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?
Jane Duncan -
South Africa is emerging from the most severe spate of xenophobic attacks since 2008, although the attacks have never really stopped. What lessons need to be learned from the latest attacks, and what needs to be done to prevent similar attacks from taking place in the future?
A key problem is political leaders’ ongoing ambivalence towards foreigners. Many lapse into the temptation to scapegoat foreigners for a range of social ills, to deflect attention from their own performance. Who...
Anna Majavu -
This year looks set to be another gloomy one for asylum seekers, as the ANC government makes a renewed attempt to deport and restrict the number of African migrants to South Africa.
Black Africans are not welcome anywhere, even as tourists, and must jump through dozens of hoops to apply for visas to enter almost every country in the world to prove their worthiness. Lately, the quest for tourist visas can even entail providing proof that they have paid their children’s South African...
Mandisi Majavu -
Many South Africans see black immigrants as a threat to their privileges. African immigrants from a refugee background, in particular, are viewed as a social burden by societal institutions. These xenophobic attitudes are not unique in South Africa.
Historically, black African refugees received little help from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). For instance, during a politically volatile period in Africa, the 1960s and 1970s, many refugees in Africa were left to...
Saliem Fakir -
In the city where I live, Cape Town, it’s not unusual to hear a foreign accent or see a foreigner. Foreigners are part of the intricate web, not only of the Cape’s economy, but also of the rest of South Africa.
Foreigners arouse one’s curiosity. Some are treated better than others, but there are always questions in people’s minds - how did they make their entry into South Africa? Where did they come from? Why did they come here? Who employs them?
Despite our talk...
Glenn Ashton -
The recent tragedy off the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, in which over 300 migrants were drowned, placed inequality between the developing and developed world into sharp focus. That people are desperate enough to risk their lives for economic opportunities highlights two perceptions of the migrants – how bad things are in some nations and how good they appear to be in others. World leaders must urgently re-examine what drives the ever increasing numbers of migrants, refugees and...
Anna Majavu -
Recent political developments have thrown the treatment of Black refugees and migrant workers into the spotlight, as governments all over the world clamp down further on opportunities for people of colour to live and work outside the lands of their birth.
The Australian labour government recently moved to revive the “offshore processing centre” in the South Pacific island of Nauru that it shut down in 2007. There, it plans to dump boatloads of migrants that it captures at sea....
