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?
Saliem Fakir -
At times it’s hard to take at face value whether what is being said in ANC discussion documents is for real or just rhetorical flush.
The latest ANC buzzword is this notion of ‘the second transition’. The first transition, an ANC discussion document argues, is the consolidation of democracy (a coded way of saying consolidation of the ANC’s power).
The second transition is about social and economic transformation. To some it may sound like a new idea, but in...
Saliem Fakir -
The Western Cape branch of COSATU recently called for protest action in front of parliament to push government to promote localisation in the solar industry, as jobs are being destroyed because of foreign imports. It’s the right kind of noise, but a little late.
The green economy is not only about sustainability; it’s also about the protection of future jobs.
South Africa is not the only country in the world banking on the green economy to increase jobs and uplift the...
Michael Greenberger, Professor at University of Maryland, School of Law, contends that the world is in a dangerous moment. Greenberger talks about the risk of a global recession, arguing that we are in a 50/50 proposition of whether we are going to go into a second steep recession or worse.
Greenberger provides a fascinating account of the root causes of the current crisis, talks about where we are in the current moment and what the best remedy would be to overcome the full blown crisis of...
Richard Pithouse -
Book: The Value of Nothing
Author: Raj Patel
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: January, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-42924-9
Raj Patel is a writer whose activism has got him into all sorts of trouble. He’s been tear-gassed on four continents, thrown out of Zimbabwe by Zanu-PF and stood his ground in the face of an impressively wide selection of the range of competing authoritarianisms that have done their best to beat, ban, slander, counsel and discipline democracy into submission in...
Saliem Fakir -
The expression, as phrased here, is an attempt to demonstrate the hollowness of human rights and a rights based constitution if all they are can be reduced to normative ideals written on fine paper with no material effect on those that matter. Or as the philosopher Jeremy Bentham once mockingly called it, a mere exercise in “bawling upon paper.”
To phrase it differently: What is the point of political justice when there is no economic justice?
Is it good enough to say...
Michelle Pressend -
I'm in Geneva, Switzerland and wrote this article on the eve of the 7th World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting taking place from 27 November to 2 December 2009 at the WTO's head quarters.
I've also just returned from a protest march against the WTO here in Geneva, attended by many people, including activists from many parts of the world.
The march was, unfortunately, marred by a handful of violent protestors on the fringes of the main demonstration. They've been getting...
