Nomboniso Gasa: Long and short of the gender issue

by Percy Zvomuya, Mail & Guardian

Gender activist Nomboniso Gasa has been on Twitter for most of this year, although she hasn't yet memorised the social medium's first commandment: brevity. Her tweets, as a result, are often numbered 1 to 10.

"I was always intrigued by the power attributed to social media, the role it played in the Arab Spring, its power to report things as they happen," she said at her home in Observatory, Johannes­burg, on why she joined Twitter. "But I have always wondered about the depth of the platform. I didn't understand how you could communicate substantial issues in 140 characters. I still haven't mastered it. That's why I do the lists."

Andile Mngxitama the bully

Letter to the Editor, Mail & Guardian

Andile Mngxitama and Athi Joja have every right to criticise Jared Sacks for his piece on Mamphele ­Ramphele and Steve Biko ("Biko would not vote for Ramphele", March 15), but it is downright unethical for ­Mngxitama to threaten Sacks with violence – and to incite Sacks to resort to violence too – because Mngxitama did not like what he wrote.

According to a post on Mngxitama's Facebook page: "real bikoists out there, whenever we see that white little bastard called jared sacks, we must beat the shit out of him. they now pissing on biko's face. they can diss mamphele all they want, but to insult us like this? when i see jared, he must beat me up. that's the deal." He also responded to a response on his page by saying: "jared will pay for this."

Andile Mngxitama: we need to draw a line in the sand

by Zackie Achmat & Richard Pithouse, GroundUp

On the 15th of March Jared Sacks, a journalist and activist, published an article in the Mail & Guardian asking whether or not Steve Biko, the Steve Biko of 1977, would have supported Mamphele Ramphele’s recent political initiative. Some people, including people who had been close to Biko, really liked the piece. Others, including the well-known public commentator Andile Mngxitama, didn’t like it at all.

Tweeting with a conscience

by Percy Zvomuya, Mail & Guardian

Nomalanga Mkhize

It is appropriate that historian, educator and television presenter Nomalanga Mkhize’s Twitter tagline comes from ­Brazilian educator, philosopher and influential theorist of critical pedagogy, Paulo Freire.

The Brazilian wrote that “the oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption” and Mkhize’s activism and Twitter discussions attest to that.