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?
In mid-April, member of the executive committee of shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, Thembani Jerome Ngongoma, spoke at a SACSIS event about poor peoples’ struggles to access land for housing in urban South Africa. In recent days, Abahlali have controversially endorsed the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the 2014 General Election. Many individuals and organisations of the left are shocked and dismayed by the decision, as the DA is traditionally associated with maintaining...
Glenn Ashton -
There really is no easy way to put this, so I will be blunt: If we fail to clean up our act, post haste, the world as we know it is doomed.
We need to place our political, social and economic institutions on the equivalent of a war footing to fight for the survival of the natural systems that support us. Should we fail, the lives of our children will not only be radically different, they will almost certainly involve a constant struggle for survival.
Sure, life on earth will carry on...
Acclaimed economist, Ha-Joon Chang, professor in the faculty of politics and economics at Cambridge University argues that economics is too important to leave to the experts. By publishing his latest book, Economics: The User's Guide, he crosses the chasm separating academic theory and regular life and produces a book that seeks to turn every one of us into an economist. Chang contends that 95% of economics is common sense. You don’t need a degree to understand it. He visited the RSA...
You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing. In this illuminating TED talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the endlessly complex interactions of small-scale environmental events. There are thousands of activities and interactions that have a cumulative and definite impact on climate change. Schmidt uses models to show what will happen to planet Earth...
Leonard Gentle -
On the eve of South Africa’s 2014 general election, the outcome is assured. Despite Nkandla, the Guptas, the Secrecy Bill, Marikana and 10 years of service delivery revolts, the African National Congress (ANC) will win the election. All the talk of the Democratic Alliance (DA) making serious inroads, of Agang and the possibilities of coalitions and of the new scenario of the “born-frees”, etc., are known to be exaggerated.
And yet the ANC, certainly in its Zuma...
Jane Duncan -
In a disappointing but not altogether unsurprising move, the communications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has leapt to the defence of the censorious state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and confirmed the de-facto ban of two opposition political advertisements for the national elections.
Icasa is tasked with ensuring fairness of coverage for political parties during the electoral period. However, the fact that...
