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?
The Occupy Johannesburg protest took place on 15 October 2011, World Revolution Day, as part of a global call to action against corporate greed and economic inequality.
"Occupy" protests that took place worldwide on the day, have their genesis in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
SACSIS headed down to the Johannesburg protest and spoke to some of the activists and participants about their involvement with the growing global movement against economic injustice.
Editor's Note: You...
Fazila Farouk -
It’s always been understood that the one group with the greatest potential to bring about change is the youth. After all, it’s their future that’s at stake. And this year, young people all over the world have been at the forefront of news making struggles.
The one thing we should not forget about Mohamed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian who set himself alight catalysing the fall of dictatorships throughout North Africa, is that his immediate demand was about direct...
In the final episode of Al Jazeera's must see documentary, Meltdown, we hear about the sheikh who says the crash never happened; a Wall Street king charged with fraud; a congresswoman who wants to jail the bankers; and the world leaders who want a re-think of capitalism.
The financial crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing over 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the brink of insolvency.
Sheikh Mohammed...
Mandisi Majavu -
Recently, Tokyo Sexwale, the Human Settlements Minister, announced that free housing for the poor has to have a “cut off date.” He argued that it is unsustainable to provide free housing to the poor “for a long time.” This is a far cry from the Freedom Charter’s spirit, which champions the principle that “All people shall have the right to live where they choose, to be decently housed and to bring up their families in comfort and security.”
The...
In Egypt, at least two dozen people died on Sunday when the Egyptian military attacked a large gathering of Coptic Christian protesters. The violence broke out after a protest in Cairo against an attack on a church in Aswan province last week.
Democracy Now correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous was in Cairo and witnessed the killings. "Then the military attacked. They came rushing forward, beating anyone in their path. Then they started opening fire. The sound of gunfire filled the...
Richard Pithouse -
In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck's novel about the Great Depression, Tom Joad, the novel's central character, a man who has been made poor and who is on the run from the law, tells his mother in the climactic scene that: “I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together....”
That wondering is a...
