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Keywords: Africa

  • AUSTRALIA

    Palestine's heavy metal revolution

    • James M. Dorsey
    • 19 April 2010
    5 Comments

    Boosted by technologies that facilitate mass distribution without government control, the heavy metal and hip-hop music scene in the Middle East recalls the role music played in the velvet revolution that toppled regimes in Eastern Europe and Indonesia.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Messiah Mandela's miracle moment

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 11 February 2010
    4 Comments

    I clearly remember what I was doing the day Nelson Mandela walked free from prison. The behemoth apartheid state shifted so thoroughly and so smoothly that even the erratic events of the past 20 years have done little to diminish South Africa's reputation as a miracle nation.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Selling short Nelson Mandela and rugby

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 28 January 2010

    Are we to accept that the inspiration of sporting victory is alone sufficient to solve conflict and soothe the way to redemption and rebirth for a divided nation? If so, it must be said that Eastwood's film is history rendered as a fairytale.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    South Africa's black and white minstrels

    • David Holdcroft
    • 10 December 2009
    3 Comments

    The performers, in white-face make-up and baggy trousers, have two minutes to catch a driver's attention and elicit a few rands. Their skill is as remarkable as the cultural and racial ironies of their performance.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    African parables

    • Grant Fraser
    • 15 September 2009
    2 Comments

    Men who stood before the gate .. trail the weight of empty hands, empty pockets .. Back to the shanties .. Where children are launching imagined craft .. Away from the stench of earth .. Into pools .. the colour of Keen's Mustard.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The humiliation of Caster Semenya

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 31 August 2009
    8 Comments

    The issue is not whether South African athlete Caster Semenya is male, hyper-androgynous, or, as she claims, 'entirely female'. More burdensome is the ferocious public response to a predicament that clearly called for maturity and restraint.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Refugees and other aliens

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 18 August 2009
    5 Comments

    One night 11 years ago I joined members of a local police commando to report on a mission to intercept Mozambique refugees travelling into South Africa. It is easier to 'tolerate the intolerance' in under-resourced, refugee-deluged South Africa than in Australia.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    South Africa's lesson for post-apartheid Australia

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 18 June 2009
    10 Comments

    Despite the best wishes of many, we are yet to resolve the injustices that have resulted from White Australia's brand of apartheid. As Disgrace reveals, reconciliation is more than words. There is much fear and anger to overcome.

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  • RELIGION

    Behind the Pope's condom 'gaffe'

    • Michael Czerny
    • 05 May 2009
    2 Comments

    Abstinence and fidelity win little public support in Western discourse, but are increasingly included, even favoured, in national AIDS strategies in Africa. Culture counts, and a condom is more than a piece of latex.

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  • RELIGION

    The Pope, condoms and AIDS

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 26 March 2009
    20 Comments

    The Pope's criticism of condoms was forged in a Western context, but reflects an aspect of the African experience of AIDS. There, a value-free Western strategy has been inadequate because it does not deal with important cultural factors.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How G-G weakened monarchists' case

    • John Warhurst
    • 13 March 2009
    9 Comments

    Governors-General are appointed under a system that freezes out the Parliament, the Opposition and the people. The controversy over Quentin Bryce's trip to Africa has again revealed the office's vulnerability to partisan politics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    ICC's dubious Darfur justice

    • Kimberley Layton
    • 11 March 2009
    2 Comments

    President Omar al-Bashir stands accused of two counts of war crimes and five of crimes against humanity. But prosecuting him will not deliver justice to the people of Darfur. What seems like the beginning of the end of the tragedy may be the end of the beginning.

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