when he said that black people have no claims to large tracts of land in South Africa, because “whites got there first”.
Jansen, author of Great South African Teachers, criticises Mulder for his use of the word “Bantu” and his insensitivity to the history of land ownership in South Africa:
When Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Deputy Minister Pieter Mulder last week made the claim in parliament that blacks had no legitimate claim to large tracts of land in South Africa because whites got there ahead of them, he pressed all the right buttons of the black elite.
A seething President Jacob Zuma could hardly contain himself, nor could a sizeable number of media talking heads, as they choked on their cereal the next morning.
Mulder got what he wanted – a momentary place in the spotlight for an insignificant right-wing outfit in the country.
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by Thando on Feb 16th, 2012
In a two-part article published in the Financial Mail, Moeletsi Mbeki, author of Architects of Poverty and editor of Advocates for Change, looks at the history of capitalism in South Africa, and the consequences of having a capitalist system based on consumption rather than production.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, a leading American political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, celebrated the momentous occurrence by predicting the end of history. He said the triumph of Western liberal democracy over communism meant humankind had attained the highest state of governance possible so there was no need for it to keep looking for other forms of governance.
Something similar to Fukuyama’s state of ecstasy gripped most South Africans in 1994 when apartheid came to an end and a government led by the African National Congress, ANC, and Nelson Mandela was elected in its place.
Since its establishment in 1652, South African capitalism has gone through five distinctive periods – the Dutch East India Company period; two British periods; the Afrikaner nationalist period; and now the African nationalist period. Each period was driven by its own dominant political elite to achieve that elite’s economic, political and social objectives.
The Dutch East India Company’s (DEIC) objective was to create a half way station that would supply its ships with fresh foods. The Dutch therefore brought new crops to South Africa especially wheat and grapes as well as new workers, the slaves, to grow the crops. They also brought several technologies such as the wheel, the horse, guns, textiles and harness that did not exist in South Africa at the time. The DEIC system which lasted until the British took over in 1795, was a production driven system par excellence. It was very cruel to its workers, the slaves, and was founded on genocide against the San and Khoi, the indigenous peoples of the Western Cape.
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by Thando on Feb 3rd, 2012
In an interview for ChaiFM, Jonathan Jansen, social commentator and vice chancellor at the University of the Free State, examines the lack of skills and preparedness faced by university graduates. He explores whether our universities are declining and following the example set by the public school system. Listen to the podcast:
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by Thando on Jan 17th, 2012
Reflecting on the “bad week for education” in which a mother was killed in a university registration queue and a Unisa psychology professor was arrested for raping two homeless men, Jonathan Jansen says a cultural shift is needed in schools and societies.
Jansen, author of Great South African Teachers, suggests dropping Life Orientation and raising the bar of a subject pass, and argues that online registration should become the norm.
According to Jansen, online registration would be better than long queues where students “who travel for hours from rural areas” are expected “to stand for hours in the sun”:
She joined the long queues that formed overnight as young people slept on streets to ensure they could do “walk-in” registrations the next day.
Excitement mixed with anxiety: “My child is going to university!”
By the end of the day, Sekwena would be dead, crushed in a stampede for that precious gift – education.
This has been a bad week for education in South Africa.
A mother dies in a University of Johannesburg queue.
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by Thando on Jan 10th, 2012
Writing for the Saturday Argus, Jonathan Jansen, author of Great South African Teachers, says that the official announcement of the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate results was a political spectacle that downplayed the real problems in South African education:
It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools.
As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results.
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by Thando on Dec 1st, 2011
Reflecting on the slow healing process of transformation in our school systems, Jonathan Jansen, author of Great South African Teachers, says that we must be aware of the “hypocrisy of calling for transformation without the capacity for self-reflection”:
The young man sitting at the lunch table with 15 fellow students had no arms. Next to him sat a woman student who had returned with the group from a short period of studying overseas.
The returnees were excitedly sharing their experiences with us. Every time the young man looked at his friend sitting next to him, she would lift a spoon of food to his mouth. This went on for a while. Just across the road from where this act of communion was playing out, a terrible racial incident nearly destroyed this old university. Today, the black student is being fed by his friend, the white woman student, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
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by Thando on Nov 29th, 2011
Earlier this year we announced that Picador Africa had acquired the southern African rights to publish two titles from Chilean author and playwright, Ariel Dorfman. Now we are pleased to announce the publication of these two books – an updated edition of Dorfman’s lauded memoir, Heading South, Looking North, as well as a new collection of writings, Writing the Deep South, which includes the text of his 2010 Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture.
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In this new edition of his remarkable memoir, for which he has written a special introduction for South African readers, Ariel Dorfman describes an extraordinary life, torn between the United States, South America, and his Jewish heritage, between English and Spanish, between revolution and repression.
Interwoven with the story of how Dorfman switched languages and countries – not once, but three times – is a day-to-day account of his multiple escapes from death during Pinochet’s military takeover in Chile in 1973.
A beautifully written autobiography by one of the ‘greatest living Latin American writers’ (Newsweek), Heading South, Looking North is a moving account of Dorfman’s complex life as well as an elegant reflection on language, exile and memory.
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From his first visit to South Africa in 1997, Ariel Dorfman, acclaimed Chilean-American author, human rights activist and distinguished professor, has felt a deep connection to the country, its people and the issues it grapples with.
In Writing the Deep South, Dorfman has brought together a personal selection of his widely read texts from past decades that are of particular significance to South Africans. In these pieces, Dorfman reflects on familiar challenges and issues such as terror and peace, bilingualism and globalisation, compassion and war, torture, fear and dignity in the aftermath of 9/11, civilisation and barbarism, and the necessity and insufficiency of truth commissions. He draws from Latin Americans such as Che Guevara and Gabriel García Márques that have exceptional messages for South Africans. There is also his 2010 Mandela Lecture, and reflections on what it will mean to say goodbye to Nelson Mandela.
Writing the Deep South is a volume that holds up multiple mirrors for South Africa and the rest of the world, allowing a welcome reflective space for the pressing issues of language, identity, renewed struggle and integrity.
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by Thando on Nov 14th, 2011
Jonathan Jansen, author of Great South African Teachers, has written a humorous account of his early years at school. Jansen says he failed to succeed in any area except “neatness”, but his dark skin proved useful as it masked his blushing from girls:
During the early years I was hopeless at everything in school. I was the first boy in the history of my school to be lapped in the 400m race. “How,” you ask, “is that possible when this is a one-lap race?”
Well, the winner caught up with me on his victory lap. At one stage my mathematics marks were negative integers; those were the days of negative marking where they actually deducted marks for wrong answers.
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