<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail-headline">Best Of The Blogs January 20: Read These Right Now
<h2 class="gmail-headline__subtitle">Catch up on this week's best blogs.</h2> </div>
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<span class="gmail-timestamp__date--published">20/01/2018 13:53 SAST</span>
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<strong>Updated</strong>
3 hours ago
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<p><strong>1. Patricia De Lille And The Battle For The Soul Of Cape Town </strong></p>
<p>The city of Cape Town
with the DA at the helm had for years pursued an agenda of
"transformation of a special type". This was anchored by the DA's
principle of equal opportunity, a highly criticised policy that
purported to present equal opportunity to an unequal society with
unequal access to those equal opportunities. This approach ultimately
led to cosmetic changes at a very superficial level, but failed to
deliver any substantive changes that would alter the structural nature
of the city's inequality, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/lukhanyo-vangqa/patricia-de-lille-and-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-cape-town_a_23332773/" target="_blank">writes Lukhanyo Vangqa</a>.</p>
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<p><strong>2. The Idea Of Scrapping Universities Is Tempting, But...</strong></p>
<p>The temptation to suggest
that South Africa forgo university education grows when people who
completed their university studies use the knowledge they gained to
allegedly cook the books or act less than honourably, as we have seen
with Steinhoff's Markus Jooste and KPMG SA. However, despite this
temptation, it would be hypocritical for those of us who have university
qualifications to say that South Africa should forgo universities
altogether –– because it is like setting alight the bridge once we have
reached the other side of the river, denying others the experience, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/jeanette-buis/the-idea-of-scrapping-universities-is-tempting-but_a_23328649/" target="_blank">writes Jeanette Buis</a>.</p>
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<p><strong>3. H&M – Everyone Is To Blame For This Monkey On Our Back</strong></p>
<p>While the brouhaha over
the H&M "monkey" hoodie advertisement appears to reflect wholesale
anger with a pugnacious brand personality, individual preferences and
the reality of economic and racial stratifications have regularly shown
how consumers remain quite selective – and plain slippery – about the
brands they choose to pick commercial fights with, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/tafi-mhaka/h-and-m-everyone-is-to-blame-for-this-monkey-on-our-back_a_23333131/" target="_blank">says Tafi Mhaka</a>.</p>
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<p><strong>4. Lungi Ngidi And Rising Black Excellence In SA Sport 🇿🇦</strong></p>
<p>It has been 24 years
since South Africa became a democratic country, and 27 since we returned
to international sport after the release of Nelson Mandela heralded the
dismantling of apartheid. In this period, we have had our fair share of
national glory and pain in sports – but the perennial holy grail has
been effective transformation. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/nkosinathi-shazi/lungi-ngidi-and-rising-black-excellence-in-sa-sport_a_23337761/" target="_blank">Read more</a>.</p>
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<p><strong>5. Mandy Wiener: Is The Sun Finally Setting On Richard Mdluli? </strong></p>
<p>Mdluli has always maintained that there is a political conspiracy against him. He even has a name for it - <em>Ulibambe lingashoni</em>,
which loosely translated means "Don't let the sun set". It seems now
that the sun is finally setting on Richard Mdluli. He is taking his
pension and riding off into the sunset. But you can be sure this will
not be the last you hear of him. He has left a trail of destruction at
the NPA and the police in his wake, and the cost of that far exceeds the
R8-million he has pocketed in the process. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/01/17/is-the-sun-finally-setting-on-richard-mdluli_a_23335801/" target="_blank">Read more</a>.</p>
<p><strong>6. There Is A Recurring Pattern Of Violence Against Women In The EFF</strong></p>
<p>The media is obsessed
with every move that the EFF makes. They have to be – Julius Malema's
proximity to white supremacists like Lord Renwick has the media eating
out of the palm of his hand, so fundamental issues are seldom covered.
If ever a story deserved more coverage by the mainstream media, it's the
persistence of violence against black women in the EFF, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/thabi-myeni/there-is-a-recurring-pattern-of-violence-against-women-in-the-eff_a_23335677/" target="_blank">writes Thabi Myeni</a>.</p>
<p><strong>7. Panyaza Lesufi: 'Language Policies A Crude Form Of Racism' </strong></p>
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This philosophy of racial
division and cultural and language individualism remains entrenched in
our education system. That is why Hoërskool Overvaal's legal victory in
keeping out 55 Grade 8 English-speaking learners from the Afrikaans
school in Vereeniging was a major setback for transformation and the
struggle for a nonracial society and should be repudiated, says the
Gauteng MEC for basic education.<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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