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.
Jane Duncan -
Public demonstrations have been central to South Africa’s democratic life for decades. Yet recent events suggest a narrowing of the substance of the right to assemble, demonstrate and picket, and a de-legitimisation of street politics.
In this regard, the City of Cape Town’s near hysterical overreaction to attempts to occupy Rondebosch Common is cause for concern. Last week’s Constitutional Court case about whether the South African Transport and Allied...
Charlene Houston -
In at number seven, Table Mountain was announced one of the “New 7 Wonders of Nature” on 11 November 2011 - but what does this really mean?
The hype South Africans experienced during the campaign is bizarre considering the value and status of this top seven list. The “Vote for Table Mountain” website explains that the competition was about “officially recognising seven of the most beautiful and prolific icons of nature from all over the world.”
The...
Leonard Gentle -
“What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?” the famous injunction by Trinidadian socialist writer, C.L.R James, in his book Beyond a Boundary, widely regarded as the best work of social analysis of sport ever, may well be apt in the case of media coverage here in South Africa on the death of Basil D’Oliviera.
Tributes were confined to the sports pages where everyone picked up on the significance of the D’Oliviera affair, which led to the cancellation...
Jane Duncan -
Recent revelations that Sports Minister Filike Mbalula had sex with a women, Joyce Molamu, while he was separated from his wife, have prompted public debate about how public the private lives of politicians should be. Mbalula has called on young people to be faithful to their partners in the context of the fight against HIV/ Aids.
Media commentators have justified publication of the story on the basis that it was in the public interest to know about his hypocrisy, as it raises questions...
Dale T. McKinley -
The first and most primary contradiction of the relationship between the Constitution and the majority of South Africans – who are black and poor - is to be found in the way in which the Constitution was forged. From the very beginning of informal talks in the mid-1980s involving the main component of the exiled national liberation movement - the ANC - and various representatives of the apartheid order, the process of negotiation out of which the Constitution would eventually...
Maude Barlow -
Recently, I had the honour of speaking at a fundraiser for the victims of the famine in the Horn of Africa, organized by local health-care providers Dr. Farook Hossenbux and his nurse and partner Geri Hossenbux. Speakers included a representative from Doctors Without Borders, local groups raising money for the cause and local artists. Several mentioned the phenomenon of "donor fatigue" in this case and puzzled about why it was so hard to raise money for a crisis threatening as many...
