Keyword: rural lives

Locusts on the Horizon

Picture: balazsgardi/Flickr Richard Pithouse - Taking over a mode of rule is not the same thing as transforming it. Barack Obama is not George Bush but that fact makes little difference to the bankers looking for a public subsidy or a wedding party in Pakistan at the moment when a drone rushes out of the sky. Time and again governments that have come to power on the tide of popular resistance to  oppressive systems have ended up reinscribing central aspects of the systems they had opposed. It's easy enough to imagine that on the...

Traditional Leaders in South Africa: Custom and Tradition in a Modern State?

Picture: Zizo Glenn Ashton - The recent announcement by President Zuma that certain traditional leadership positions would be not be continued when the incumbent leaders died was met by a remarkable lack of reaction and discussion in the media. A far more profound level of debate would certainly have happened in the affected rural areas where these chieftainships are to be phased out. Against the bigger picture this was a cosmetic change to traditional and customary practice in South Africa. Surely we must continue to...