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?
Richard Pithouse -
In recent weeks people have been willing to risk arrest, violence and in some cases death at the hands of our habitually brutal police force to assert a whole range of demands. These demands have included an insistence on the right to the cities, the right to an income, the right to a decent education and the right to a living wage.
The issuing of these demands has often, in direct contrast to the legalism of much of civil society, taken the practical form of the assertion of rights...
Michelle Pressend -
Since the last World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting took place in Hong Kong in 2005, the WTO Doha negotiations have remained at an impasse. Attempts to revive negotiations last year during the July 2008 mini Ministerial meeting failed.
In principle what the Doha Declaration agreed to in 2001 was meant to foster ‘development’ in developing countries and address the adverse impact of trade liberalization and deregulation.
Since then, Doha negotiations have been...
Dale T. McKinley -
With all the crocodile tears, gnashing of teeth, post-hoc analysis and mea culpa discourse on offer over the last few weeks of community protests and worker strikes, one could be forgiven for thinking that South Africa has suddenly crossed some kind of developmental and political Rubicon. It is as if recent events have triggered a sudden and combined rush of (relative) conscience over the plight of the poor/workers, a new found, critically informed concern about the character and role of our...
Glenn Ashton -
The current global economic turmoil gives rise to the question, "If capitalism dies, what alternatives exist, or will emerge, to replace it?"
The question inevitably provokes utterly predictable positioning. The stock response that capitalism has already trumped communism, to the degree that the old communist bogeymen of Russia and China have embraced the capitalist model, is dishonest.
Do we really have to take an either/or position regarding capitalism and communism? Western...
Ibrahim Steyn -
As many poor working class communities continue to protest against the post-apartheid state’s failure to meet their material expectation of democracy, the only real difference between Mbeki and Zuma’s responses to the protesting voices is that whereas the former has been callous the latter seems more sympathetic. The fact that Mbeki hardly commiserated with protesting communities during his tenure and obstinately denied that South Africa was experiencing a so-called "service...
Saliem Fakir -
Sixteen thousand is the number of jobs lost in 2008 by the US newspaper industry and just about 10,000 in the first half of 2009.
It is unclear how many jobs have been cut by the local newspaper industry but we have not been saved the ravages of the economic downtown.
The press is indeed bleeding editors, journalist, and columnists. The meaning of all of this is unknown. What replaces it may not be entirely satisfactory, as the seemingly imminent death of newspapers does not imply the death...
