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?
Richard Pithouse -
When the ANC raised Jacob Zuma above the rule of law and the scrutiny of parliament they repeated, on live television, an aspect of the logic with which the subaltern classes are routinely governed. The democratic rights that have been enjoyed by the middle classes over the last twenty years are frequently denied to people who inhabit zones, like the former Bantustan or the urban shack settlement, where different rules apply.
In these zones, despotic forms of power are not uncommon....
Wouldn’t you want to know if your doctor was a paid spokesman for a drug company? Or held personal beliefs incompatible with the treatment you want? Right now, in many parts of the world, your doctor simply doesn’t have to tell you about that. And when physician Leana Wen asked her fellow doctors to open up, the reaction she got was unsettling. There's a code of silence amongst doctors whose attitudes and behaviour challenge conventional notions of transparency and...
Femke Brandt -
On Thursday, November 6, I attended the second sitting of the Karoo Parliament in Cradock, Eastern Cape. The Parliament is hosted by the Karoo Development Foundation (KDF) that was established to examine the economic potential of the Greater Karoo, so that it can influence future government planning and expenditures. The foundation and its trustees consist mainly, not exclusively, of Afrikaner academics, business owners, entrepreneurs and farmers.
During his opening speech, the chair of...
Glenn Ashton -
We are regularly reminded of the growing global blight of cancer by repetitive education drives during cancer awareness months. But surely we should pay more attention to the causes, rather than simply raise awareness? Perhaps we fail to do so because the commercial imperative makes it easier to fundraise around the impacts of cancer rather than analysing the root causes?
October was breast (and liver) cancer month, September prostate cancer and November is pancreatic, stomach, lung and...
Larry Schwartz -
It’s an age-old question: What’s better for you, coffee or tea? Even back in the 18th century, inquiring minds wanted to know. King Gustav III of Sweden, being of the belief that coffee was poisonous, devised an interesting experiment to answer the question definitively. He found two identical twins in prison, both sentenced to death for crimes they had committed. Gustav III commuted their sentences to mere life imprisonment (which was no picnic either, given prison conditions...
Back in March 2012, a good five months before the Marikana massacre exposed the internal weaknesses of the South African trade union sector, SACSIS’ Fazila Farouk interviewed labour expert, Ighsaan Schroeder, who said that Cosatu was well on its way to demise and could collapse within a mere 15 years due to serious structural weaknesses in the trade union sector. Soon after the Marikana massacre, Schroeder revised his prediction saying that he gives Cosatu just another five years before...
