Table of contents for Issue 315 2023 in The Big Issue

We chose to feature local photographer Obie Oberholzer on our cover this issue. A former professor of photography at Rhodes, Obie is a photographic legend revered by his former students (many of whom are today's media stalwarts) – his work is renowned worldwide. Have a look at his Photo Essay on page 31. Migrant crises are in global headlines more than ever. The issue is especially relevant now because while writing the article Seers and Visionaries (page 12), predictions about immigration (both legal and illegal) seem to threaten the future of all nations, if you believe what you read, that is. Members of the animal kingdom migrate when the current environment becomes inhospitable. Humans don't usually have this option. Those fleeing conflict, environmental threat, persecution, or poverty often face bleak…

“It is tough writing a book on a controversial subject knowing, as worthy as it may be, you are on a hiding to nothing. Nearly a decade of commenting on government policy as well as juggling the lives and egos of the rich and powerful as the editor of Forbes Africa, and now the online publication Billionaire Tomorrow, taught me it is never easy and often fraught. You always get flak, from all quarters, when you write about the wealthy. Throw in politics, controversial government policy, and the growing issue of poverty, and almost everyone has a strong opinion. Yet, I decided to put my arm in the fire by spending more than a year penning my second book, The BEE Billionaires. It was a good omen, first off, that…

[ THE BIG ISSUE ] [ PHOTO ESSAY ] “Photography is about saying things in two dimensions. You have to isolate your subjects; be conscious of your whereabouts. Where are you looking? It's all linked with being precise and knowing what you are looking at. A lot of people look around but don't really see,” says veteran local photographer Obie Oberholzer. “Photography is about isolating. A photographer starts with a scene and by isolation and subtraction you get to the point or the essence. You need to find the essence in a big scene. You can learn anything today on the internet or classes, but 20 000 tutorials or cameras can't teach you to see,” he explains. Obie says that when he turned 60, friends he'd made through the years clubbed…

How has your acting work informed your novel-writing? I wish I could say something like it allowed easy psychological insight into characters … but it took a while for me to get there! I think where it did maybe help was conceptualising scenes in terms of their rhythm – where the beats were, the awkward silences etc. And perhaps seeing action more visually, as it might play out in a film. The Karoo has such presence in Mirage – it's almost a character itself. What made you decide on this setting? Since a child, I have been fascinated by the Karoo's strange beauty. I think even at that young age, I felt there was something metaphysical about this landscape, something you can't quite put into words: a spine-tingle, a melancholy.…

Adriaan Snyman writes about Die Sieners visions: The Ukraine war will escalate globally first before reaching South Africa. Around the same time, England and Europe will face a depression and England's financial systems will collapse. Starving Black migrants will invade Europe and the USA offers no help. A civil war in England and France render their ocean resources powerless due to famine and chaos. The British military “disappears in fire and water as that of Pharoah did.” Russia will conduct the Third World War from the North Pole. The author notes that “Airmen make regular use of the Novaya Zemlya runway that lies just metres above the icy waters of the North Pole. Part of Russia's Arctic Fleet has also been busy there for some time.” Die Siener predicts this…

[ TEENAGE PREGNANCY ] [ THE BIG ISSUE ] PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY ON WWW.THECONVERSATION.COM After Boitumelo gave birth she decided not to go back to school. She assumed that, because she was now a mother, she would be barred from returning Then she had a surprising interaction: “They [school] were like, why did you not come back, do you attend [school] elsewhere? I was like, no, I have a child. Then they were like, in January we need you here, this school is empty without you, and that gave me the confidence of saying, oh I must go back to school”. In fact, Boitumelo had the right, under South African law, to continue her schooling through and after her pregnancy, without fear of stigma or discrimination. But her experience of a supportive…

Obie Oberholzer: “The sound of the gunshots was deafening. Deadly thuds of bullets smashing into Ouma Roos Cloete's head, a ricocheting madness of cordite, flying glass from smashed booze bottles, a downpour of brandy, vodka and whisky. I was awakened by my own screams. I turned on the bedside lamp with clammy, trembling hands. The calendar read April 2012. I sighed with relief, touching my pounding heart. The nightmare slowly receded into the past. In 1989, I started my second book, Southern Circle, by following a circular route around southern Africa. In around September of that year, I found myself driving into Rundu, northern Namibia. The country was going through a process of stabilisation, overseen by the United Nations or UNTAG troops. South African forces were pulling out of Angola…

BEYONCÉ WORLD Our obsession with celebrity is centred around the search for the ‘authentic’ person behind the manufactured persona in pop videos. The Beyoncé (2013) visual album was a sign of the increasing personal intimacy of Beyoncé's stardom, and her transition to the active creation and ownership of an intimate, identifiable and holistic world. Beyoncé World is created and maintained primarily through Beyoncé's music videos and visual albums, but also across her concerts, performances and public appearances, and her social media accounts and website. Other contemporary pop stars construct an ‘authentic’ star image through sharing intimate details of their lives via social media or semi-autobiographical albums and music videos. But Beyonce's social media posts are notoriously curated and tight-lipped about her private life. She rarely posts captions and favours fashion…

A new report by the United Nations (UN) estimates 339 million people (or one in 23) around the world currently need emergency assistance to survive. This is a rise of nearly 20% since 2021. An estimated 222 million people won't know when or if they will eat another meal. Nearly 1 million people are at risk of starvation in places like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, Yemen and South Sudan. The UN also states that Latin America and the Caribbean could face a “prolonged social crisis” in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. An estimated 45.4% of people aged 18 or younger living in Latin America are in poverty. The report also notes infant vaccine coverage experienced its biggest drop in 30 years, which could prove disastrous for future generations. As…

[ WRITER'S CORNER ] [ THE BIG ISSUE ] When Grace Tame appears on the Zoom screen, she is in a hotel room. At the time of this interview, the 27 year old is nearing the end of a two-week national tour, travelling to seven cities around Australia to promote her new book, in conversation with the likes of human rights lawyer Michael Bradley, investigative journalist Jess Hill and comedian Magda Szubanski. “Each night has been a delight,” she says. “I find it really an honour to be in the presence of people who are opening themselves up to be there and to receive a message… That's the driver for me to keep doing it, because it's about putting the message before the self, being a torchbearer for the crowd who…

The UK's Daily Mirror. The discovery of a new source of energy in 2023. A solar storm in 2023 will cause major power outages and disruption to communication. The rise of laboratory children in 2023 with an option to change traits such as eye, hair colour and other characteristics. Between 2072 and 2086 a classless, Communist society will thrive hand-inhand with newly restored nature. From 2341 a series of natural and man-made disasters render our home planet uninhabitable. In 3815 to 3878 – civilisation has been destroyed and people live like beasts until a new religion rises to lead us out of the darkness.…

His life, in his own words: “I went to Stellenbosch University and became reckless and exuberant. I studied graphic design, drinking, dancing, rugby and athletics. I was made aware that cameras can produce images; I fell in love with photography and [future wife] Lynn, bought a Hasselblad and got married. Aware of the bad political situation in South Africa, I left in 1970 to study photography in München, Germany … broadening my horizons in many ways. In 1973, I worked as a camera assistant at a German film company but started to long for the wide open plains of Africa. I returned to South Africa to find that apartheid was at its worst, found work in Pretoria and fell around from job to job and bar to bar. In 1975,…