The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
"Where is democracy today and where is it likely to go tomorrow?" asks Marwan Bishara of Al Jazeera. He argues that democracy, together with capitalism, has brought astonishing levels of prosperity. So why is it in trouble, not only in the West, but in all regions of the world? Is the concentration of wealth a threat to democracy? Are we seeing the return of a more radical right based on ethnic nationalism with xenophobia and racism thrown into the mix? Is there a renewed desire...
Militant protests have erupted across Europe over governments' austerity programmes. The European population is angered that they are being forced to pay for a crisis that they did not create.
The news that jobs would be cut, pensions frozen and wages lowered, fired up the masses in Europe. Europeans have overcome their cultural and language differences in a common struggle against austerity programmes.
In a historic event, coordinated strikes and demonstrations have occurred in...
Richard Pithouse -
The FIFA headquarters are nestled into a secluded spot on the hill overlooking Zurich, one of the richest cities in the world. Here a glass of coke will cost you R60 at a restaurant. The city, set around a lake with snow capped mountains in the background, is picture perfect in a chocolate boxy kind of way. But it’s not just a twee live-in European theme park pretending to be a city. Zurich is also home to squats, innovative housing and artists’ collectives, large immigrant...
Leonard Gentle -
Quietly, but inexorably, the world is changing. In the past three months a number of events have occurred, which, in and of themselves may go nowhere, but indicate the emergence of tectonic shifts that will change the world as we have known it for much of the 20th century.
These changes may not necessarily be for everyone’s good, they may even portend more frightening developments, but if we don’t know about them we’ll only experience their effects like the...
Saliem Fakir -
On a recent visit to Madrid, I attended the Global Progress initiative held on 2-3 October 2009. It was a most illuminating meeting on the question of the evolution of European politics in the last 50 years.
I was invited by the Centre for American Progress (CAP), which is very strongly associated with the Obama administration, Heinrich Boell Foundation (the German Foundation for the Green Party) and Fundacion Ideas (allied to the Spanish Social Democrats).
I had the privilege of being a...
Saliem Fakir -
There is no doubt that we live in an uncertain period. Since 9/11, the world has changed. Global governance is in flux and generally speaking, the outcome of our transforming world is still unknown.
The conventional source and centre of power is beginning to shift. This centre of power largely an alliance between the United States (US) and Europe, which Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt aptly called Empire, is what we have come to accept as the de facto world in which we live, by which we...
