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 -
People the world over are facing an economic crisis unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930's. Despite the talk of "green shoots" and the emergence of the United States of America (US), Germany, France and others from recession, this "recovery" (if one can all it that), is extremely fragile. Witness the scare of Dubai World defaulting, and at some stage the costs of some US$14 trillion dollars will have to be carried somewhere.
The long wave of decline in capitalist...
'Stayin Alive in Joburg' is a gritty take on inner-city life in Johannesburg. It examines the changing landscape of South Africa's biggest post-apartheid city, providing an eye opening account of the trials and tribulations of Johannesburg's poorest inhabitants engaged in a daily struggle for survival, as they get overlooked by authorities and development agencies fixated on elite projects, including, but not limited to the 2010 soccer world cup. The film is informative, exposing a...
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...
Richard Pithouse -
After Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato was slapped in Blikkiesdorp, the police have warned politicians not to enter the area without police backup.
Blikkiesdorp is a government built shack settlement on the barren sands of Delft, outside of Cape Town. With rows of tin shacks, razor wire fencing, invasive lighting and armoured vehicles at the gated entrance, it looks like a concentration camp. To his credit the local police chief describes Blikkiesdorp as a 'housing time-bomb' close to...
Ali Abunimah -
Anyone who rejects the two-state solution, won't bring a one-state solution. They will instead bring one war, not one state. A bloody war with no end. (Israeli President Shimon Peres, 7 November 2009)
One of the most commonly voiced objections to a one-state solution for Palestine/Israel stems from the accurate observation that the vast majority of Israeli Jews reject it, and fear being "swamped" by a Palestinian majority. Across the political spectrum, Israeli Jews insist on...
Richard Pithouse -
In the salad days of our democracy it seemed fair enough to buy into the idea that our most pressing social problems would be steadily resolved in time. But the time when an easy assurance of a better future could justify the failures and horrors of the present has past.
Democracy is not consolidating and poverty is not being rolled back. These days the self-evident clichés that propped up optimism for so many years look as strangely dated as yesterday's propaganda.
By some...
