EduSounds

In this conversation, we discuss many issues, amongst which are:

In this conversation, we discuss many issues, amongst which are:

"As a city, Cape Town sits on top of an uncomfortable history of colonialism, slavery, and formal racial segregation. This history has an uneasy relationship with depictions of the city in tourist publications as an inclusive world of adventuring, beaches, dining, and warm weather. Cape Town’s problematic relationship with its slave past runs deeper than this. Slavery is a history which until the fall of apartheid in 1994 remained largely forgotten in public memory. Efforts to confront this history remain fitful and highly contested. But slavery at the Cape differed in style from most other systems of enslavement involving Europeans and Africans. Rather than serving as a source of human labour, the Cape was the recipient of enslaved people from Dutch Batavia – modern day South East Asia – as well as from elsewhere in Africa, predominantly Madagascar and Mozambique. However, memory and recognition of slave roots in South Africa has been marginalised by decades of subsequent subjugation and selective promotion of settler histories. The majority of slave descendants were classified as ‘coloured’ by the state."

In this conversation, we discuss many issues, amongst which are:

House Fire: A poem by Chikayla Coleman

If I were to describe a house fire,

I would describe the moment the flames

begin to destroy those things that can never be replaced.

Like red wine spilled down a white shirt,

the fire leaves a stain of spoiled material in its wake.

Photograph albums

containing memories once sharp and crisp with every detail of every face

are consumed by the blaze,

it belches smoke that obscures the photographs of the grandchildren on the mantelpiece,

what were their names again?…

She no longer remembers.

Fire caresses the crooked spectacles until they melt in its embrace;

now she will never find her glasses.

The demented fire spreads like a disease

sofas catching fire from carpets,

then it streaks up curtains like a mass of leaves spurted by a gust of wind on a dry day in Autumn;

they crackle and flit about on the breeze in an array of reds, browns and auburns.

Veins, arteries and nerves of the house

where electricity and water once flowed

are frayed, melted, dysfunctional.

If I were to describe a house fire,

I would describe how memories are left

faded in the flames.

"The court is in absolute agreement with the learned counsel for the claimants that soft drinks manufactured by Nigeria Bottling Company ought to be fit for human consumption irrespective of colour or creed. It is manifest that NAFDAC has been grossly irresponsible in its regulatory duties to the consumers of Fanta and Sprite manufactured by Nigeria Bottling Company. The court, in the light of the damning evidence before it showing that NAFDAC has failed to live up to expectations, cannot close its eyes to the grievous implication of allowing the status quo to continue as it is. That NAFDAC shall forthwith mandate Nigeria Bottling Company to, within 90 days hereof, include on all the bottles of Fanta and Sprite soft drinks manufactured by the company, a written warning that the content of the said bottles of Fanta and Sprite soft drinks cannot be taken with Vitamin C as same becomes poisonous if taken with Vitamin C. In consideration of the fact that this case was filed in 2008 and that it has been in court for nine years, costs of N2 million is awarded against NAFDAC. Interest shall be paid on the costs awarded at the rate of 10% per annum until liquidation of the said sum."

"Blog refers to both an artefact and a practice. As an artefact, a blog (short for web log) is a frequently updated personal online space. As a practice, to blog is to publish a series of posts for others to read, comment upon, establish a hyperlinked connection to and from, or otherwise engage with."

"The bloggers’ public may at times be invisible; there is a public who observes, reads, engages with but leaves no trace of their presence. A more visible public is implied by the blogs’ status as multi-authored – groups of or individual writers interact with those who comment, like and re-circulate blog posts.

The bloggers’ public is not a public that equates to a literal everyone. It is a public restricted to those who constitute the blog’s readership. A readership that selects only those with electricity, IT equipment, access to the internet, and the knowledge, skills and interest required to locate, read and make meaning of blogging. This is an exclusive ‘everyone’."

"The thing that I found most interesting when I first came to Nigeria myself, was the realization that I don’t have to live my life exactly the way my parents told me to live it. Because I could see some examples of how people were doing it differently and I just decided that I would stay among those people in Nigeria. I would learn all the best things from them and I would incorporate all the best bits of their lives into my own life and I have tried and I really believe that my life is so much happier for having visited Nigeria and for having being able to learn from Yoruba culture."

"Historical information was primarily conveyed in narratives called itan which belonged to the representatives of important groups. Thus, the itan of a town was owned by the town’s ruler, who embodied the town. Below that level, itan were held by the heads of important descent and residential groups. But beyond itan, historical information was also conveyed in other genres. Important historical details were transmitted in divination verses, ritual, and a form of praise poetry called oriki, as well as many smaller genres."

"The privatisation of information has also had a crippling effect on historical research. While many important files of the colonial period are held outside Africa, those that are based on the continent tend to decline over time, and not only because of often dismal storage conditions. In various Nigerian archives we have consulted, files relating to land, political authority and identity had disappeared or were missing sections. Where files exist, personal experience suggests that it is not unusual for researchers to be put under considerable pressure not to investigate issues that might be seen as challenging the interests of powerful individuals. At the same time, archival resources on the postcolonial period are extremely limited because politicians routinely take home the most important files from their tenure to ensure security."