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?
David Korten -
The good news: The changes we must make to avoid ultimate collapse are identical to the changes we must make to create the world of our common dream.
For the past 5,000 years, we humans have devoted much creative energy to perfecting our capacity for greed and violence-a practice that has been enormously costly for our children, families, communities, and nature. Now, on the verge of environmental and social collapse, we face an imperative to bring the world of our dreams into being by...
Fazila Farouk -
It’s just been a few weeks since Nelson Mandela was taken off the United States terrorism watch list. No doubt so that they too could join in the celebrations of this living icon, without the embarrassment of hoisting up a revolutionary.
I gather that a revolutionary in America is someone, not quite viewed through the same rose-tinted lens worn by us Southerners.
Mandela made the cover of Time Magazine again this week. It’s his fourth time on the cover. I...
Saliem Fakir -
Democracy is an imperfect system. Its characteristics can vary – from being a creation of populist traditions to democracies run by elites.
In the common imagination when we think of democracy we think of people’s power. Power is delegated as a trust to holders of political office and from whom we expect that they would manage our affairs wisely and judiciously. They would protect us from vulnerability.
Depending on what is within their power or outside of...
Ibrahim Steyn -
Democracy is often presented as an unproblematic concept ubiquitously associated with political competition between rival parties or candidates. Simply put, it’s about people’s ability to elect a political regime or leaders of their choice.
Such a neutral definition of democracy obscures issues of power and vested interests. Africa’s political elite, for example, have been perpetuating a client-patron model of politics inherited from their colonial predecessors. This has...
Fazila Farouk -
The anniversary of South Africa’s decade of democracy signalled a turning point in the way many South Africans view this country.
Since then we’ve been treated to a gaggle of critiques measuring the gains of our democracy.
The overall conclusion has been that it was a decade of poor gains. A decade of missed opportunities. A decade marked by a paucity of ideas about how to achieve real transformation, and most alarming of all, a decade of denial.
Extreme denial...
