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Compulsory Education – Time For a Rethink
If Facebook went back far enough, say 50 years, there would be photographs of me protesting in the Cenotaph outside at the Durban City Hall against the silliness and cruelty of the National Party. One such protest centred on a most noble cause – free compulsory school education for all. I firmly and passionately believed in that cause. Until the day I became a high school teacher myself in Welkom, Free State. Reality has induced me to change my mind. I no longer believe in compulsory education. I believe more firmly than ever in free education, at school and beyond, but only for the people and families who want it.…
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Thank You: Never Too Late
Thank you, Inspector Jacobs, for helping me 21 years ago Over the years, I have taken to say thank you to people who did something for me, and to say sorry when need be. There was one person I omitted to thank at the time, 21 years ago, and apologise to for the trouble they went to on my behalf. That was Inspector Jacobs of the Tweerivieren police post at the Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park. My good wife Kathy never let me forget my omission nor the context. This story started in winter of 1992 when Kathy and I first visited the park known then as the Gemsbok Kalahari National…
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On patrol
After seven great years living and working in China, I returned to South Africa in July 2024. And, being in South Africa, one must do one’s civic duty. In my case, this meant I was on street patrol duty every Wednesday night. My wife Kathy and I cruise the streets of the small town where we live in Northern Cape. Sitting uneasily in our car, we are the eyes and ears of the other residents as they call an end to the day. I joined the street patrols to argue a point. In 2019, before the plague thrashed the world, the family stayed in an upmarket Air BnB in Morningside,…
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Of dignity and hope – again
On the evening of May 10 1994, hours after President Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president, I found myself in a hotel room in Pretoria, waiting to fly back to Durban the next day. I wrote a piece about dignity, and the chance South Africans had to work for dignity, as per Section 10 of the Constitution: Everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected. I love that thought. And in my heart that evening, I firmly believed South Africa would grow into its new Constitution, especially on the issue of dignity. Those issues were close to my heart as a South African and…
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Press on, Press on
There was a beautiful moment, a few days after voters changed South Africa, that was offered by Gwede Mantashe the national chairperson of the humbled African National Congress (ANC). Seeing the previously unquestioned support for the ANC evaporate on the score boards of the Independent Electoral Commission, Mantashe attributed the party’s demise to biased media coverage. Specifically, he said the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and Newzroom Afrika had agitated public sentiment against the ANC. Mantashe was, of course, absolutely correct. He could blame the media; if not the media he identified, for leading voters away from the ANC, and he could certainly accuse some media people of being biased.…
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Freezing South Africans in a warm-hearted Harbin
Winter is a time of great cold. Yes, but for four South Africans freezing in Harbin, in the Heilongjiang province of north east China, the cold was cast aside by an act of great kindness. Often, acts of kindness are simple things, like a walk across town, as was the generosity of spirit we enjoyed. And as happens often the act of kindness was offered by one stranger to another. Let the story be told from the beginning. A few years back I, my wife Kathy, and our kids Keah and Joel went to Harbin to see the majestic Siberian tigers and the ice sculptures. We flew to Harbin out…
