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?
Mohamed Motala -
"The boss can also tell you what to do around the house. For example, she’ll say wash the dogs even though it’s not your job to do that. Then she’ll tell me to put sunscreen on the dogs because they get burnt. Now the dogs run away from me when they see me because they hate sunscreen. Have you ever seen a dog that uses sunscreen?" (Domestic Worker from Pimville working in a Johannesburg suburb.)
There are approximately one million, mainly black women, who are...
Imraan Buccus -
One hundred and fifty years ago the first indentured Indians were brought to South Africa to work in sugar cane fields. They were soon joined by ‘passenger Indians’ who came of their own free will to trade.
The indentured Indians were not the first Indians to be brought to South Africa. On the contrary, a significant number of Indians were brought to the Cape Colony as slaves, but their descendents became part of the groups classified as White and Coloured under apartheid.
But,...
Billy Wharton -
Eight and half hours is a long time for any movie, much less a political documentary. However, Connie Field’s "Have You Heard from Johannesburg" has a serious ambition – to tell the complete story of the South African anti-apartheid movement from an international perspective. The result of this desire is a seven-segment documentary grouped into three parts. Parts 1 and 3 fit as an organic whole, while part 2 examines the more specific topics of the sports boycott against...
Dale T. McKinley -
If there is anything that South Africans should have been reminded of over the past few weeks it is that what happens and is said in the present is inextricably linked to the past. In general terms history is, and will always be, a terrain of interpretative contestation. However, in the more specific context of a country with a liberation history infused with serious ideological, organisational, social and economic polarities, contemporary understandings and presentations of that history,...
Yash Tandon -
The term apartheid describes a system of governance in South Africa from about 1948 when the Nationalist Party came to power to independence in 1994, but it has acquired a broader usage. “Global apartheid” was first used during the 1980s by scholars, but became famous when Thabo Mbeki, in 2001, explained why the 2006 World Cup was given to Germany, not South Africa, due to a New Zealander’s vote switch.
In 2002, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, he defined...
The 6th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), from 1-7 March 2010, is being marked in 40 cities around the world this week. The clip above features journalist John Elmer and South Africa's Naeem Jeenah, Director of the Afro-Middle East Center, talking about the BDS (boycott, divestments, sanctions) campaign at a Toronto event on 01 March 2010. The IAW is largely being observed via university based activities and lectures throughout the world, however, the South African chapter also...
