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?
Britons will go to the polls on Thursday, May 7, 2015, but membership of all political parties is at an all time low. There are more members of 38 Degrees, a campaigning website than there are of all the main political parties put together in Britain, argues political analyst, Zac Goldsmith.
Overall there has been a downward trend in voter turnout since 1997. Politicians blame the phenomenon on voter apathy, but Goldsmith contends that public disengagement with the political process in...
Alexander O'Riordan -
Reuters, amongst other news agencies, directly links South Africa’s xenophobic violence to King Goodwill Zwelithini’s incendiary statements: “Let us pop our head lice. We must remove ticks and place them outside in the sun. We ask foreign nationals to pack their belongings and be sent back."
However horrific and objectionable these statements are for migrants, they are also illustrative of the anxieties of the Zulu royal house. Lice and ticks are scavengers that...
Pierre de Vos -
It is not always easy to hold an unpopular or minority view. It is even more difficult to hold a minority view on the emotive subject of religious belief and organised religion. When you happen to be a vulnerable and impressionable child, indoctrinated by parents and subjected to relentless peer pressure, it becomes even more difficult to hold any opinion of your own on the matter. It is for this reason that the right of children not to believe in a specific God or in specific religious...
Valerie Bell -
It’s hard for me to celebrate on Mother’s Day. I feel the absence of my 23-year-old son, Sean Elijah Bell, who was killed on November 25, 2006. He was out celebrating at his own bachelor party with his friends in New York City. It was only a matter of a hours before his wedding, and I was so thrilled.
Sean and his friends were enjoying their night at a club where there happened to be three undercover police officers present, conducting an investigation of the club. A...
Anna Majavu -
May Day 2015 has just been observed and celebrated by the global community, but around the world, including here in South Africa, hundreds of thousands of workers are toiling under “zero hours” contracts where they can get jobs, but never actually work or be paid. Under zero hours’ contracts, workers have to guarantee their availability to employers, but in effect remain on unpaid standby all week waiting to be called to work. A zero hours contract worker may eventually only...
Some of the worst recent violence against migrants in South Africa - who many locals accuse of taking their jobs - happens in neighbourhoods of extreme poverty. A 2014 World Bank study found that about half of South Africa’s urban population lives in informal settlements or townships. The report argued that they are home to about 60 percent of the country's unemployed. While the South African government claims it will tackle what it describes as the root causes of the problem,...
