The Front
A study of Durban’s beach and promenade by Matthew Kay The Front is a body of work about taking a closer look at a space I thought I knew and understood. The harder I looked, the more I realised...
View ArticleNot Gay as in Happy, Queer as in Fuck You
The Not Gay as in Happy, Queer as in Fuck You film festival opens tomorrow at The Bioscope in Johannesburg. The Con’s Dean Hutton is curating the festival, so we got the lowdown on what to expect....
View ArticleAngola: Oil and Chinese Takeaway
Ricardo Soares de Oliveira’s Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola since the Civil War (Jacana Media) explores the civil war’s legacy in a country where speedy economic growth is fuelled by oil sales,...
View ArticleThe Secret Life of a Black Springbok
With the rugby transformation debate raging in South Africa and Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer and the South African Rugby Union being criticised for the lily-white Springbok team, The Con received...
View ArticleTsitsi Dangarembga: A Manifesto
An excerpt from Jyoti Mistry and Antje Schumann’s book, Gaze Regimes: Film and feminisms in Africa. Tsitsi Dangarembga was born in Zimbabwe and is the author of the critically acclaimed novel...
View ArticleHarold Wolpe and Post Apartheid SA
Steven Friedman’s new book Race, Class and Power: Harold Wolpe and the radical critique of apartheid was published recently by UKZN Press. The Con brings you this excerpt from chapter 11 of the book,...
View ArticleAn Encounter in the Park
Nakhane Toure’s debut novel Piggy Boy’s Blues has recently been published by new Jacana imprint Blackbird Books and was launched on Thursday last week at the Keleketla Library! It has been described...
View ArticleCollusion in Practice
Lloyd Gedye & Niren Tolsi By apparently accepting an invitation into a gang of white-owned construction companies that had for decades colluded on tender deals, Stefanutti Stocks’ John Jackson...
View ArticleComing Clean on Collusion
Lloyd Gedye & Niren Tolsi John Jackson, one of the men responsible for turning a provincial construction company into a leading player in the sector, was fingered as the Godfather-type figure...
View ArticleeThekwini: Coughing up for Industry
Niren Tolsi & Lloyd Gedye Durban’s South Basin exists like a subtropical Dickensian nightmare – race and class oppression sweating it out under mango trees heavy with fruit, and chimney stacks...
View ArticlePoisoned Earth
Niren Tolsi & Lloyd Gedye Turmeric runs through Merebank, a suburb in Durban’s southern industrial basin. In this mainly Hindu community, it is used for cooking and in brides’ cleansing rituals...
View ArticleIndustry’s Refusal to Truck with Residents
Lloyd Gedye & Niren Tolsi On Khangela Bridge, the trucks rumbling to and from Durban’s harbour sound like industrial torture containers. Pistons, cogs, wheels and naked brake pads squeak and...
View ArticleThe Last Ones Are Woke
South African writer Thando Mgqolozana delivered the keynote address of the 19th Time of the Writer Festival at the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre on January 14 . The Con...
View ArticleFurthermore…
Artist Nolan Oswald Dennis’ show opened at the Goodman Gallery, Cape Town on April 14. Born in 1988 in Zambia, Dennis is part of that exciting new generation of South African artists born as...
View ArticleZimbabwe’s Blood Diamonds
The phrase “resource curse” has been used to describe a state of affairs in which a mineral-it is usually a mineral-that should benefit a country becomes the chief means of its damnation. Think of...
View Article‘The Greatest’ 1942-2016
The Greatest: “Muhammad Ali, who died Friday, in Phoenix, at the age of seventy-four, was the most fantastical American figure of his era, a self-invented character of such physical wit, political...
View ArticleTaking Back the Land: Problems & Pitfalls
The Expropriation Bill which is ready to be signed into law could be a turning point in land reform. But it does have flaws, writes Claire Martens. The Endorois people, a traditional pastoralist...
View ArticleCandidate Lists: The ANC & Anti-Democracy
There is nothing new about the ANC imposing candidates and leaders against the wishes of the majority of members. A long history of this practice extends into the exile years. I know, because I was...
View ArticleWhy Michelle Obama’s Speech Sucked
Lady X Can every Obama-loving adult, who has experienced and believes in life outside the United States of America put down their Kool-Aid and consider this: there is very little integrity attached...
View ArticleVoting PE: Sick & Tyre-ed on Qeqe Street
By Steve Kretzmann The telltale signs of protest: piles of half-burnt refuse, rocks and rubble and circles of blistered tar created by burning tyres mark the length of Qeqe Street, the longest street...
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