» Jon Qwelane for Ambassador?

Jon Qwelane for Ambassador?

January 20th, 2010

You can accuse Jon Qwelane of many things, but never of being diplomatic. He has made a life’s work of being rambunctious, otherwise, outspoken, contrary, troublesome and sharp-tongued. And that’s just the polite part.

Now there is talk of this journalist being made an Ambassador.

To Uganda, nogal! The country that wants to hang gays. And sentence up to two years anyone who fails to report gays. Jon is an outspoken homophobe, so you can imagine what he will get up to there.

Something is not right somewhere if this goes ahead. Jon will create havoc as an Ambassador. Up to know his views have embarrassed him. Now he will step up to embarrass the nation.

In some countries, they give foreign posts to artists and poets. That way they show off the best of their country, and subsidise creativity. Why would we want to subsidise prejudice and intolerance? Why would we want to parade some of the most outrageous views of our countryfolk?

There has to be a better way for President Zuma to reward those who have supported him.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism

1 Comment Add your own

1. What if Qwelane is gay bu&hellip | June 4th, 2011 at 6:20 pm

[...] Professor at the Universityof Witwatersrand, Anthon Harber, wrote in his The Harbinger blog that “something is not right somewhere if this [Qwelane’s [...]

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Anton Harber: Media

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio

Daily newspaper sales, South Africa
(Ave sales Jul-Dec)
1960 - 681 053 (Population 17,3m)
1970 - 723 566 (22m)
1980 - 803 229 (27,5m)
1990 - 1 214 396 (35,2m)
2000 - 1 117 886 (44m)
2006 - 1 600 000 (47,3m)
2011 - 1 310 000 (49m)

(Sources: ABC and nationmaster.com)

“It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools. As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results …” - Educationist Jonathan Jansen, one of the few with the credibility to look critically at this “celebratory orgy of mediocrity”.

“The (Incwala) ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the (Swaziland) king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation. Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull … But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch.” - Some surprises in this (un-bylined) account of Swaziland politics in Southern African Report

“When the Great Zucchini arrived that Saturday morning, Don had no idea who he was. Frankly, he didn’t look like a great anything. He looked like a house painter, Don thought, with some justification. He wears no costume. He was in painter’s pants, a coffee-stained shirt and a two-day growth of beard. He toted his beat-up props in beat-up steamer trunks, with ripped faux leather and broken hinges hanging askew.” - A classic of magazine profiling, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.

Diepsloot (Jonathan Ball, 2011)

Diesploot: Of Frogs and Fractals, a public lecture at the University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011

Troublemakers - The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism (Jacana, 2101), edited by Anton Harber and Margaret Renn

Introduction - The Troublemakers: An account of the rise of a new wave of investigative journalism in South Africa.

What is Left Unsaid: Reporting the South African HIV Epidemic, edited by Kristin Palitza, Natalie Ridgard, Helen Struthers and Anton Harber (Fanele, 2010)