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?
Fazila Farouk -
When I first heard that America's first lady, Michelle Obama, was coming to South Africa, I thought to myself, “There goes the news - column inches upon column inches are going to be wasted on the colour of her lipstick.” The fact that she’s America’s “fashion ambassador” already made the news in the run up to her visit.
Obama’s transformation from understated and perfectly well groomed woman to glorified clotheshorse has been disappointing to...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Analysis of the 2011 local government election has focussed on detailed analysis of voter patterns with various interpretations attached to their exact meanings. Some of the outcomes have left us gobsmacked. For instance, why would communities being evicted in the Western Cape vote for the Democratic Alliance?
In other instances, what explains the shift in the voting patterns of so-called minority communities? How is it that the ANC has increased the sheer number of votes it gets, but...
Richard Pithouse -
Elections can be of critical importance but they’re not always all that they’re cracked up to be. No one who has lived under a dictatorship or entrenched corruption would ever dismiss the right to vote in a free and fair election as trivial. Elections like, for instance, the one that brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany in 1932, can be decisive political events.
But while Emma Goldman’s famous observation that “If voting changed anything, they'd make it...
Dale T. McKinley -
Most of us can surely well remember those times during childhood when we were caught eating something that we knew we shouldn’t and our immediate defence was to claim that mom or dad said we could. Well, that about sums up the contemporary behaviour of many of our highest political office bearers, only in their case it’s not the sweets meant for the guests but public monies and it’s not parents who are the rationalising crutch but the ministerial handbook. Yes, the little...
Saliem Fakir -
The social grant is a wager with time. Its aim is to catch the indigent - those who have no chance of ever finding a job - within a social welfare net to soften the blow of poverty.
For others, it’s a respite during hard times. It lifts the spirits of those waiting for their fortunes to change. Well planned and executed social grants should also help break inter-generational cycles of poverty.
The thought that social grants create “dependency” is largely dictated by what...
Brazil is bridging the gap between rich and poor with, Bolsa Familia, a social program which may prove to be one of its most valuable exports to the rest of the world.
After Lula’s eight years in office, more than 20 million of the vast poor have been lifted out of poverty, where jobs and social policies are bringing inequality down. Income for the poorest in Brazil has grown eight per cent a year, while for the richest it has grown only one-and-a-half per cent.
Read more on Russia...
