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.
Dale T. McKinley -
There can be no doubt that since 1994 (non-corporate) progressive civil society organisations (CSOs) in South Africa, despite serious organisational and resource challenges alongside an often hostile government and corporate sector, have achieved a great deal.
A combination of localised community-based organisations, broader sectoral and/or issue-based social movements, progressive NGOs, some unions as well as variety of other immigrant, religious, youth, LGBTI...
Section 27 of the South African Constitution guarantees the right to food. However, if one tracks the impact of inflation on the poor, one finds that their purchasing power is being eroded because the basket of goods on which the CPI is based is determined by the middle class and the elites, argues Isobel Frye, director of the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII).
Worse, poor South Africans face even greater prejudices. Her organisation's research has found that the goods...
Glenn Ashton -
Were you fortunate enough to have sufficient food to eat today? Do you know who grew it? How was it grown? Where? How was it packaged, labelled, processed and transported before ending up on your plate? Was it as good for you as it was for the people who sold it to you?
A generation ago we could easily answer these questions. Most of our food was grown by a small farmer down the road. Fruits and veggies were seasonal and fresh, and meat came from real, not factory farms. Food was prepared,...
Caught between the promise of prosperity that natural gas extraction in the Karoo might bring and concerns about environmental and health impacts, citizens’ resistance to fracking is growing.
But that’s not all. Fracking also poses a threat to The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, which sits right inside one of the drilling areas for natural gas. There is a real fear that opening up the area to natural gas exploration will...
Jane Duncan -
Many South Africans have decried the recent, terrible cases of rape. South Africa’s pervasive culture of hyper-masculinity has been blamed for the problem, as has the patriarchal nature of its society, where men remain the central figures around which society is organised in spite of the country’s constitutionally enshrined commitment to gender equality.
But are these explanations adequate? Radical feminists tend to blame the problem on the continued existence of patriarchy,...
Pepe Escobar -
Now that would be some movie; the story of a man of the people who rises against all odds to become the political Elvis of Latin America. Bigger than Elvis, actually; a president who won 13 out of 14 national democratic elections. No chance you will ever see such a movie winning an Oscar - much less produced in Hollywood. Unless, of course, Oliver Stone convinces HBO about a cable/DVD special.
How enlightening to watch world leaders' reactions to the death of Venezuela's El Comandante Hugo...
