History & Culture

South Africa can be a crazy place, just how crazy you may ask? Oftentimes when we think of South Africa as our beloved country, there are so many reasons to feel good about it. The rainbow nation is truly a hospitable bunch, with diverse cultures and great pride in their country. The climate is rated as one of the best in the world. Even winter has sunshine, few countries...

The Marikana Massacre is one of two of South Africa's most gruesome cases of its police using lethal force on civilians. The incident occurred between the dates of August 10 and September 20, 2012, when striking workers at a mine owned by Lonmin in the Marikana area, clashed with police officers, leading to the death of 47 people. Much of the controversy surrounding the Marikana Massacre was not only the...

Although there is a lot of discussion on whether slavery existed within sub-Saharan Africa, what is certain is that Africans were subjected to slavery for centuries. Muslims subjected Africans to chattel slavery through the trans-Saharan slave trade and later on, the same Africans were enslaved by Europeans through trans-Atlantic slave trade in Central, East, and West Africa. Slavery, which existed in Africa before colonial, is not the same as the...

Pondo, also referred to as Phondo, is one of the several ethnic groups than can be found on the the African continent. The Ponda tribe happens to be a group of people who reside in Pondoland or the sub-region of Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. This term was used to denote the natives belonging to this region. The members of the tribe are known for maintaining unity and building strong...

At the south-most point of the African continent lies the Boers who are popularly known as Afrikaners. They speak Afrikaans, a language that has been considered most beautiful and easy to learn by most of its admirers. It is a language that's spoken mainly in South Africa, and partly in Namibia as well as other Anglo-phonic countries. It is the youngest language to emerge in Africa and it is currently being...

Afrikaans is one of the native languages of South Africa that is, however, spoken mostly by the Dutch settlers in the country. The language is made up of both Bantu, Malay, Portuguese and Khoisan languages, but an estimated 90 to 95% of its vocabulary is of Dutch origin. It came about as a result of the migration and subsequent settlement of the Dutch in the area known today as South...

Johannesburg, also known as the City of Gold, Jo'burg, eGoli, or Jozi, is the largest city in South Africa. In a recent survey conducted by Conde Nast Traveler magazine in August 2014, Johannesburg was named world's unfriendliest city. Despite being the economic and cultural hub of South Africa, and being one of the most beautiful cities in the world, it was voted unfriendly due to the city's serious concerns...

With South Africa, there is always an issue to contend with. From apartheid to democracy and now its xenophobia. Before 1994, foreigners faced violence and discrimination especially from the institutionalized racism of apartheid. At the end of apartheid, we expected peace to reign and it did for a while until the xenophobic attacks began to intensify, rather than diminish. Although there are no appropriate records, the South African bigotry-related attacks began...

If you are travelling to South Africa, or you are just interested in knowing a little more about the land of Mandela, it is important to acquaint yourself with some of the commonest slang terms and phrases the people of that great nation use in everyday conversations. As such, this article highlights some 15 slang phrases you should know in South Africa, so you do not get embarrassed by misinterpreting...

Either stressed or offended, South Africans are kind of programmed every day with plenty opportunities to get angry. Anger is never without a reason, anybody can get angry as it's increasingly quite easier to be annoyed. However, being angered for the right reason(s), with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way is difficult and have pioneered avoidable crisis. As...