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?
Christopher Ketcham -
Behold homo sapiens lashed on the wheel of the digital social network: held frozen over a computer which is tied by a cord to a wall wherein the fiberglass cable carries the message; staring into the lit screen, the face pale in the unnatural light; or, with head bent in the street, the appearance sullen, running fingers across the blinking object of desire. The creature is secretly harried: Constant updates are necessary, the user must tend the machine whenever and wherever possible –...
Libya could be on the brink of civil war, according to the head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, following a weekend of political turmoil. That's after his deputy stepped down when Jalil suspended six high-ranking council delegates from Benghazi.
Adrian Salbuchi, international consultant talks to RT, suggesting it's Iraq all over again with the flag of democracy brought in to guard Western geopolitical interests and pump oil while the "invaded"...
Richard Pithouse -
In 1987, in the midst of a Cape Town winter, Jeremy Cronin wrote a poem about being on the run under the state of emergency, his picture on the walls of the police stations that still squat, square and fenced, across the country like forts on the borderlands of some incompletely subdued colony. The poem speaks of the “snuffling soul” of his newborn son as he stretches out his fist in the afterglow of the timeless pleasure of an infant at the breast. “In the depths of their...
Susan George -
"'All for ourselves and nothing for other people' seems in every age of the world to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind," wrote Adam Smith in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations, universally considered the first comprehensive inquiry into the nature and practice of capitalism.
The masters of mankind are still with us: I call them the Davos class because, like the people who meet each January in the Swiss mountain resort, they are nomadic, powerful and...
Al Jazeera’s Witness tells the story of two Cape Flats teenagers who prepare for what is, thus far, the most important night of their lives – the matric dance. In the midst of widespread unemployment and gangsterism, a soaring school dropout rate and the complication of teenage pregnancies, this is the story of two “born frees” and their poignant journey through this rite of passage.
In the 2011 graduating class of Manenberg High School, 61 students made it to...
Mandisi Majavu -
Frantz Fanon once wrote that the challenge facing civil society and progressive governments in Africa is how to organize African countries around values that promote and encourage participatory democracy, equity and mutual aid. Although most African countries gained independence from European colonial rule in the 60s and the 70s, that remains the biggest challenge facing the continent today.
It is for this reason that many political commentators expected the Arab Spring in North Africa to...
