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?
Charlene Houston -
The ANC does not deserve my vote. I dedicated my life to the fight for freedom and a better life for South Africa's poor. During the anti-apartheid struggle, we mobilised people under the banner of the Freedom Charter. But today I’ve come to realise that the ANC does not deserve my vote because it doesn't live up to the vision of the Freedom Charter.
This has been coming for a long time – before the sensationalist hype around the private lives' and lies of...
Saliem Fakir -
An Austrian colleague of mine relays a dinner story. We are talking over lunch at a little side cafe in idyllic Stellenbosch.
There was a discussion about Obama and the historic moment for the United States when he took the presidential oath.
Obama holds great symbolic significance to all black and other non-white people of the world.
It is an important affirmation because he rose through the ranks on the basis of merit. But many whites also voted for him.
He is of course a highly...
There are 312 km's of road in the West Bank that Palestinians are forbidden to use. The roads are strictly reserved for use by Israeli's. The most prominent apartheid road is a 15km stretch of Highway 443 from Modi'in to Jerusalem, which cuts through an area of the West Bank creating serious challenges for Palestinians wishing to travel to the city of Ramallah, their main social and economic hub. 35,000 Palestinians live alongside the road. all entrances to Palestinian villages are blocked....
Richard Pithouse -
Governments around the world tend to force poor people off well located and therefore valuable urban land and into peripheral ghettoes. From New Orleans to Bombay and Johannesburg the story is the same.
One motivation for this is to transfer valuable land from the poor to the rich to create a subsidy for elite development at the direct expense of the poor. A useful secondary consequence of this for many governments is that people living outside of state control can be forced to...
In this excerpt (part three) from the award winning documentary "Occupation 101," Adam Keller of the Israeli Peace Group, says that the only way to stop the violence in the Isreali/Palestinian conflict is to understand the root cause of the violence. Other parts of the documentary can be found below. Part One: Trailer Part Two: Demolition of Palestinian Homes Part Four: Creation of Israel in 1948 Part Five: The Palestinian Authority Part Six: Israeli Settlers Part...
Adam Parsons -
Since the Israeli onslaught against Palestinians began on December 27th, a true interpretation of the battle inside the Gaza Strip is deeply complicated by the surrounding barrage of vehement words and conflicting analyses.
Certain facts are incontestable; the present siege is the deadliest since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, with the number of Palestinian casualties increasing in their hundreds each day and already topping several thousand injuries. Gaza faces a...
