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?
Anna Majavu is a writer concentrating on the rights of workers, oppressed people, the environment, anti-militarism and what makes a better world.
Anna Majavu -
The mines and the farms are two enduring symbols of old white colonial theft, of the minerals and land. Because of the monopoly of the National Union of Mineworkers, whose leaders and officials have long preferred compromise and co-determination over worker control, it has been difficult for mineworkers to strike – until the Marikana massacre.
It has possibly been even harder for farm workers to strike.
Human Rights Watch estimated recently that less than 3% of South African farm...
Anna Majavu -
South Africa continues to be a hazardous place for the Black poor. You don’t have to be a Marikana mineworker to die a death that is undignified, if not brutal and terrifying. The daily security concerns of the majority have never been further from the minds of politicians, who are either gripped with Mangaung mania, or – in the case of the DA - feverishly plotting the jingles and publicity stunts that they think will win them another metro city in the 2014 elections. COPE’s...
Anna Majavu -
The “overwhelming adversity” they had to face daily as a result of living in an informal dwelling felt “like a mountain fell on me”, said one Cape Town resident.
Politicians from across the spectrum have lied to the public for years about their plans to “eradicate”, “upgrade” and “transform” informal settlements. They have forced communities out of informal settlements into equally horrible transit camps or temporary relocation...
Anna Majavu -
Recent political developments have thrown the treatment of Black refugees and migrant workers into the spotlight, as governments all over the world clamp down further on opportunities for people of colour to live and work outside the lands of their birth.
The Australian labour government recently moved to revive the “offshore processing centre” in the South Pacific island of Nauru that it shut down in 2007. There, it plans to dump boatloads of migrants that it captures at sea....
Anna Majavu -
Last week at Lonmin mines, the ANC saw the consequences of allowing South Africa to remain one of the most unequal countries in the world. The steadfast refusal of the mineworkers to continue their dangerous work without a substantial pay increase, and the consequent massacre of the workers by police are just the start of what is yet to come.
The police killings appear to have sparked a level of outrage amongst the Black poor and working class that could prove to be a tipping point.
For...
Anna Majavu -
The latest electricity price hike of 14.6% will hit the poor hard - as usual - but in fact it is the least of their worries.
Despite South Africa’s sunny and windy climate, and the availability of huge areas of deserted land where wind and solar power farms could be erected, the ruling party is continuing its love affair with the Russian, French and Chinese nuclear corporations currently trying to sell us their nuclear power stations. Once the poor get saddled with the interest...
