Loss is like a fog choking off the city from the life of the sun.

Or in words better expressed,

“When the sun

falls behind the sumac

thicket the wild

yellow daisies

in diffuse evening shade

lose their

rigorous attention

half-wild with loss

turn any way the wind does

and lift their

petals up

to float

off their stems

and go. ”

Loss – by A.R. Ammons

I have always associated Pambazuka as a place the super-smart go to write, so it was a a tremendous honour for me to be contacted by the editor, Firoze Manji, with a request to republish my interview with Andile Mngxitama on the anniversary of Steve Biko’s death.

You can read the original on Daily Maverick here and the Pambazuka version here.

The last time I was at the Market Theatre

I watched PJ Powers play Janis Joplin

in a childish haze of awe and fear.

This was certainly no Chopin

And what I knew  of drugs, sex, and rock and roll

whispered in an elephant’s ear.

Now

I breathe air thick with Tiger Balm

And I miss you

as if you were here

as if you were real.

The Digital Media and Marketing Association (DMMA) which represents the South African digital industry to all sectors including the marketing community, the media, the South African government and the public, served up the news of the launch of the beta version of iMaverick with this little titbit about me-

Other new journalists at iMaverick include… Khadija Patel who cuts her teeth on Daily Maverick, and who’s strong, distinctive style has made her a writer to watch.

Hot on the heels of being named in the Mail and Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans, I received a call from Verashni Pillay, deputy editor of the Mail and Guardian Online, to inform me that I had also been nominated to this year’s edition of the Book of Women. I am grateful to receive these plaudits but recognise, as well, the millions of hard working women who have done so much more than me without any recognition.

My fervent hope is to become worthy of these plaudits.

As a 13-year-old, social-media extraordinaire and budding Middle East expert Khadija Patel was asked by her English teacher what she wanted to be one day. Her answer — “journalist” — didn’t go down too well. “Do you think journalism is an appropriate job for a woman? A Muslim woman?” the teacher asked.
Thankfully there were others egging her on — including her mother. A mere 14 years later and Patel has already established herself as a voice to be heard in the South African media landscape. She didn’t take the traditional route; she studied English, Arabic and French, and used social media to establish her presence.
An enthusiastic blogger, she honed her skills under the radar while gradually establishing a reputation for herself on Twitter as something of an expert following the Arab Spring. Soon she became the go-to person on the latest news about those and other democratic uprisings taking Africa and the rest of the world by storm.
Her mainstream writing began with an invitation to write for the Mail&Guardian’s blogging platform, Thought Leader. From there it wasn’t long before she was noticed — news and analysis website the Daily Maverick snapped her up as a columnist.
For her, the greatest recognition of her worth as a writer came when she was offered the column with the words: “I’m offering you this job not because you’re black or because you’re a woman, I’m offering you this
job because you’re good at what you do.”

You can access the online version of my profile, as well as browse through the profiles of the likes of Jodi Bieber, Gcina Mhlophe here.

A blog post for the fabulous people at The Chirp Room -

January 2010-

Growing up in post Apartheid South Africa I was taught to revere freedom. Like candy to the urchin freedom was the gift I excitedly cupped my hands in anticipation of but instead of the clamour of coins falling into my waiting palms, I was bewildered.  I smiled my thanks and held on tightly certain only of its fragility. What did it mean to be free?  The horrors of Apartheid were too far removed from me, its legacy was palpable, yes, but its essence was too far removed, too deeply buried for me to identify against. The only world I knew was the one I lived in, its antithesis was only a narrative.

And as teachers and parents to instruct me to be grateful for the mundane, freedom soon became a buzzword.  ‘Freedom!’ screamed the make-shift graffiti on school property jostling boisterously with ‘FTW!’ for pride of place. Back then of course, geeks were yet to reassign ‘FTW’ with the meaning ‘For the win’.

Above the chalkboard of my seventh grade classroom meanwhile, three years into the new South Africa, my English teacher put up a copy of the newly passed Bill of Rights. Freedom of the person, Freedom of religion, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Association , Freedom of Movement. ‘Freedom of expression,’ my teacher would one day tell me, a faraway look in her eyes, ‘that one’s my favourite.’ It soon became my favourite too as it precipitated the aura around freedom to slowly unravel.

In high school, I would often be asked by snarky classmates in high-pitched voices and overstated airs of importance, ‘How much freedom do you have?’ Only fourteen year olds could believe freedom to be quantifiable.

What they meant to know of course was if I was allowed to parade myself like a witless doll on the faux piazza of the newest northern suburb shopping complex, staying out late doing God alone knows what fourteen year olds do. Freedom back then was defined in relating our whims against those who had the power, parents and teachers, to stifle it.

I’m still not sure how much freedom I have. Of course now my freedom is not governed so much by parents or teachers as it is by the shackles of my own mind. In Erich Fromm’s The Fear of Freedom relates the individual to the social in an intriguing treatise on what it means to be free-

What is freedom as a human experience? Is the desire for freedom something inherent in human nature? Is it an identical experience regardless of what kind of culture a person lives in, or is it something different according to the degree of individidualism reached in a particular society? Is freedom only the absence of external pressure or is it also the presence of something else-and if so, of what? What are the social and economic factors in society that make for striving for freedom? Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from? Why then is it that freedom is for many a cherished goal and for others a threat?

Is there not also, perhaps, besides an innate desire for freedom, an instinctive wish for submission?

July 2011-

This year, we’ve looked on in awe as one by one the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Libya took to their streets in defiance of tyranny, demanding “freedom”. For the people of Egypt and Tunisia the freedom they won was almost a palpable thing. It was a lifting of the spirit, an unclasping of well-worn shackles. Cairo soon began to scream freedom, not just from deep within its people but also its streets.  Street art, unseen in Egypt previously, began flourishing expressing the hopes, fears, anguish and distress for an uncertain future. And that I think is freedom: A physical and mental space that allows for the expression of individuality without the pressure of conformity.

Radhika Marya writing about the arrest of  five Saudi women caught driving in the streets of Saudi Arabia, quoted one of my tweets in her article:

On Monday, prior to the incidents that led to arrests, @khadijapatel tweeted: “Friend in Jeddah just sent me a text saying she’s driven herself to her uncle’s home ‘and no one caught me’.”

The full article can be read on Mashable.

Online pop culture magazine contacted me COUP interviewed me about my selection to the Mail and Guardian’s “200 Young South Africans”. You can read the article with Jason Elk and I as well as the rest of the issue here.

When I heard that I had been selected as one of the Mail & Guardian’s “200 Young South Africans” this year I laughed in comic disbelief. Minutes later I was crying, overwhelmed with gratitude. Like Isaac Newton, I have only made it so far by my perch on the shoulders of giants. As much as it has been an honour and a privilege it has also been a profoundly humbling experience.

How do you distinguish yourself in a noisy media landscape of wannabe writers? Invent your own platform if you can’t get anyone to publish you and keep writing.

That’s what worked for Khadija Patel, blogger, Muslim community magazine editor and tweeter of note.

The 27-year-old has made a name for herself as the go-to girl for the latest news on the Arab uprisings, using social-media tools. Not a journalist by training, Patel majored in English and Arabic. It was a significant choice: her ability to translate the Arab world – in more ways than one – would create a niche for her as a young writer years later.

Now she is quoted by the likes of big-business honcho Bobby Godsell, receives invitations to talk about the Arab Spring at conferences and on radio and has her own column on the Daily Maverick. 

“I want to continue working hard, staying honest and pushing the boundaries. I really just want to write.” - Verashni Pillay

To read more profiles from the 2011 200 Young South Africans supplement online, click here. 

Trawling through Wikipedia for links on the history of service delivery protests in South Africa, I was well chuffed to find my column on service delivery protests as an expression of the discontent of the poor linked under “Further Reading” on the “Protest in South Africa” page on the vaunted, free encyclopaedia.

And I’m in the company of the likes of Jane Duncan, Richard Pitihouse and Steven Friedman too!

I’ll take that.