Nationalisation: Swear word for some, cure-all for others both within and outside the ruling party. Tim Cohen, a senior journalist with many years experience in both political and business reporting, traces the emergence of calls for nationalisation in South African politics. It is a subject which has become the most fiercely argued and passionate economic debate of modern-day South African politics. This is particularly so since the call for nationalisation is so closely associated with the emergence of the controversial Julius Malema, although the policy also has strong support from within the trade union movement. A Piece of the Pie offers a short, accessible overview of the political and economic debate surrounding nationalisation that emerged within the African National Congress after the 2010 general election. It traces the history of nationalisation and privatisation both locally and internationally and discusses the economic and political arguments that have made it such a topical and contentious issue in local politics. This book is an attempt to understand nationalisation more completely in order to enrich the ongoing debate.Nationalisation: Swear word for some, cure-all for others both within and outside the ruling party. Tim Cohen, a senior journalist with many years experience in both political and business reporting, traces the emergence of calls for nationalisation in South African politics. It is a subject which has become the most fiercely argued and passionate economic debate of modern-day South African politics. This is particularly so since the call for nationalisation is so closely associated with the emergence of the controversial Julius Malema, although the policy also has strong support from within the trade union movement. A Piece of the Pie offers a short, accessible overview of the political and economic debate surrounding nationalisation that emerged within the African National Congress after the 2010 general election. It traces the history of nationalisation and privatisation both locally and internationally and discusses the economic and political arguments that have made it such a topical and contentious issue in local politics. This book is an attempt to understand nationalisation more completely in order to enrich the ongoing debate.
Chris Hani's assassination in 1993 gave rise to one of South Africa's great imponderables: if he had survived, what impact would he have had on politics and government in South Africa? More pointedly, could this charismatic leader have risen to become president of the country? Hani was a hero of South Africa's liberation, a communist party leader and Umkhonto we Sizwe chief of staff who was both intellectual and fighter, a man who could inspire an army but carried a book of poetry in his backpack. Hani led MK into its earliest battles, and carved a formidable reputation as a thinker, debater and peacemaker. Hani: A Life Too Short tells the story of Hani's life, from his childhood in rural Transkei and education at Fort Hare University to the controversial Memorandum of 1969, the crisis in the ANC camps in Angola in the 1980s and the heady dawn of freedom. Drawing on interviews and the recollections of those who knew him, this vividly written book provides a detailed account of the life of a great South African.
Olive Schreiner's landmark novel, a South African classic, takes place in the rural Karoo towards the end of the 19th century. The Story of an African Farm evokes the bleakness and beauty of the arid landscape, which forms the backdrop for the stories of Lyndall and Waldo, unlikely soul mates whose lives reflect their frustrated quest for a better reality and their dreams of self-fulfillment. Originally published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron, the novel caused a sensation when its author was revealed to be a woman. Victorian readers were intrigued by the novel's forthright feminism and sensitivity to all forms of oppression. An informative introduction by literary scholar Cherry Clayton discusses the literary, cultural and philosophical background to the novel.Olive Schreiner's landmark novel, a South African classic, takes place in the rural Karoo towards the end of the 19th century. The Story of an African Farm evokes the bleakness and beauty of the arid landscape, which forms the backdrop for the stories of Lyndall and Waldo, unlikely soul mates whose lives reflect their frustrated quest for a better reality and their dreams of self-fulfillment. Originally published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron, the novel caused a sensation when its author was revealed to be a woman. Victorian readers were intrigued by the novel's forthright feminism and sensitivity to all forms of oppression. An informative introduction by literary scholar Cherry Clayton discusses the literary, cultural and philosophical background to the novel.
The first edition of Zuma, published in late 2008, concluded with Jacob Zuma's future balancing on a knife's edge. National elections loomed, but so did corruption charges and endless court battles. Since then Zuma's star has spectacularly risen - the corruption charges were dropped, he led the ANC to election victory and duly became President of South Africa, and his new cabinet and government appointments were generally well received. But he has also recently suffered a huge blow with revelations of another love-child, this time with the daughter of soccer supremo Irvine Khoza. Many of his supporters have distanced themselves from him, and Zuma is looking isolated. Pundits are once again wondering how long he'll survive as President. In this revised and updated edition, Jeremy Gordin takes the reader right up to present. He covers in detail the highs and lows of Zuma's past 18 months, including the final salvoes of his legal battles, as well as his first year as President. New material in this edition also includes the 'Pedro' document (a document Zuma wrote in 1986), and accurate information on his wives and children.
In a world first, almost incredibly, Riaan Manser rode a bicycle right around the continent of Africa. It took him two years, two months and fifteen days. He rode 36 500 kilometres through 34 different countries. In Around Africa on my Bicycle, Manser tells the story of this epic journey. It is a story of blood, sweat, toil and tears. It is a story of triumph and occassional disaster. Of nights out under the stars, of searing heat and rain, of endless miles of Africa and of pressing on and never surrendering whatever the odds. Mostly however it is the story of one man's courage and determination to escape the mundane and see the continent he loves and feels so much a part of. It is a story of the human warmth he encounters, and occasionally human wrath and hostility as he crosses troubled countries and borders.
In June 2005, Fred van der Vyver, a young actuary and the son of a wealthy Eastern Cape farming family, was charged with murdering his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, allegedly bludgeoning her to death with a hammer as she lay on a couch in her lounge. The case against Van der Vyver seemed overwhelming. His behaviour at the time of the murder appeared suspicious and incriminating, and a letter, penned by Inge on the morning of her death, suggested that the two had been fighting. But it was forensic evidence that seemed to prove his guilt: his fingerprints were found at the scene, one of his shoes was matched to a blood stain on the bathroom floor, and traces of blood were found on an ornamental hammer that had been given to him by the victim's parents. And yet, in one of the most sensational and controversial murder trials in South African legal history, Van der Vyver's lawyers sought to turn the table on the police, accusing them of fabricating evidence and lying to the judge. In Fruit of a Poisoned Tree: A True Story of Murder and the Miscarriage of Justice, prize-winning author Antony Altbeker takes you into the heart of the epic courtroom battle. Altbeker's eye-witness account of the trial presents the reader with all the evidence and testimony of the trial, while also placing it in the context of a society and a justice system that are being stretched to breaking point.
Crime is tearing South Africa apart. Whether it is hijacking or rape, a home robbery or a husband's explosion of rage, violence is so common that few lives have been left untouched by it. The result is a society deformed by its fears. Closeted behind locked doors and high walls, panic buttons at the ready, members of the middle class live lives haunted by fear. The poor, who are both more likely to be victimised and less able to secure themselves, are just as traumatised. A Country at War with Itself is a penetrating exploration of South Africa's crime problem. Getting behind the statistics to offer a sober and sobering account of the scale of the problem and its evolution, it describes how government has sometimes sought to deal with the crisis and sometimes sought to deny its existence. The book ends with some suggestions of what needs to be done to deal with this scourge.
In the spring of 1999, in the beautiful hills of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, a young white farmer is shot dead on the dirt road running from his father's farmhouse to his irrigation fields. The murder is the work of assassins rather than robbers; a single shot behind the ear, nothing but his gun stolen, no forensic evidence like spent cartridges or fingerprints left at the scene. Journalist Jonny Steinberg travels to the Midlands to investigate. Local black workers say the young white man had it coming. The dead man's father says that the machinery of a political conspiracy has been set into motion, that he and his neighbours are being pushed off their land. Initially thinking that he is to write about an event in the recent past, Steinberg finds that much of the story lies in the immediate future. He has stumbled upon a festering frontier battle, the combatants groping hungrily for the whispers and lies that drift in from the other side. Right from the beginning, it is clear that the young white man is not the only one who will die on that frontier, and that the story of his and other deaths will illuminate a great deal about the early days of post-apartheid South Africa. Sifting through the betrayals and the poisoned memories of a century-long relationship between black and white, Steinberg takes us to a part of post-apartheid South Africa we fear to contemplate. Midlands is about the midlands of the heart and mind, the midlands between possession and dispossession, the midlands between the past and present, myth and reality. Midlands is a tour de force of investigative journalism.
In this selection of his Business Day columns, Jonny Steinberg walks through Pollsmoor Prison on the eve of the invasion of Iraq and believes he sees in the jail's corridors why the US's impending war in the Middle East will fail. He meets a poverty-stricken old man who spends most of his state pension maintaining a black Mercedes Benz, and explains why this shows that government's welfare programme is working. He tells us why he thinks Thabo Mbeki is an Afro-pessismist and why a South Africa ruled by Tokyo Sexwale will be as riddled with corruption as Silvio Berlusconi's Italy. Steinberg has an eye for the strangeness of our fractured country. For the last five years, Steinberg has been recording the things he sees on his travels across South Africa in his fortnightly column on Business Day's leader page. Here are the best of those columns.
On 9 June 2003, a 43-year-old coloured man named Magadien Wentzel walked out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Behind him lay a lifelong career in the 28s, South Africa's oldest and most reviled prison gang, for decades rumoured to have specialised in rape and robbery. In front of him lay the prospect of a law-abiding future, and life in a household of eight adults and six children, none of whom earned a living. Jonny Steinberg met Wentzel in prison in the dying months of 2002. By the time Wentzel was released, he and Steinberg had spent more than 50 hours discussing his life experiences. The Number is an account of their conversations and of Steinberg's journeys to the places and people of Wentzel's past. Wentzel had lived a bewilderingly schizophrenic life, wandering to and fro between three worlds: the arcane universe of prison gangs, steeped in a mythology of banditry and retribution, where he was known as JR; the fringes of South Africa's criminal economy, where he lived by a string of stolen names and learned the arts of commercial fraud; and his scattered family which eked out a living int the coloured ghettos of the Cape flats. The Number visits each of those worlds in turn. It is a tale of modern South Africa's historic events seen through the eyes of the country's underclass. Surprisingly, perhaps, it is neither a story of passivity nor despair, but of beguiling ingenuity and cool cynicism. Most of all, the book is an account of memory and identity, of Wentzel's project to make some sense of his bewildering past and something worthy of his future. When Steinberg met him, Wentzel was embarking on a quest to retrieve the name he had been given at birth. He was also beginning the daunting task of gathering together the estranged children he had sired into a nuclear family. It was an eccentric and painful venture for a man with his past, but it has led him to construct an account of himself that begs to be told.
On his way into Parliament on 2 February 1990 FW de Klerk turned to his wife Marike and said, referring to his forthcoming speech: 'South Africa will never be the same again after this.' Did white South Africa crack, or did its leadership yield sufficiently and just in time to avert a revolution? The transformation has been called a miracle, belying gloomy predictions of race war in which the white minority went into a laager and fought to the last drop of blood. Why did it happen? Professor Welsh views the topic against the backdrop of a long history of conflict spanning apartheid's rise and demise, and the liberation movement's suppression and subsequent resurrection. His view is that the movement away from apartheid to majority rule would have taken far longer and been much bloodier were it not for the changes undergone by Afrikaner nationalism itself. There were turning points, such as the Soweto uprising of 1976, but few believed that the transition from white domination to inclusive democracy would occur as soon - and as relatively peacefully - as it did. In effect, however, a multitude of different factors led the ANC and the National Party to see that neither side could win the conflict on its own terms. Utterly dissimilar in background, culture, beliefs and political style, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk were an unlikely pair of liberators. But both soon recognised that they were dependent on each other to steer the transformation process through to its conclusion.
A country is policed only to the extent that it consents to be. When that consent is withheld, cops either negotiate or withdraw. Once they do this, however, they are no longer police; their role becomes something far murkier. Several months before they exploded into xenophobic violence, Jonny Steinberg travelled the streets of Alexandra, Reiger Park and other Johannesburg townships with police patrols. His mission was to discover the unwritten rules of engagement emerging between South Africa's citizens and its new police force. In this provocative new book, Steinberg argues that policing in crowded urban space is like theatre. Only here, the audience writes the script, and if the police don't perform the right lines, the spectators throw them off the stage. In vivid and eloquent prose, Steinberg takes us into the heart of this drama, and picks apart the rules South Africans have established for the policing of their communities. What emerges is a lucid and original account of a much larger matter: the relationship between ordinary South Africans and the government they have elected to rule them. The government and its people are like scorned lovers, Steinberg argues: their relationship, brittle, moody, untrusting and ultimately very needy.
Following the popular success and critical acclaim of her first novel, Fiona Snyckers is back with the second book in the beguiling Trinity Luhabe series. The much-anticipated sequel to Trinity Rising picks up the story four years on, when Trinity is 23 and living in Johannesburg. Trinity On Air is packed with all the charm and humour readers have come to expect from Fiona Snyckers - with just an added pinch of danger. With her university days behind her, life couldn't be better for Trinity Luhabe. She's got everything a Sandton girl needs. The Perfect Boyfriend: Ethan brings her (fat-free) breakfast in bed and takes her to the craft markets on weekends. The Perfect Job: Working at Jozi Talks radio is a dream come true for Trinity. She's still only on the traffic desk, but one day she'll be reading the news ... just as soon as she can convince her boss that "15 Hot Hairstyles For Summer" is a serious news story. The Neighbour: Ajala is six foot five inches of mysterious Nigerian. Trinity thinks he's a pussycat. Her best friend Steph thinks he's a man-eating tiger. Looking into his business dealings could be Trinity's ticket off the traffic desk and onto hard news. The Ex: An old flame from university days is back ... and hotter than ever. He's threatening to turn Trinity's comfortable life upside down. Join Trinity Luhabe for the ride of her life as all the elements in her perfect world collide.
At last – South African chick-lit with all the wit and charm to hold its own against international bestsellers. 'If I hear the word "Struggle" one more time, I swear I'm going to strangle someone.' Trinity Luhabe is so OVER the whole Robben Island thing. Sure, her dad was one of the last activists to be imprisoned there, but he's now a billionaire mining magnate. We all have to move on, right? And Trinity is moving on with a vengeance. She's just passed Matric at an exclusive private school, and is all set to take Rhodes University by storm. She's got the looks. She's got the brains (sort of). She's a girl with a plan. Okay, it's not a plan she's prepared to share with just anyone - especially not her feminist, do-gooder mother. Delightfully ditzy, but with an inner core of strength, Trinity parties her way through life. That is, until she discovers that life bites back. And then there's her arch-enemy – the deliciously wicked Sophie Agincourt, who definitely has something evil up her sleeve. Will Sandton's favourite daughter ever find true love, straighten out her priorities, and make it to lectures on time? Or will her career be over before it's begun? Find out as you follow her along the path of true love, self-discovery, and eBay handbags in the first book of the beguiling Trinity Luhabe series.
In a little more than a decade, Diepsloot has transformed from a semi-rural expanse to a dense, seething settlement of about 200 000 people. A post-apartheid creation lying to the north of Johannesburg, Diepsloot is talked about as a place of fear, vigilante justice, xenophobic violence and a haven for criminals and undocumented foreigners. Respected journalist Anton Harber spent several months there, meeting the people, drinking in the taverns and probing the bitter local political battles. He patrolled with volunteer crime-fighters at night. He spoke to politicians, church members and artists. He interviewed city officials, asking them why so little progress was being made in developing Diepsloot. He investigated why the much-need police station stands unfinished. Amidst the poverty, violence and chaos, he found a bustling place much loved by its inhabitants, an active economy with all the associated hustling and trading. He found people who, when neglected by the state, made their own solutions. Most of all, I learned that if you want to understand where this country is headed, you need to listen to the people of Diepsloot. Hear what they are saying. Take note of their hopes and aspirations. You might be surprised.' Diepsloot is the first study of its kind that seeks to understand change as it is lived on the ground, and not as it is talked about in the media and corridors of power. Rich with detail and local colour, it offers a nuanced examination of life as it is lived despite the State with its half-completed police station and the ANC with its internecine warfare.' - JACOB DLAMINI
Mickey Arthur was one of SA's longest-serving and most successful coaches. In 2008, along with the national team, he created history when the Proteas beat both England and Australia on their own turf. Beating Pakistan away from home the year before, set in motion an unprecedented journey to the number one ranking in both ODI and Test cricket. Since the world ranking system was introduced to international cricket, Australia has been the only other team to achieve this feat. In 12 tours 'down under' spanning almost a century, South Africa has never managed to win a Test series in Australia. But Arthur, captain Graeme Smith and the rest of the team overcame incredible odds to chase a toal over 400 in the first Test in Perth. They faced what seemed certain defeat in Melbourne to win again and take an unbeatable 2-0 series lead. South Africa became the top ranked team in Test cricket, finally unseating the mighty Australians who dominated for years. Soon after, they repeated this feat when they became the top ranked ODI team. But behind the scenes, things weren't always progressing smoothly. Whereas Arthur would do anything for the team, his umcompromising approach to administrators and refusal to be dictated to by men he believed were 'out of touch', was beginning to count against him. Not surprisingly, the Proteas failed to live up to the heights of 2008. They suffered the ignominy of a first rount exit from the Champions Trophy at the beginning of the 2009 season. Soon after, they had to win the final Test of a four-match series against England to salvage a draw. But there was nothing ominous about the players' collective form and spirits were high as the squad prepared for a tour to India. The tour was to all intents and purposes a Test match 'world championship' between the two nations ranked first and second in the world. A week before the team's departure, Arthur 'resigned'. He was given no choice. A press conference was hastily called in his home town of East London and Smith flew from Cape Town to appear alongside him and quash rumours of deterioration in their personal relationship. Arthur never elaborated on the reasons for his untimely dismissal. Until now...
In this timely work, WHO RULES SOUTH AFRICA?, highly regarded authors Paul Holden and Martin Plaut analyse the political elites that battle daily for power in South Africa. They argue that power does not reside in traditional institutions such as Parliament or even the Cabinet. Rather, power lies within the ANC-led Alliance which, with no founding document and no written constitution, is an unstructured and mutable political hydra with business and criminal elements in close attendance. It is the interaction between these forces which is the real story behind post-apartheid South Africa. In a country where poverty is rampant and institutions are weak, the battle for power is set to intensify. The authors unravel the mystery of how the rainbow nation has reached such a pass. What are the origins of the Alliance, and will it survive the current power struggles? Who are the shadowy forces that operate within or alongside the Alliance? Most importantly, they seek to answer the burning question of whether South Africa is destined to become another African tragedy, or whether there is still the promise of growth and a stable democracy.
In the last five years Riaan Manser has re-written the definition of tenacity and become the epitome of determination. Riaan rose to prominence when he became the first person to cycle around the entire perimeter of Africa. For over two years, he padalled a mammoth 37,000kms through 34 countries; some of which rank as the most dangerous places on Earth. It was a feat that earned him the title Adventurer of the Year 2006 and made his resulting book, Around Africa on my Bicycle, a best-seller. In July 2009 Riaan again set another world first when he became the first person to circumnavigate the world's fourth largest island of Madagascar by kayak; another expedition achieved alone and unaided. This incredible journey, 5000km in eleven months, was considerably more demanding, both physically and mentally. Daily, Riaan had to conquer extreme loneliness while ploughing through treacherous conditions such as cyclones, pounding surf and an unrelenting sun that, combined with up to ten hours in salt water, was literally pickling his body. The perseverance, of course, brought memorable close encounters with Madagascar's marine life - humpback whales breaching metres away from his kayak, giant leatherback turtles gliding alongside him and even having his boat rammed by sharks. Riaan travelled around Madagascar during a period of the country's political turmoil, which gave him unrivalled insight into the exotic island's psyche and even earned him two nights in prison on suspicion of carrying out mercenary activities. Around Madagascar in my Kayak is packed with engaging stories and beautiful photographs and is set to become another best-seller.
Two remarkable tales woven together - the story of the Kaokoveld, an arid eden in the remote north-west of Namibia, so nearly lost, but regained to become one of Africa's iconic wildlife tourism destinations, and also the story of a young man's search for an African way to do conservation in Africa. Garth Owen-Smith first visited the Kaokoveld in 1967. It was a life-changing experience. His unconventional ideas challenged both the conservation establishment and the former South African regime. Despite this, community-based conservation was pioneered in the Kaokoveld and today Namibia is a world leader in this field. But the early years - when the foundation for this ground-breaking approach to conservation was laid - are largely forgotten and untold. An Arid Eden: A Personal Account of Conservation in the Kaokoveld brings those years alive through the eyes of Owen-Smith, spanning four-and-a-half decades of extraordinary dedication, passion and achievement. The author and his partner Dr Margaret Jacobsohn have won some of the world's most prestigious conservation awards for their work in Namibia, which has always challenged convential wisdom. The NGO they founded continues to break conservation, agricultural and rural development paradigms.
Some people think it a very bad thing to have an opinion about anything. Blend in, don't make too much noise, just be happy with what you know and do. I can't do that.' South African DJ personality and Idols judge Gareth Cliff likes to shoot from the hip. Whether on air or judging a trembling Idols contestant, he's always quick with a point of view. In Gareth Cliff on Everything, Gareth throws caution to the wind and writes about all those subjects that make him glad, sad or simply mad.'Some people think it a very bad thing to have an opinion about anything. Blend in, don't make too much noise, just be happy with what you know and do. I can't do that.' South African DJ personality and Idols judge Gareth Cliff likes to shoot from the hip. Whether on air or judging a trembling Idols contestant, he's always quick with a point of view. In Gareth Cliff on Everything, Gareth throws caution to the wind and writes about all those subjects that make him glad, sad or simply mad.
When Raymond Ackerman was fired from his job in 1966, he persuaded a group of friends to loan him the money to buy three small Pick 'n Pay stores, which at the time employed a total of 175 people. On his retirement, 44 years later, he had changed the face of southern African retailing, growing his company to encompass 792 stores in eight countries, employing more than 60 000 people, and generating an annual turnover of around R60 billion. In A Sprat to Catch a Mackerel: Key principles to build your business, Raymond Ackerman shares the basic tenets behind his business philosophy - timeless principles that have guided him through some of South Africa's most turbulent times. Whatever your business background or interest, the practical, accessible advice in this book will help you define and build your vision, and help you reach success and self-actualised growth - not by chasing profit, but by giving expression to a driving passion. Rated by the Financial Times as among the World's Top 100 Most Respected Businessmen, Raymond Ackerman is also the first South African ever to receive the International Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship. In 2009, his company was voted the World's Best Retailer by the National Retail Federation (NRF). Raymond Ackerman is also the author of the best-selling memoir Hearing Grasshoppers Jump, and The Four Legs of the Table, in which he recounts how he built Pick 'n Pay into one of the most respected brands in the world today.
The South African 'Arms Deal' was never a single event. Rather it was, and still is, a series of scandals and outrages, all contributing towards a dubious momentum that takes South Africa further away from transparent democratic practice. The Devil in the Detail, written by two of South Africa's leading researchers on the subject, takes the reader on a journey of insight. Witness at close hand the breaking open of State secrets, with tales of outrageous personal enrichment. Explore how the Arms Deal emerged out of the criminal networks of both the old SADF and the ANC's security apparatus, raising questions as to whether South Africa's remarkable transition was not oiled, at key points, by criminal intent and collusion. Follow the trail of the various offset deals done after the Arms Deal "€“ cumulatively worth just as much as "€“ and discover that corruption continues to impact on defence spending in South Africa. Examine the economics and witness how the Arms Deal was not only economically irrational, but virtually suicidal, almost single-handedly derailing the post-apartheid economic project. Finally, read about the rise of the 'shadow state', the politicisation of prosecutions, and the rise of the 'spooks'. The remarkable conclusion of this landmark study is that years after the deal took place, the forces that drove its decisions have only grown in strength, further blighting South Africa's prospects for a future in which all may have a share.The South African 'Arms Deal' was never a single event. Rather it was, and still is, a series of scandals and outrages, all contributing towards a dubious momentum that takes South Africa further away from transparent democratic practice. The Devil in the Detail, written by two of South Africa's leading researchers on the subject, takes the reader on a journey of insight. Witness at close hand the breaking open of State secrets, with tales of outrageous personal enrichment. Explore how the Arms Deal emerged out of the criminal networks of both the old SADF and the ANC's security apparatus, raising questions as to whether South Africa's remarkable transition was not oiled, at key points, by criminal intent and collusion. Follow the trail of the various offset deals done after the Arms Deal – cumulatively worth just as much as – and discover that corruption continues to impact on defence spending in South Africa. Examine the economics and witness how the Arms Deal was not only economically irrational, but virtually suicidal, almost single-handedly derailing the post-apartheid economic project. Finally, read about the rise of the 'shadow state', the politicisation of prosecutions, and the rise of the 'spooks'. The remarkable conclusion of this landmark study is that years after the deal took place, the forces that drove its decisions have only grown in strength, further blighting South Africa's prospects for a future in which all may have a share.
Ever wondered what waffle like ‘accountability', ‘site of contestation' or ‘The National Democratic Revolution' really means? Here, in an irreverent nutshell, is your answer. The Ranter's Guide to South Africa pinpoints and defines some of the most overused and abused words, acronyms, piffle and jargon that noisily bamboozle our daily life. It is a satirical dictionary for our times, encompassing politics, business, culture, sport, history and that relentless, buzzing swarm of clichés that assault us every day. At last, comic relief is at hand in this indispensible A-Z digest with its short and sharp definitions that will puncture the bombast, bias and rampant populism circulating on all sides. Keep this subversive manual close by, it could save your sanity …
South Africa is a land of contrasts, as the tourist brochures promise, and this is true for the game of rugby. From the Pretoria heartland to the aspirant Eastern Cape, from the hardscrabble Cape Flats to the islands of privilege at Bishops and Grey College. No other rugby-playing nation has to grapple with so much diversity. Different languages, classes, races and cultures "€“ each bearing the wounds of the country's fractured past "€“ have to be melded into winning teams. Liz McGregor has spent the past three years shadowing Currie Cup, Super 14 and Springbok teams across the country, and has come to the conclusion that it is this very diversity, combined with the pain of the past and the dreams of a great united future, that provide the elusive alchemy that separates a good team from a great one. Touch, Pause, Engage! is more than a book about rugby. It is an intimate look at how South Africa's erstwhile elite is adapting to its new circumstances. Team South Africa has been through many a maul and bruising scrum, but is inching closer and closer to the tryline. Liz McGregor is a veteran author and journalist who started off her career on leading South African newspapers and subsequently moved to Britain where she worked for the Guardian for several years. Her first book, Khabzela: The Life and Times of a South African, laid bare the complex reasoning behind a DJ's refusal to take medication to stave off AIDS. She has co-edited and contributed to two collections of essays: At Risk and Load-shedding.South Africa is a land of contrasts, as the tourist brochures promise, and this is true for the game of rugby. From the Pretoria heartland to the aspirant Eastern Cape, from the hardscrabble Cape Flats to the islands of privilege at Bishops and Grey College. No other rugby-playing nation has to grapple with so much diversity. Different languages, classes, races and cultures – each bearing the wounds of the country's fractured past – have to be melded into winning teams. Liz McGregor has spent the past three years shadowing Currie Cup, Super 14 and Springbok teams across the country, and has come to the conclusion that it is this very diversity, combined with the pain of the past and the dreams of a great united future, that provide the elusive alchemy that separates a good team from a great one. Touch, Pause, Engage! is more than a book about rugby. It is an intimate look at how South Africa's erstwhile elite is adapting to its new circumstances. Team South Africa has been through many a maul and bruising scrum, but is inching closer and closer to the tryline. Liz McGregor is a veteran author and journalist who started off her career on leading South African newspapers and subsequently moved to Britain where she worked for the Guardian for several years. Her first book, Khabzela: The Life and Times of a South African, laid bare the complex reasoning behind a DJ's refusal to take medication to stave off AIDS. She has co-edited and contributed to two collections of essays: At Risk and Load-shedding.
