"You Have All the Reasons to Be Angry"
A mine massacre and the fight for South Africa's future
On the morning of Thursday, August 16, 2012, as thousands of striking South African miners marched in circles atop a pile of red rocks, the police lined up their tanks in front of it. Roughly 30 feet high and 50 feet across, the rock pile was the closest thing to a mountain for miles, jutting out of the flat expanse of the mining area called Marikana, 60 miles northwest of Johannesburg. READ MORE >>
Giddy-Up!
Dreaming of Tripoli
Africa Is Dead, Long Live Holland
Lots of debate out there about soccer and national pride, and whether the expressions of nationalism the game provokes are good or bad. But I gotta say, down here in South Africa among the fans rather than the commentators, what they mainly look like is thin. READ MORE >>
"Yes We Can"...Actually No, We Can't
I'm sitting in a solid block of Americans at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria watching Team USA play in the sandbox with the Algerians, and the one thing I notice is the total absence of "Yes We Can" chants. This time last year, even the South Africans were chanting Obama's campaign motto. In the teeming Johannesburg bar in which I watched Bafana Bafana take on Brazil in last June's Confederations Cup semis, "Yes We Can" was the favorite refrain, not to mention at the US-Brazil final. I haven't heard it once this year. READ MORE >>
Worse Than An Insect Noise
I hear vuvuzelas everywhere. On the streets, in the shopping malls, and of course in the stadiums, but I even hear them now when they aren't there. Last night, as I was trying to fall asleep in the little house where I'm staying in Melville, I was certain I heard a crowd of them, honking relentlessly somewhere far off. Then I realized the heater in my room happens to drone at a B flat, the same tone made by most vuvuzelas. READ MORE >>
The Horrific Letdown in South Africa
So, how bad was that game? I was inside the frigid Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria (you too, Zach?), and it was bad in the stands before it got bad on the pitch. South African fans have a strange, angsty relationship with Bafana Bafana. On the one hand, a Bafana triumph is held to have a sort of mystical, even quasi-political power. READ MORE >>
