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2026: Remembering Sharpeville

March 19, 2026

(Available for free publication, 21/03/2026) Today , March 21, Human Right Day, we remember the 1960 massacre at Sharpeville. As we do so, let us demolish one myth and recall also the vital role played by principled journalists at the time. The myth is that 69 people died and several were injured. The confirmed reality: […]

Zionism, anti-Semitism and eugenics

March 18, 2026

The conflation of the religio-nationalist ideology of Zionism not only with Judaism and the nation state of Israel, but also with antisemitism, continues to be widely promoted. Yet the terminology and the manner of its use grew out of the pseudoscientific racism that flourished in the 19th Century. This came in response to the humanist […]

Plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza

July 20, 2025

In 1967, aware of what the proclaimed Aryan Nazis had done in Germany, the Israeli polymath and philosopher, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, warned of the danger of Judea-nazism emerging in the Zionist state. As Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy points out today (July 20) history is clearly repeating itself, along with an horrific irony: before the slaughter of […]

Trump, ‘Boers’ and propaganda

June 4, 2025

(First published in Groundup, South Africa) Words can be plucked out of historical and literary context and weaponised. As such, they can be used to harm individuals and groups or to rally bullies and persecutors. There have been classic examples in recent history, and last week there was a globally broadcast example of a more […]

11. bullets and a 14-year-old boy

May 14, 2025

IDF soldiers in an ambush rained fire down on a trio of 14-year-old Palestinian Americans who may have been throwing stones, but harmlessly. Two escaped, wounded; the third was killed after being sprayed with bullets by Gideon Levy with photographs by Alex Levac (unavailable) May 2, 2025 A brightly lit, elegant, spacious living room. Hanging […]

Satire, race and ‘Afrikaners’

May 14, 2025

I once maintained that it would be impossible to write and produce a good satirical show in today’s South Africa. Now I am sure I was right: even before any writing is complete, reality will make the subject matter redundant. Mind you, this week’s Amerikan refugee saga took matters to an even more ludicrous level […]

The myth of the lady with the lamp

May 18, 2014

Nursing unions and the media in South Africa last week noted that Monday was a day dedicated to nurses, to those who treat the sick and the ailing. And, as they did so, they continued to perpetuate a myth. The myth is that Florence Nightingale, was the unique “lady with the lamp”, who tended to […]

The need to remember history — & plan political homes

November 28, 2013

One element lacking in the current debates about what is going on in Cosatu is any sense of recent history. Because there is nothing really new in the current spate of political bloodletting, in the bitterness and the backstabbing. The rationale behind the suspension of Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and the resignation this week […]