Would the Comrades make it past Polly Graph?

“They’ve jogged past Mangaung! They’ve slogged through Polokwane! They’ve sidestepped Nkandla! And now it’s the final sprint towards the Union Buildings! Bob, incredible drama here in the closing stages of the 2017 Comrades’ Marathon!” “Steve, absolutely. “What a race it’s been this – ” “Sorry, Bob, a correction: the Comrades have asked us not to

“It’s not sinking, it’s a submarine!”

Had Angie Motshekga been the owner of the White Star shipping line on the morning of April 15, 1912, history might have sounded quite different. As flashbulbs popped and journalists shouted questions, she and her team would have shuffled into place behind a table. An appeal for quiet; and then the big news, delivered with

Time to call things by their name

“Student leader”. That’s what the journalist called Mcebo Dlamini. I reread the paragraph to check if I’d missed a line somewhere, perhaps one in which Dlamini was described as a fantasist who admired Hitler, who called Jews “devils”, who claimed that Wits had head-hunted him to do a “secret” degree in nuclear physics, and who

The Freedom Charter – Rebooted!

We, the Connected People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: screw you. We know we once said that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, but that’s obviously a ridiculously naive position, so from here on South Africa belongs to anyone with enough

We demand better lies!

Do you know what’s really gone to hell in the new South Africa? The quality of the lies we get told by our government. Yes sir, the lies were way better in the old days I grew up listening to the fictions of the Nats and, by God, those hillbillies had the gift of the

A country of no consequence

As I watched David Cameron resign, I wondered: what would it take for Jacob Zuma to stand on Plein Street outside parliament and resign? Most of us have asked a similar question but I’m not sure how many have pushed for an answer. In this increasingly gloomy society it’s not so much a question as

They’ll send your mom a telegram when you die

The Americans counted their bullets, pressed their backs against the stack of Tintin books, and waited. The Japanese army was everywhere. Half a dozen sappers were already crawling through the scattering of Lego blocks on the western perimeter, and there were rumours of a sniper up on the book shelf. Sarge bellowed into his radio

Guests of the Godfather

I’m embarrassed. Not because I didn’t know. Of course I knew. I just didn’t know how much I didn’t know. If you’d asked me if everything that happens in this house was legitimate, I’d have hedged. I’d have told you that I’m just one of a few upstairs house guests, and we don’t get to

The revolution doesn’t want to succeed

Raoul was a revolutionary. He’d been fighting for almost ten years. That’s how old we all were. Almost ten. He arrived in my primary school class like a Molotov cocktail through the window of a bank. He made it clear that the rules of polite, bourgeois company were not for him. He swore. He smoked.

Assume the brace position

The cabin crew are smiling tight-lipped smiles but everyone knows what’s happened. You can see it on their faces when they slip out of the cockpit and quickly pull the door shut behind them. The pilot has died. And there’s no co-pilot, because the recently departed was an arrogant dickhead who insisted on working alone.