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?
Gordon Bennett -
Some people see Botswana as a beacon of democracy in Southern Africa. Those who regard respect for minorities as the true hallmark of a democracy, however, might take a rather different view.
For years successive governments have ridden roughshod over the rights of Botswana’s most vulnerable minority, the Kalahari Bushmen. It seems that they do not chime with the “progressive” image that the country wants to project, and must be made to mend their ways until they do. If a...
China will soon surpass America to become the world’s largest economy. What surprises people most is the fact that China has managed its rapid economic growth despite being a single-party state ruled by a Communist party.
How does a politically repressive state produce such an enormous middle class of consumers that have now become the engines of the Chinese economy?
SACSIS' Fazila Farouk speaks to Saliem Fakir of the World Wildlife Fund (and regular SACSIS columnist) about his...
World-famous primatologist and author of The Bonobo and the Atheist, Frans de Waal, argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within.
Human morality is older than religions. Religions have only been around for 2,000 – 3,000 years, but our ancient ancestors functioned within a moral system a hundred thousand years ago, or more. They had rules about how you should behave, what is fair and unfair, caring for others, and so on -- all of these tendencies...
Pepe Escobar -
Is this the Turkish Spring? No, at least not yet. Is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan the new Mubarak? No, at least not yet.
History keeps warning us it takes just a spark to light a political bonfire. The recent spark in Istanbul was provided by a small group of very young environmentalists organizing a peaceful sit-in, Occupy-style, in Taksim Square to protest the planned destruction of one of the city center's few remaining public green spaces, Gezi park.
Gezi park's...
The military trial of Army whistleblower Bradley Manning at Fort Meade, Maryland, began Monday, 4 June 2013, with the defense and prosecution presenting starkly contrasting accounts. Manning is accused of giving a cache of 700,000 secret U.S. government documents and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks in the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history. Democracy Now! interviews Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer to Julian Assange and...
Richard Pithouse -
Just before midnight on the 5th of September 1877 an American soldier ran his bayonet into Thasunke Witko's back in Fort Robinson, Nebraska. In June the previous year Thasunke Witko, known as Crazy Horse in English, had led his people to victory in the Battle of Little Bighorn against the US Seventh Cavalry under George Custer. The battle was won when Thasunke Witko charged directly into Custer’s lines, split his forces and brought the battle into the close combat better suited to the...
