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.
Alex Kane -
Vijay Prashad talks neoliberal economics, the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and why NATO's intervention in Libya marked a new chapter in the story of the Arab revolts.
At first glance, the revolt in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi seemed to be a continuation of the Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in late 2010. But when NATO forces began to fly sorties over Libya, bombing Gaddafi’s fighters, it became absolutely clear this was no Egypt or Tunisia.
Instead, argues Vijay Prashad...
Dale T. McKinley -
It was 2am on a cold August night last year when six screaming and heavily armed members of the SA Police Services forcibly removed their driveway gate and tried to bash down their kitchen door.
But, this wasn’t a stealthily planned arrest of much-sought after murderers, some court-ordered operation on a heavily fortified residence belonging to a member of organised crime or a raid on the house of a government official suspected of serious corruption. No, it was members of a police...
April 4 2012 marks the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was gunned down in 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time, Dr King's every move was being tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Democracy Now! speak with journalist Tim Weiner author of, "Enemies: A History of the FBI," about the fanatical zeal with which the agency pursued the civil rights leader and peace activist.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover saw...
Richard Javad Heydarian -
More than a year after the onset of anti-regime protests, the Syrian uprising increasingly resembles a bloody marathon with no finish line on the horizon. With more than 7,000 people killed and ongoing deadly clashes between security forces and the armed opposition, the international community —splintered along geo-strategic lines — is still struggling to craft and establish a clear “road map” for Syria.
The mission creep associated with the Libyan intervention, in...
In 2006, Rick Falkvinge, a Swedish software entrepreneur, founded a new political party centred around the subjects of file sharing, copyright and patents. He called it the Pirate Party and it rose to prominence after a government crackdown on the file-sharing site, the Pirate Bay. Since then, the Pirate Party has swept Europe and beyond to become an international political movement, active in 40 different countries with representation in the European parliament.
The Pirate Party fights...
Richard Pithouse -
Taking over a mode of rule is not the same thing as transforming it. Barack Obama is not George Bush but that fact makes little difference to the bankers looking for a public subsidy or a wedding party in Pakistan at the moment when a drone rushes out of the sky.
Time and again governments that have come to power on the tide of popular resistance to oppressive systems have ended up reinscribing central aspects of the systems they had opposed. It's easy enough to imagine that on the...
