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?
Leonard Gentle -
Truly, we live in crazy times. What are we to make of the ongoing spats in the ANC? Are these really about nationalists versus communists? What are we to make of the nationalist, Julius Malema, and his BEE friends fighting for the nationalisation of the mines? All this while Malema also tries to get his nationalist buddy, Fikile Mbalula, to replace the communist, Gwede Mantashe, as Secretary General of the ANC in 2012.
In the meantime, in order to distance themselves from such a heinous...
Richard Pithouse -
Jacob Zuma sought to cast himself as the grand patriarch calling his family to order in his speech at the National General Council of the African National Congress. His call for order was warmly received by a wide range of people inside and out of the ANC.
It's hardly surprising that many people have welcomed the call for order given Malema’s ranting in support of the avaricious ambitions of the predatory faction of the political class and some of the excesses in the recent strike. But...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Imagination is absent in the conventional spaces of South Africa’s economic growth path.
Conventional wisdom equates increasing economic growth to around 7%, as an important target. In political speak, the growth target is of course a “necessary” and not a “sufficient” condition. What it In fact does is reflect orthodoxy. This policy stance is premised on the fiction that we can grow ourselves out of a situation of high unemployment, poverty and inequality.
The...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
About a decade ago, there was a fashionable rebuttal for developmental alternatives within the broader configuration of power called the ANC. That rebuttal was simply that alternatives were "intellectual gymnastics."
The criticism was at once soft and devastating.
In a single stroke, a double critique unfolded. First, that alternatives existed in the realm of ideas and being "intellectual" had little practical value. Second, that because political office bearers...
Dale T. McKinley -
For several years now, but particularly since the ascendancy of Jacob Zuma and his SACP and COSATU allies within both the ANC and the state, 'the left' in South Africa has come to be almost completely associated with (and presented as) the SACP, COSATU and to a lesser extent, the ANC itself. Even though this state of affairs ignores a wide range of organisations and people that can stake a serious claim to being part of 'the left', the fact is that contemporary politics in South Africa are...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
The changed political context defined by the inauguration of President Jacob Zuma is obviously weighing on the minds of workers. Rather than making the reasonable assumption that the new administration will deliver on its promises, public service workers are rattling their sabres to remind current leadership that existing agreements are vital to long run improvements in the performance of the public service.
COSATU unions, especially those in the public service, have conducted extensive...
