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?
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Do individuals spend their money better than families? This foundational question in the design of income support programmes for the poor has not been robustly debated. Instead, the strong and robust debates have historically focussed on the possibilities of the universal provision of state income support through a Basic Income Grant (BIG).
During his inaugural State of the Nation address, President Jacob Zuma expressed ANC policy to mean that future expansion of the social grants...
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...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
The ultimate conceit in policy debates is to dismiss one’s adversaries with the words: "They just don't get it." In the run up to the elections this year and on the occasion of Cabinet announcements, a common refrain from private sector commentators is that the ‘left’ simply does not get it.
The central argument presented is that the market offers the best options for continued success. The corollaries to this argument are that change takes time, but also that the...
Prishani Naidoo & Ahmed Veriava -
Growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s in South Africa, our imagination of freedom and its possibility would be shaped by the time. As children, the invisible participants of history, we discovered the world and its possibilities through the struggles of our elders and the passions our parents had fallen into. This was the world of the liberation movement given to us in the militancy of the songs, slogans, and forms of protest that were exploding around us, as well as in the poems...
Fazila Farouk -
Is the media from Mars and are social justice activists from Venus? If this question were put to me a year ago when the South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS) was launched, I probably would have answered, "yes" without hesitation.
However, having spent a year trying to purposefully influence a social justice agenda in the media, the answer to that question has become less clear-cut.
Consider the following titles: "Markets Follow Money and Nothing...
Stephen Greenberg -
The South African Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) recent announcement that it is considering the reversal of some tariff cuts appears to fly in the face of a global anti-protectionist rhetoric. At the recent G20 Summit to discuss responses to the crisis engulfing the world’s economies, politicians were falling over each other to reject ‘isolationism’ and protectionism. Everywhere the bogey of protectionism is being warned against - not only by the same...
