National Museum Portuguese Project
Say ‘Portuguese soccer legend’ and the name of international football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo probably comes to mind. A Portuguese soccer legend he certainly is, but he is not the only one. Although fading from living memory, the name ‘Eusébio’ still causes goosebumps among supporters of the esteemed Portuguese football club Benfica. Eusébio was the Wunderkind of professional European soccer in the 1960s.
#30yearsofDemocracy l #Freedom l #censorship
What should a black artist do when he wanted to write a song about how much he missed Nelson Mandela, but he couldn’t because it was the 1980s and apartheid censorship was at its peak? A time when the mere mention of the Black Pimpernel would result in apartheid’s censors breaking out in a red rash and either banning your song or inviting you for a chat in a soundproof room at the top floor of John Vorster Square. Faced with these dire scenarios, musician Sello ‘Chicco’ Twala decided to create an elaborate ruse with his song lyrics, a ruse worthy of the big man, Nelson Mandela, himself.
At the height of apartheid, South African radio DJs were playing a song, which included instrumentals of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, the forbidden anthem of the then banned African National Congress. Apartheid South Africa enjoyed this protest song so much, that it was number one for two weeks on Radio Five, a government radio station! It seemed that while the people were rocking to Weeping, the grey censor men were sleeping.
Travellers along the scenic R58 between Aliwal North and Burgersdorp in the Eastern Cape Province will notice the massive, flat-topped Kramberg Mountain to the south. It is an outlier of the magnificent Stormberg Mountain Range further south, itself part of the Drakensberg, South Africa’s longest and highest mountain range.
South Africans have always looked up to Lesotho, quite literally, as the entire landlocked country is on average 900 metres higher than South Africa (Midgley et al. 2023). The high altitude also means that Lesotho has more abundant alpine vegetation (in this case meaning vegetation above 2800 metres above sea level) and harbours a greater diversity of alpine-adapted species.