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 embraces a rights based approach to development, which views poverty as a denial of human rights.
Charles W. Mills & Tom Mills -
Charles W. Mills is John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Racial Contract and has written extensively about racism and political theory. In an interview with Tom Mills he discussed his views on race, liberalism, capitalism and the potential for social change.
TOM MILLS: The concept of race as an objective category has long been discredited by anthropology and biology, yet the social sciences show that racial...
Dale T. McKinley -
It was 2am on a cold August night last year when six screaming and heavily armed members of the SA Police Services forcibly removed their driveway gate and tried to bash down their kitchen door.
But, this wasn’t a stealthily planned arrest of much-sought after murderers, some court-ordered operation on a heavily fortified residence belonging to a member of organised crime or a raid on the house of a government official suspected of serious corruption. No, it was members of a police...
Charlene Houston -
Last month South Africans marked Human Rights Day and although most critics of government say that poverty is worse than ever, the day was a rather staid affair.
Many of the holidays we observe in post-apartheid South Africa emerged out of a struggle culture where activists took advantage of the opportunity to raise awareness about socio-political issues, engaged in protest action and in some cases, even celebration.
These public holidays were once important dates on NGO calendars...
Gillian Schutte -
The black man has become the signifier for a host of unconscious fears that lurk within the white psyche
My 12-year-old son has a taste for hoodies, rap and hip hop clothing. He carries a blackberry in his pocket which he reaches for every so often to text one of his friends. He has a friendly face and temperament but has also learnt at a young age to stand up for his own rights and speak out against the injustices of the world. Someone once suggested to me that his face is so sweet no one...
Dale T. McKinley -
If there is one thing that the ruling ANC and the government it runs hates more than anything else it is the charge that they are increasingly acting like the old National Party and its apartheid state; more specifically, that they are rapidly embracing the very securitisation of the state that the forces of liberation (including the ANC its SACP ally) fought so hard to resist and consign to the dustbin of apartheid history.
Unfortunately but somewhat predictably, the way in which the ANC...
Charlene Houston -
In a recent media article, the Mayor of Cape Town’s spokesperson stated that the City intends to establish a Khoisan village in Hout Bay’s Hangberg fishing village, as a way of building an inclusive city. In the past, similar announcements have been made in the context of boosting tourism in the village.
The question we have to ask is not just whether this village would be up to the task of fostering inclusion in a city now widely acknowledged as racially segregated, but more...
