South Africa

South Africa: News, Stories and Analysis.

Nadia Davids

‘Plays Are an Astonishingly Intimate Way of Experiencing Art and Time’ Nadia Davids’ First Draft

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South African writer, Nadia Davids, says her latest play, Hold Still, first came to her when she was living in London in 2015: ‘There was a constant stream of horrific news stories depicting families fleeing their homes. I wanted to explore how ordinary people responded to a humanitarian crisis and how family histories shape us. I also wanted to consider what happens when the crisis reaches our own homes.’ Read More...
August/September 2024First DraftInterviewsSouth Africa
South Africa

Conflict, Terrorism, and Invented Settler Colonial Victimhood in South Africa Reflections for Solidarity Building towards a Free Palestine

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Underlying the logic of war and conflict that proliferates global narratives on the Israeli state’s ongoing onslaught in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, is a subtly communicated victimhood conferred to the settler colonial state. Much like South African racialized victims resisting and 'transitioning’ from a white-minority apartheid state, Palestinians find themselves subjected to a displaced empathy that delegitimizes their victimhood and liberationist efforts through the language of conflict and ‘terrorism’. Read More...
December 23/January 24South Africa
Thula Simpson

‘After the End of History Comes More History’ Thula Simpson’s First Draft

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South African historian and author of History of South Africa: From 1902 to the Present, Thula Simpson, believes the most common misconception about South African history is related to apartheid: ‘Many believe that apartheid is the central thread of South African history, the overwhelming fact, the unifying category to which all roads and streams must lead, and which can explain all. In fact, apartheid is a specific period in a much longer history of segregation, and it cannot be understood except in the context of that wider story.’ Read More...
First DraftInterviewsOctober/November 2023South Africa
South Africa

The Not-So-Free Movement of People South Africa’s Haphazard Commitment to Open Borders

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South Africa’s complex migration policy highlights the contradiction between its commitment to free movement within the African continent and its stringent immigration regulations. The country’s political, philosophical, and economic underpinnings of free movement struggles against the AU's Agenda 2063 and international treaties. Read More...
August/September 2023South Africavol7-no3