Fiat Lux
May 12 2016 – The reader may still remember the nickname “La Pasionaria” I wrote about a few years ago in this space. Well, she was that Spanish woman who stood at burning barricades in 1930s Madrid, under the fire of the fascists under General Francisco Franco, and urged the republican resisters with the immortal words, “No Pasaran!” They Shall Not Pass! Her real name was Isidora Dolores Ibarruri Gomez,…
January 21 2016 At last this newspaper is once again circulating in Tanzania a government-imposed ban that kept it out of the country’s market for a good twelvemonth. The official reason given for the ban in January last year was that the paper had been circulating in Tanzania without proper registration. Which, of course, was an exercise in extreme officious silliness, seeing as the East African had been on sale…...
October 22 2015 There are so many ways of appreciating issues related to corruption in our countries, and some of them can be quite edifying. I have heard of corruption as the very essence of power, as in power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. This would tend to mean that as long as you get involved with power you cannot choose but be corrupt. There are those who say there…...
August 4 2016 South Africans went to the ballot box this past week to elect local councilors in what was described as a hotly contested election presenting the ruling African National Congress (ANC) with its stiffest challenge since the end of Apartheid. Indeed, early trends in the tallying of the votes indicated that the ruling party was struggling in places like Gauteng as the Democratic Alliance (DA) looked like a…...