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?
Russ Wellen -
At the Center of Public Integrity on nuclear materials, Douglas Birch has written a two-part series on nuclear security in South Africa. In the first, titled “South Africa rebuffs repeated U.S. demands that it relinquish its nuclear explosives,” co-authored with R. Jeffrey Smith, they write about the quarter ton of highly enriched uranium that South Africa still retains decades after ending its nuclear-weapons program in 1989. U.S. officials fear that it could be stolen and...
Feeling ashamed for not being happier? On an endless quest to transform yourself?
Does our collective fixation with psychological and physical health actually verge on the pathological?
Leading academics Carl Cederström, André Spicer and Renata Salecl gather to explore how wellness has become an unhealthy obsession in western societies, and how living ‘well’ has become synonymous with being morally good.
They argue that visions of social change have been...
Richard Pithouse -
If you’re up early in Dakar and decide to take a walk along the shorefront before the day gets going you may see fishermen setting out on a raft cobbled together from the detritus of the city. If you look a little closer you may see, on the rocks, not far beneath the surface of the water, an old cannon. It’s just there, becoming, with the geological patience that operates at an unbridgeable remove from the urgency of the political, part of the sea.
For a South African this ease...
Mandisi Majavu -
It has taken the University of Cape Town (UCT) 15 years to seriously consider the views of its black students concerning the statue of Cecil John Rhodes.
Way back in 1999, Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl researched students’ experiences of institutional culture at UCT. Their report concluded that participants “are sensitive to the meanings carried by the statues and names of buildings that reflect UCT’s history”, which respondents viewed as constant reminders of...
This week Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected as prime minister of Israel for the fourth time. In the final days of his campaign, he made it clear that he doesn’t support a two-state solution. Washington has responded by saying, "Now that the foundation has been eroded, it means that our policy decisions need to be reconsidered…" In his latest interview, Netanyahu tried to walk back from his statement, but The New York Times reports that his retreat has done nothing to...
Glenn Ashton -
Both the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party and the South African flag have prominent splashes of green featuring in their respective colour scheme. After 1994 the new government was keenly focussed on demonstrating its green credentials in line with our constitutional commitment to environmental protection and sustainable use of our diverse natural resources. Twenty years into democratic experiment we need to reassess how green our political commitment remains.
Liberation...
