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?
SACSIS promotes the principle of just economies. We are opposed to economic development that violates social and economic rights and increases inequalities in the pursuit of economic growth.
Leonard Gentle -
Ah, so we have the strike season with us again. And with every story goes the same tiresome media refrain: “intimidation.” This, of course, is bolstered by every tame economist saying what they are so well paid to say: “The strikes are bad for the country. Labour laws are too rigid and strikes will only scare off investors and drive up joblessness. The demands being made are way above necessary, and therefore, certain to fuel inflation.”
This is the kind of journalism...
Saliem Fakir -
The Aurora debacle – the mining company taken possession of by President Zuma’s nephew Khulubuse Zuma - has earned the ire of workers and the public as a whole.
It is of great relief to workers that Aurora has finally been liquidated and the liquidator himself fired. How a company, for so long, could wrought such extensive damage to people’s lives and health as well as do so much damage to the environment bears testimony to the impunity companies are able to act with.
It...
Jason Hickel -
The news that a Romanian sweatshop manufactured one of Kate Middleton’s most famous dresses has inspired renewed popular interest in the ethics and economics of outsourcing jobs to utilize super-cheap labor. This is only the most recent of a string of cases that exemplify the shocking proliferation of sweatshops — even across Europe — over the past few decades. But the truly troubling part of the story is the logic that Kate’s defenders have invoked to justify this...
Liepollo Pheko -
The race which decided who would be heading up the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is finally over. Yesterday, France’s finance minister, Christine Lagarde, who beat Mexico’s Agustín Carstens to the post, was announced as the new managing director of the international financial institution. You will likely recall that our very own Trevor Manuel dropped out of the race at an early stage, recognising perhaps that he was no match for the determined Europeans’...
Richard Pithouse -
The repressed, any Freudian will tell you, cannot be contained indefinitely. It will always return. And if its first murmurings in jokes and slips of the tongue are not heeded it will be distorted and return, with increasing vehemence, as a symptom, a symptom that may come to constitute a threat, even a crisis.
It’s difficult to think of a country that wasn’t founded with blood and iron. If countries have a collective unconscious, ours is hardly the only one that is likely to be...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
“Feel it, it is here!” This slogan somewhat incredulously reminds us that South Africa hosted the 2011 World Cup. A year on, the slogan still resonates in our conversations.
However, another catchphrase, the “ticking time bomb,” has emerged to underscore the strong possibility of a youth uprising in the future.
The recognition that South Africa faces a significant challenge, especially with respect to including young, unemployed, African males in our economy, marks...
