Sunday morning i had the privilege of attending a public conversation between Lukhanyo Calata [author of 'My father died for this'] and Wilhelm Verwoed [author of 'Bloedbande'] as the final session of the Restitution conference that took place this weekend. i dropped some soundbites on Facebook as it was happening and some other things that the reflections prompted in me and figured it might be helpful for people who weren't on their social medias to gather [...]
i wonder if there might be something South Africa could learn from the story of Zacchaeus in the Bible. As a much-hated tax collector known for robbing and cheating the people he has an encounter with Jesus and it changes his life so significantly that he makes amends with his money and gives back to those he wronged. But in some cases we see that he gives back four times as much to those he [...]
i attended the Restitution Conference yesterday at the Castle in Cape Town, cos slavery. [And am going back later today for part II] Which in some ways just feels like a thing i did. Oh i went to this thing and stuff happened and people spoke and it was good. Excepting that it wasn't just a thing. It was the first ever Restitution Conference in South Africa. And that something like 21 years after our [...]
'One day there were two boys, Tom and Bernard. Tom lived right opposite Bernard. One day Tom stole Bernard's bicycle and every day Bernard saw Tom cycling to school on it. After a year, Tom went up to Bernard, stretched out his hand and said, "Let us reconcile and put the past behind us." Bernard looked at Tom's hand. "And what about the bicycle?" Father Mxolisi Mpambani told this story during a lunch-hour panel discussion [...]
These are some of the recent posts that i and others have made to hopefully challenge and encourage and educate you as you try and figure out how to do life better in South Africa. Please feel free to share any of these posts that are helpful with people you think it might help to take one more step towards... All Lives Smatter - a collection of thoughts about race, painting all people with the [...]
So much good stuff happening all over the internet the last two weeks in terms of helping us understand some of the challenges we are facing. i stumbled upon this in the Warehouse’s most recent newsletter and wanted to share it with you as some really practical steps for moving forwards together. These steps apparently emerged from a conversation between Linda Martindale, Caroline Powell and my wife, tbV [the beautiful Val]. We have heard a [...]
My lovely wife Val was of course the hostess for Friday's dinner and deep dive into Race, Boundary and Location conversation that i wrote about over here, and she shares some of her thoughts from the evening: The idea is simple: gather good people around good food and good discussion and see what happens. So we did. We turned off technology and tuned in to people. It was messy and it was chaotic, it was painful and it [...]
So, the other day i tried to take a few steps back in this ongoing Race and Reconciliation conversation we've been having over here with this post trying to see if we could all agree that the incredibly out-of-proportion extreme gap between rich and poor in our country [and the world at large] is not okay. Most people stayed away from engaging at all [maybe it's cos of the busy time of the year, but [...]
"It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man." [Jack Handey] Ah, i love me some Jack Handey, but as i continue to look at some different aspects that define the character of a person, i'm not quite sure that would be the best approach. However, when we hear the word "Sorry!" coming out of our mouth, we should always be asking ourselves one key question: [...]
