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News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing All Posts published on »May, 2020«
Paternalism, dagga & the ANC in exile
The accusation of paternalism levelled recently at the government by Nelson Mandela Foundation chief executive Sello Hatang highlighted an historic reality. Because paternalism, coupled with what is best described as a Victorian attitude to parenting, has long been part of the political DNA of the ANC. Perhaps it stems from the authoritarian mission school schooling […]
More funding for death than for health
May 30, 2020
We truly live in a mad, mad, mad world. Although, unlike the 1963 film of that name, our circumstances are no comedy. But, as in the film, on the centre-stage of the world today are money and a frantic search involving many people. The search, of course, is for a vaccine to immunise humanity against […]
Covid-19 is not the real enemy
May 27, 2020
Viruses kill, but so does poverty. And while we have to live with viruses because they are an inherent part of our environment, we do not have to live with poverty. And poverty each year kills more people — especially children — than any virus. It is also the working class, particularly the low paid, […]
Political opportunism & Covid-19
May 19, 2020
The arrival of Covid-19 opened the door to rightwing political parties and has given some politicians the opportunity to exercise authoritarian tendencies. That is the view of leading Swedish epidemiologist Professor Johan Gieseck. In an interview last week he said the existence of the latest Corona virus had enabled politicians to “show decisiveness and strength”, […]
Education, Covid-19 & the New Zealand experience
May 12, 2020
The lockdown has highlighted again the parlous state of South Africa’s schooling system, but it has also resulted in complaints by parents trying desperately to cope with educating their children at home in often extremely difficult conditions. New Zealand’s Correspondence School (now Te Kura — The School in the Maori language) may have some very […]
Covid-19: who is responsible?
May 3, 2020
Where were the rich and powerful — and their funding — as epidemics continued to ravage poorer communities? Now funds to combat epidemics such as TB are suffering as resources are poured into Covid-19.
Conspiracy theories & Covid-19
May 1, 2020
First published in Daily Maverick There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy, let alone irony, in the ongoing allegations by President Donald Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo that the origin of the Covid-19 Coronavirus could have been a laboratory in China. It is an allegation that plays into widespread conspiracy theories […]
Memories of nicotine deprivation
May 1, 2020
In Tanzania in 1981, the country's only cigarette factory ran out of paper — and the country ran out of cigarettes. The result revealed clearly just how addictive is nicotine: packs of cigarettes had buyers at 230 times to normal price and "puffs" on a single cigarette were sold on street corners.
Terry Bell Writes 
May 30, 2020
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