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?
What Does It Mean to be Black and Middle Class in South Africa? You might be surprised by the answers provided in this documentary, "Phakathi Soweto's Middling Class", which follows the work of sociologist Mosa Phadi, a researcher at the University of Johannesburg who conducted a perception study in Soweto, South Africa's most famous township, where she quizzed respondents about what it means to be middle class.
A surprising 66% of Sowetans consider...
Jenny O'Connor -
In December Egyptian prosecutors and police raided 17 offices of 10 groups identifying themselves as “pro-democracy” NGOs, including 4 US based agencies. Fourty three people, including 16 US citizens, were accused of failing to register with the government and financing the April 6th protest movement with illicit funds in a manner that detracted from the sovereignty of the Egyptian state.
The US applied massive pressure on Egypt to drop the case, sending high-level officials to...
Richard Pithouse -
As the African National Congress heads to its centenary conference in Mangaung and on to the end of its second decade in power there is still considerable popular fidelity to the ANC as an idea and as an identity. But the ANC does face declining electoral support, escalating popular protest and increasing hostility from the media, intellectuals and much of civil society. The authoritarian currents in the party like to blame all of this on sinister attempts to oppose a democratic government....
Charles W. Mills & Tom Mills -
Charles W. Mills is John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Racial Contract and has written extensively about racism and political theory. In an interview with Tom Mills he discussed his views on race, liberalism, capitalism and the potential for social change.
TOM MILLS: The concept of race as an objective category has long been discredited by anthropology and biology, yet the social sciences show that racial...
In early April 2012, Fazila Farouk, executive director of the South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS) made an input at a roundtable discussion in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which focused on how to build "sustainable democracies". On the sidelines of this event hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, she caught up with Jan Kreutz, advisor to the Party of European Socialists, and talked to him about the debt crisis in Europe.
Kreutz argues that the crisis in Europe is...
American graffiti artist, ABOVE, was recently in Johannesburg. It is reported that he “convinced the traders at Johannesburg’s Jewel City - the southern hemisphere's largest exporter of diamonds…to let him paint a wall with the slogan ‘Diamonds Are A Woman’s Best Friend’.” But ABOVE wasn’t entirely honest with the owners of Jewel City and made an addition to the mural in protest against blood diamonds, which it is claimed are traded at this...
