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?
William J. Astore -
TOUGH GUYS DON'T NEED TO DANCE IN AFGHANISTAN
It's early in 1965, and President Lyndon B. Johnson faces a critical decision. Should he escalate in Vietnam? Should he say "yes" to the request from U.S. commanders for more troops? Or should he change strategy, downsize the American commitment, even withdraw completely, a decision that would help him focus on his top domestic priority, "The Great Society" he hopes to build?
We all know what happened. LBJ listened to the...
Richard Pithouse -
Abahlali baseMjondolo is a shackdwellers' movement. It was formed by and for shack dwellers in Durban in 2005. Since then the movement has extended to cities like Pietermartizburg and Cape Town. It now has members in 54 settlements.
The movement has campaigned, with considerable success, against unlawful evictions by the state and private landowners. It has also campaigned, with significant although limited success, for access to basic services and for the upgrade of settlements where people...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africans have an alarming tendency to deny wrongdoing. This trait is shared, to varying degrees, with other nations but it is far more extreme here. Our reluctance to acknowledge fault is remarkable. South Africans, particularly men, apparently have an inability to admit wrongdoing or culpability - even if caught red-handed.
This national quirk rears its ugly head every time some sort of scandal breaks. The first response is always denial. The second response is to shift blame....
Spatial abilities, particularly three-dimensional thinking, are important to develop skills in various kinds of maths and science, says Dr. Lise Eliot, Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School. Girls and boys seem to start out fine in the early years of schooling with respect to these subjects. In Kindergarten, there is no difference between boys and girls. The change starts to take place (slowly) at primary school. By the time children...
Dale T. McKinley -
Since the birth of a democratic South Africa in 1994, there are a range of ‘isms that have had, and continue to have, varying degrees of currency and impact on our society. The favourite of the privileged classes and political-economic elites has, of course, always been capitalism while for a sizeable portion of the poor, alongside a few intellectuals and political activists (even within the South African Communist Party) socialism remains the preferred alternative. Some in our midst...
One of the reasons the United Nations (UN) hasn't worked is that some of its most influential and powerful members do not apply the principles contained in the UN charter to themselves. "In fact, they defend and apply the law of the jungle -- might makes right," says former UN General Assembly President, Miguel d'Escoto who has just completed a one-year tenure at the helm of the assembly. The UN has not achieved the fundamental goals for which it was created. These are twofold: 1)...
