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?
Richard Pithouse -
In the recent election the DA, together with COPE, made much of their intention to defend the rule of the law. But while the dust thrown up in that election is still settling, the City of Cape Town is already engaged in violent and unlawful behaviour towards its most vulnerable citizens.
On Tuesday 19 May, a group of backyard shack dwellers occupied a piece of vacant municipal owned land in Macassar Village, outside Cape Town. Rents for backyard shacks in the area can reach as high...
John Reynolds -
It would be amusing if it were not so tragic to watch some of our self-styled 'public intellectuals' outdo each other in their efforts to find a place for themselves in 'Zuma’s Brave New World'. Integrity is readily exchanged for expediency and principle easily substituted by opportunism.
Public intellectuals, especially of the craven type, live for recognition and adoration. Like the court jesters of lore, they cannot conceive of an existence independent of a benefactor. What is the...
Glenn Ashton -
A strong case can be made that the most important tier of government is that of local government. Local communities are the most acutely aware of their own unique needs and how these can best be met. If participatory democracy is to be truly participatory it can be argued that we need to shift away, at least at local level, from political delineations and instead shift toward co-operative local governance based on common local interests. Party politics is a demonstrably poor mechanism to...
John Reynolds -
Is it not ironic that we may soon have to call on Thabo Mbeki to be the 'mediator' in the political fall-out between the ANC and the break-away faction led by Lekota and Shilowa?
Of course, we should be concerned by the nastiness of the fall-out, but we shouldn't be surprised. Like in all families – which very often political parties become – arguments and break-ups tend to take a more vicious form precisely because they are more personal. It's not strangers fighting, where there...
Robert Jensen and Pat Youngblood -
We have nothing against voting. We plan to vote in the upcoming election. Some of our best friends are voters.
But we also believe that we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the most important political moment in our lives comes in the voting booth. Instead, people should take politics seriously, which means asking considerably more of ourselves than the typical fixation with electoral politics.
First, we won't be coy about this election. Each of us voted for Obama in...
Saliem Fakir -
It must have started somewhere of course. Someone let the genie out of the bottle. Thabo Mbeki denies he let it out. He believes he had good grounds to fire Jacob Zuma and disagrees with Judge Nicholson's interpretation that he used the National Prosecuting Authority to pursue a political vendetta.
He has also challenged Zuma to debate him live on TV, Obama and McCain style, in an attempt to once and for all set the record straight. Zuma refuses the duel.
In the meanwhile, Mbeki has filed...
