Table of contents for Issue 314 2023 in The Big Issue

With a bright and positive start to 2023 the glittering Cape minstrels are back, the NSRI is saving lives; Avatar: The Way of the Water is worth watching on ‘bigger' screens, if only for its special effects; the City of Cape Town is acting to combat pollution; and Joburg's summer skies are filled with butterflies. On a more serious note, press releases about gender-based violence (GBV) arrive in bulk in my inbox just once a year to highlight the issue with a GBV ‘day'. However, violent behaviour persists as a perpetual, underlying murmur across time. While producing this issue, it has come to light how irrevocably violence is entwined in South African society. Perpetrators can be softspoken, financially successful, fleek, disabled, poor, ordinary family men, teenagers and female or male.…

[ THE BIG ISSUE ] A moment after Our Poisoned Land reached The Big Issue, NB Publishers reported that Julius Malema and his sidekick Floyd Shivambu were trying to ban the book from print. Released on 11 November 2022, Our Poisoned Land is the sequel to Jacques Pauw's The President's Keepers, and after only a few weeks on the shelves is in reprint, topping the bestseller charts by a significant margin. Our Poisoned Land is touted as “the book that Malema does not want you to read” (yes, there is some pretty candid stuff in there), yet journalist Eusebius McKaiser has said in his review: “For me, the heart of the book is a devastating lament of lost opportunities, grand theft and sustained assault on the Constitution by mostly ANC…

Sisanda Nkoala is a Senior Lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s (CPUT) media department. She also serves as the Faculty Language and Transformation Coordinator for the CPUT Faculty of Informatics and Design. She holds a PhD in Rhetoric Studies at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Rhetoric Studies. Her research interests are in the intersection of rhetoric, language and media. She also publishes on multilingualism in higher education and journalism studies. She is a former awardwinning journalist. South Africa is a country that experiences a very high level of GBV. During the UN’s annual international 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign, the country’s news media coverage of violence against women and children increases. As wellintentioned as this may be, studies have exposed several shortcomings in…

FIND YOUR WAY IN A CRAZY MAZE BEST RIDDLES. WHAT IS FAST, LOUD AND CRUNCHY? You can still buy YOUR current print copy of little issue at select Spar, CNA and Pick n Pay stores NATIONWIDE excluding the greater metros of Cape Town FREE GET ALL BACK ISSUES OF LITTLE ISSUE AT NO COST. PRINT AND SHARE THEM. LIMITED OFFER. DOWNLOAD THEM AT WWW.LITTLEISSUE.ORG.ZA Recipes • Riddles • Word Fun • Counting • Search and find • Loads of stories!…

Claremont, Cape Town Name: Progress Cembi Vendor number: 1616 Find him at: Cavendish Street, Claremont About: Progress has sold The Big Issue for more than 10 years. He is married with two children aged 19 and 24. Selling the magazine has taught him how to communicate properly with people and be friendly. He spends a lot of time on the road and has learnt to engage with customers so they can buy from him. Selling the magazine also keeps him and his mind busy, so much so that he forgets about negative things that could be happening in his life and around him. He enjoys going to church in his free time and watching TV. He is also good at painting. Dreams: His ambition is to become a farmer, focusing…

ABOUT THE AUTHORS ANDREW RAE Andrew has guided safaris in southern and East Africa for a long time. A South African by birth, his love affair with all things wild and African began at an early age. He has a National Diploma in Nature Conservation and is a licensed foot safari, rock art interpretation and nature/bird guide. He’s worked for the past 30 years in the Kruger lowveled, Eastern Cape Karoo, Botswana’s Northern Tuli Game Reserve and most recently, the region surrounding Mapungubwe National Park, a World Heritage Site. He’s a known raconteur and storyteller who believes that a great safari always depends on the quality of the guiding. Andrew has served as a general manager at some exclusive safari lodges over the years, including Tanda Tula in the world-famous…

The Tweede Nuwe Jaar is back with the Kaapse Klopse competitions at Athlone Stadium taking place each Saturday until the first week of February, with knock-out rounds determining the winners. The carnival kicked off with The Hollywoodbets Cape Town Street Parade celebrated by approximately 20 000 minstrels and 100 000 people who filled the streets with colour, and the sounds of the Klopse. Now you can watch the Kaapse Klopse Karnival Association Troupes as they compete in Cape Town’s Athlone Stadium in the following categories: A Grand March Pass, Klopse Jol, Best dressed Troupe and Senior &Junior Drum Major. Muneeb Gambeno, director of the Kaapse Klopse Karnival Association (KKKA), says that about twenty troupes took part in the parade, and while the over thirty degree heat was challenging, safety and…

Since becoming the highestgrossing film of all time back in 2009, Avatar has polarised viewers. Audiences span the spectrum of obsessives fascinated by its next-gen technical achievements and tall, blue, digital aliens, to haters deeming it a Pocahontas rip-off, trying to square the film’s chart-topping box office receipts with its supposedly non-existent cultural impact. But there’s great irony to forgetting just how ground-breaking the beautiful blue moon of Pandora really was, with its lush forests (initially) untouched by human destruction. Avatar remains a massively ambitious anti-imperialist and ecologically concerned blockbuster. As a warning about climate change, director James Cameron knew that, to get people to care for the world, he had to show a vision of nature and community in all its beauty The movie heralds the arrival of the…

Everyone you meet can teach you something you don't know. Be willing to learn from them My conduct with the vendors has always been influenced by a strong desire to learn from them. I have tried to keep an open mind and came into my social work role at The Big Issue as a blank slate trying to grasp as much as possible. This has been a rewarding process, as I have learnt many important values through the vendors’ experiences. These values — rare finds in individuals — include, but are not limited to, optimism, resilience, hard work, and respect. NEW VALUES Life’s trials coupled with our social ills create a vicious cycle of uncertainty, anxiety, worry, fear, a need to control, and many other negative emotions. Considering that, a…

Section one Seven troupes include Carnival Boys, Manenberg Superstars, Fabulous Woodstock Starlites, West London All Stars, Juvie Boy Entertainers, Baruch Entertainers and Cape Town Hawkers. When: 28 January 2023. Section two D6 Raw, Ashwin Willemse Orient, Exquisite Golden Gate Hanover Original D6, TV Stars, Posh Vibrant, MP Young Tycoons and Playaz Inc. When: 21 January and 4 February Tickets: from R30 per person www.computicket.com or Shoprite, Checkers and U-Save outlets. Social media: #CTSP2023 #capetownstreetparade Facebook: @capetownstreetparade Instagram: @capetownstreetparade…

South Africa has one of the highest rape statistics in the world, even higher than some countries at war. The picture has been more or less the same every year since the early 2000s, with the numbers going slightly up or down. But policies to deal with the urgency of these very high levels of sexual violence tend to individualise rape in a way that creates the impression that only some men rape. And that they are the ‘rotten apples’ or the ‘monsters’. The response from the police — as well as the governing African National Congress (ANC) — underscores the failure to appreciate the systemic nature of the problem. This was evident again recently at an ANC policy conference where it was clear that ministers and the ANC Women’s…