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 -
The story of Marikana runs much deeper than an inter-union spat. After the horror of watching people being massacred on television, Marikana now joins the ranks of the Bulhoek and Sharpeville massacres, and the images evoked by Hugh Masekela’s Stimela, in the odious history of a method of capital accumulation based on violence.
But this is not just a story of violence and grief. To speak in those terms only would be to add the same insult to the injury perpetrated by the police on...
"Just to get to the point in which public policy is genuinely focused on providing a maximum amount of job opportunities and well-being for people would be a major achievement," says Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, as he talks about how to achieve full employment under capitalism.
Watch this clip for a quick breakdown of the differences between economic theories Marxism, Keynesianism and neoliberalism.
Editors's Note: You...
Glenn Ashton -
There are two kinds of South Africans. Some, who will read this article - the consumers of printed and online media - and the rest, who most likely will not. The first kind are more likely to be able to access health care on demand. The second probably cannot. How can we get these two worlds to meet?
The National Health Insurance (NHI) programme is a state initiative to improve the constitutional prerogative of egalitarian, universal health care. Although a degree of healthcare is broadly...
Anna Majavu -
Last week at Lonmin mines, the ANC saw the consequences of allowing South Africa to remain one of the most unequal countries in the world. The steadfast refusal of the mineworkers to continue their dangerous work without a substantial pay increase, and the consequent massacre of the workers by police are just the start of what is yet to come.
The police killings appear to have sparked a level of outrage amongst the Black poor and working class that could prove to be a tipping point.
For...
For the past two years, photographer Lisa Kristine has traveled the world, documenting the unbearably harsh realities of modern-day slavery. She shares hauntingly beautiful images, including miners in the Congo, brick layers in Nepal, and others.
According to Kristine, "There are more than 27 million people enslaved in the world today — that's double the amount of people taken from Africa during the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade.”
© TED Talks
Britain is refusing to give Julian Assange of WikiLeaks safe passage out of the country even though Ecuador has granted him political asylum. On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assange would be arrested if he left the embassy. Britain has also threatened to raid the embassy in order to arrest Assange.
A legal advisor to Assange, Jennifer Robinson argues, "Ecuador has diplomatic status. If the UK government were to revoke that status, it would be a watershed in...
