In the past I have written about magic from time to time and always advised my readers to take it seriously. Never say things like “there’s no such thing as magic” or “magic is just trickery” or any such silly thing. I also spoke that way at one time, but
British student of political economy Susan Strange said of the Dark Ages, “There was no vision of how one made a better life.” The Book of Proverbs in the Bible discusses the consequences of a world without vision. Part of Chapter 29 reads, “Where there is no vision the people
I cannot help but notice that in my country morality, regarding race discrimination, and morality, regarding the misappropriation of public funds, do not seem to be related. Those who have gained stature as fighters for freedom are sometimes remarkably free with the money of others. When a dozen years after
We have a big pile of bricks. We had torn down a partly built house in the bushes, on the far side of our plot. Criminals had been using it as a place to overnight while looking for opportunities to raid the properties of other plot dwellers. The incomplete house
The day in the late 1980s when I visited the Oudtshoorn township should have been an unremarkable one, but because a councillor of the township had been killed by a mob not long before, because I was being accompanied by a member of the local comrades and because the security
Most South Africans complain about the way the country is run. And, heaven knows, we have reason to complain. We all know about rising prices, political bosses living off the fat of the land while your supermarket trolley becomes increasingly unaffordable. And then, Eskom plans a price increase few can
The community of Sonskyn is one of those made up of the people who missed the opportunities offered by the old regime and now feel excluded by the new one. The difference is that, while most such communities are black, some others, like this one, are white. Whether segregation among
So you don’t believe in magic? You think that everything in life must have a rational explanation? Well, maybe, but then again maybe not. I spoke to a lady whose home was filled with the pungent smell of burning incense. “What’s that about?” I asked. “It attracts money,” she said,
South Africans are burdened by a lot of strange laws. Perhaps those around black economic empowerment are the strangest of all. The name of the legislation sounds wonderful, but a number of people, some black, have told me that in their world BEE stands for black elite enrichment. Under apartheid
So you thought that mathematics and bureaucracy have nothing to do with each other. Well, that is not exactly so. Mix them up together and you get an omelette that is often inedible, but sometimes unavoidable. Many, many years ago, decades ago in fact, I was employed by the engineering