Articles
PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN: ESSA, DULLAH, AND US
By Dr Allan Boesak Honourable Judge Siraj Desai and the Board of the District Six Museum, Family of Essa and Dullah, Friends, Brothers and Sisters: What a privilege and honour to join you today in rejoicing in the life and work of two such remarkable and outstanding...
Peace but not justice
This article was published in Muslim Views in March 1991 His broken body lay at the bottom of the stairs. The fall had caused his death or so they said. Covered in multiple bruises, 28 in all, the body of Imam Abdullah Haron was returned to his family after 123 days...
Book Review: Understanding Sharia
Understanding Sharia Islamic Law in a Globalised World Raficq S. Abdullah and Mohamed M. Keshavjee Book Review by Zubeida Jaffer Post 9/11, Sharia or Islamic law has peppered global discourses like never before in modern times. Negative statements about Sharia...
In the search for Khidr of the Heart:
By Mphutlane wa Bofelo* Respected elders, beloved brothers and sisters in Islam. Al-salamu `alaykum, We thank Allah (swt) for the opportunity to gather on Eid-ul-fitr to collectively celebrate and reflect on the lessons we draw from Ramadan and...
Charlotte Mannya Maxeke – By Advocate Modidima Mannya
Anyone who has had the opportunity to read Zubeida Jaffer’s book, Beauty of the Heart, the Life and Times of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke and Dr. Thozama April’s Doctoral thesis titled: Theorising Women: The Intellectual Contributions of Charlotte Maxeke to the Struggle...
Will the US start a war against Iran?
By Vijay Prashad On Sunday, May 5, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force had begun to make their way from the Mediterranean Sea toward the coastline of Iran. Iran, Bolton said,...
The living role of those who died for us to be free
By Professor Aslam Fataar And say not of those who are slain in the path of God’s cause. “They are dead”. Nay, they are alive though you perceive it not. (Q2: 154) This Quranic verse provides one very important way to productively work with the personal, social and...
We did it and can do it
We South Africans fought back fiercely and successfully against the cruelty of colonialism and apartheid. On Freedom Day, I celebrate that collective spirit of tireless effort that defeated those who were so cruel. We did it.! Twenty-five years on, I remain...
World Press Freedom Day 2019
May 3rd is World Press Freedom Day. It gives us an opportunity to assess the progress of our profession annually.
50 YEARS ON AND NO JUSTICE
Fifty years ago, in 1969, seven men were killed in detention for their political beliefs. The family of the seventh man is about to launch a campaign to bring attention to these freedom fighters known by few South Africans. The seventh man, the last to die in 1969,...
The disgrace of South Africa’s post-colonial ‘mimic men’
IN 1967, a book by Caribbean writer VS Naipaul examined how newly-created elites in newly-independent countries that had laboured under colonialism began acting with as much greed, cruelty and ruthlessness as their former colonial masters. Naipaul named his book ‘The...
Special Recognition Award for Social Justice
Zubeida Jaffer awarded Imagine Awards 2018 Special Recognition Award for Social Justice
The Catholic Church is the Biggest Financial Power on Earth
Have you ever wondered how wealthy the church really is? In his book, ‘The Vatican Billions’, writer and philosopher Avro Manhattan gives us a glimpse of the true financial worth of the catholic church: “The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschildsof...
Photographs from Reverend Chris Wessels’s funeral
The American Economy Is Rigged -And what we can do about it
In Brief Economic inequality is higher in the U.S. than in virtually all other advanced countries. The American political system, coupled with high initial inequality, gave the moneyed enough political influence to change laws to benefit themselves, further...
Footprints of hope in the Cape sands – Heritage Day 2018
The women of Cape Town remind me of the grey-blue mountains that hug our shores. They are forever present. They have been here for thousands of years giving life to those who have lived and live here at the furthermost point of Africa. Their stories of times gone by...
A reflection on Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje’s Mhudi by Antjie Krog
MHUDI Before we explore the underlying philosophy of the novel, it is important to understand exactly where Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje emotionally and physically found himself when he wrote this text. It was around 1920 while Plaatje was living for the second time in...
Charlotte Maxeke, ‘Mother of Black Freedom’
In segregated South Africa, Charlotte Mannya Maxeke dedicated her life to the struggle for women’s rights and education for all. Her pioneering role is only now being rediscovered and more widely reported once again.
Mosques need to take up the issue of violence against women
On 9 August 2018, National Women's Day, Zubeida Jaffer spoke to Tashreeq Truebody of Radio 786 about her life as a woman who had lived through the "belly of the beast" that was Apartheid. Jaffer said the levels of violence against women in today's society is "very...
Bongani Mayosi: SA top cardiologist found new heart attack gene
Professor Bongani Mayosi, the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town was suffering from depression and took his own life on Friday 27 July 2018.
Boys in a Thai Cave: The Positive Power of Globalism
The events near Chang Rai powerfully underscore that a “global community” very much exists – and that it can have very positive effects on the lives and well-being of people.
Open letter to Zenani and Zindzi Mandela
Veteran journalist, Zubeida Jaffer, writes an open letter to Zindzi and Zenani Mandela on healing, following the passing of their mother, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the late stalwart being robbed of her legacy during her life and Stratcom unleashing a campaign which would succeed in driving a wedge between herself and other leaders.
Charlotte Maxeke’s Speech
The Native Christian Mother (By. Mrs. Maxeke) Mr Chairman and Christian friends, it is certainly a great pleasure to be in a gathering of this kind, a gathering where Christian men and women are collected to study as to how the Gospel of Christ should be spread...
Winnie: Unbreakable but not unscarred
Winnie, brave and beautiful, is no more. She was unbreakable through the toughest of times. She led the fight for full rights for all of us in the country of our birth. She was unbreakable but not unscarred.
Let’s choose a path where all can prosper
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was probably one of the world’s most well know freedom fighters, who tirelessly campaigned for an end to apartheid injustice. Award winning journalist Zubeida Jaffer argues that it’s time for all of us to pick up the baton left by stalwarts like Winnie and to fight as she did for a South Africa which benefits all.
Open Letter To Cyril Ramaphosa
I would like you to seek assistance to change the narrative that gives local business the right to hoard their resources at the expense of the public. They cannot expect you and your team to encourage foreign investment while they hoard resources that all of us have helped them create.
SOWETO: A Festival of Ideas once again?
Soweto is associated locally and across the world with resistance against apartheid. It was here that the youth rose up against the imposition of Afrikaans in their schools in 1976 and gave impetus to a protracted battle against apartheid leading to a democratic South Africa in 1994. Fast forward to 7-10 December 2017, when scores of young people packed the Eyethu Lifestyle Centre in Soweto for the ABANTU BOOK FESTIVAL while just 13 kilometres away, preparations were underway for the ANC’s 54th National Congress, to be held at the Nasrec Centre in Soweto from 16 to 20 December.
The Jakes that we Loved
By Albie Sachs Former justice of the Constitutional Court ALBIE SACHS reflects on the life of Jakes Gerwel, a contrarian who welcomed critiques of his own leadership What to do about my Mozambican art collection? After the bomb that nearly took my life in Maputo in...
Struggling for a Future: The Second Revolution
By Njabulo Ndebele Thank you for inviting me to participate in this important gathering this morning. In the midst of so many other commitments, I decided to prioritise an unexpected invitation to do what I was asked. I was asked to express my understandings of the...
Conservative Saudi clergy lose their grip
Saudi Arabia’s ultra-conservative forces have for long succeeded in maintaining a tight hold on women’s freedom of movement in the Kingdom. When King Salman lifted the ban on women driving recently, it sent a clear signal that those forces were no longer holding sway....