Vusi Mavimbela - The African Mirror

Sep

2021

The anger that boils

VUSI MAVIMBELA I often visit my small rural town of Vryheid whenever I get the opportunity to do so. That is where I grew up and attended primary and secondary school. Every time I leave the town back to Johannesburg, I am thoroughly depressed and I depart with my heart in my mouth. Over the recent decades, I have seen the continuous deterioration of neighbourhoods, infrastructure and the orderly and structured existence in many communities around the country. To see it first hand in the neighbourhood where my youthful consciousness was formed seals the reality of our country for me.…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

The Bitch Is Still In Heat

LITERATURE

VUSI MAVIMBELA Vusi Mavimbela SOME time towards the end of November 1990, I received a phone call on my landline of my bachelor flat. I had just woken up and I was still in bed watching the news on TV. I picked up the receiver and heard a booming voice: ‘Kunjani (how are you) Maphepha? I was silent for a moment. I was trying to identify the voice. ‘Who is calling?’ I asked. The voice responded: ‘No man, I thought perhaps we could have a chat for old time’s sake.’ I still could not place the voice. I did not…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

I HAD A DREAM…

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

VUSI MAVIMBELA whispers into the ear of Ramaphosa and Mbeki: ‘Save the ANC and the Country’ Dear Cyril Ramaphosa and Thabo Mbeki, I had a once-in-a-lifetime dream yesternight. As a Marxist social scientist, I do not believe that dreams are divine revelations on the road to a Damascene emancipation. I think most of one’s dreams are latent thoughts buried under one’s subconscious mind. They often come out handy when one has to be reminded that one is choking because one is not sleeping properly, or when one who is fast asleep needs to be alerted that they need to empty…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Africa and the Testament of the Gods

LITERATURE

VUSI MAVIMBELA IN the 1960 film Inherit the Wind, there is a court dramatisation where defence lawyer Henry Drummond says: “I am trying to establish whether Howard or Brady or Charles Darwin or anybody sitting around this court, or you Sir, has a right to think”. The presiding officer intervenes and says: “Mr Drummond, the right to think is not on trial here”. Drummond retorts: “Well, with all due respect to the court, the right to think is very much on trial here and it is fearfully in danger in the proceedings of this court room…A thinking man is faced…