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?
Visit the archives.
Steven Friedman -
The more the courts do to fix poverty and inequality directly, the more likely is it that people will remain poor and unequal.
For some time, an important debate has been raging between legal academics who want our courts to help the fight for social justice. It has been confined to law journals and has hardly registered in the public debate. This is a pity, since it addresses a crucial question: how can the courts help to combat poverty and inequality?
The constitutional court has...
Forty-year-old journalist Jim Foley was beheaded in Syria by the extremist group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The video of his killing has been linked on every major news site in the world. Jessica Desvarieux is a correspondent for the Real News Network ans also a friend and former colleague of Foley. In a moving tribute Desvarieux talks about Foley’s passion for his work and the reasons that drove to him to cover the conflict in Syria. Desvarieux also remembers Foley...
Eduardo Galeano -
Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano, a champion of the underdog, is known for his beautiful turns of phrase that read more like poetry than prose. His 2009 book, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, is a collection of 600 vignettes that contemplate life’s contradictions, both historical and contemporary. From Fidel Castro to the Berlin Wall, Galeano’s reflections provide a powerful and mesmerizing commentary on history, its people and its injustices. This excerpt of his book...
Saliem Fakir -
At first glance the connection between Marikana and African Bank Investments Limited (Abil) may seem tenuous. But there is a connection. “Moneylending” is the unholy connection between Marikana and the position that Abil finds itself in today, revealing the underbelly of a troublesome industry that has become a systemic problem for South Africa.
Even the ratings agencies believe so. They have not just downgraded Capitec, a bank similar to Abil with a huge unsecured lending...
In the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, whose killing is making global headlines, John Oliver explores the racial inequality in treatment by police as well as the increasing militarization of America’s local police forces.
Most shocking is the discovery that the city of Ferguson has just three African-American police officers in a town whose population is two-thirds (63%) black. Ferguson is a case of racial profiling gone out...
Glenn Ashton -
The air in the interior of South Africa is amongst some of the most polluted in the world. It is killing our people. We see photographs and reports of air pollution in China and elsewhere but seldom do we see any comparable local coverage of the scourge of South African air pollution. Our coal addiction silently kills thousands of people every year, with impunity.
Over the past two decades South Africa has developed some of the most comprehensive environmental legislation in the world....
