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?
Leonard Gentle is the director of the International Labour and Research Information Group (ILRIG), an NGO that produces educational materials for activists in social movements and trade unions. He has been an anti-apartheid activist for many years and has worked as an organiser for the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union (SACCAWU), the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) and as an educator for the International Federation of Workers' Educational Associations (IFWEA).
Leonard is interested in and has been published on matters concerning national and international political economy. He has B.A (Hons) and B.Sc degrees from the University of Cape Town.
Leonard Gentle -
Ah Julius Malema…everywhere else, the world is responding to the biggest crisis of capitalism since 1929 and the threat posed to democracy by the markets. NATO is overthrowing Gaddafi in the latest of the ebbs and flows of the Arab Spring; the indignant of Spain and Greece are rising up against austerity programmes; and global dominance is seeping away from a debt-ridden US.
The world is changing. So far there have been two responses that dominate public opinion: disengagement and...
Leonard Gentle -
Ah, so we have the strike season with us again. And with every story goes the same tiresome media refrain: “intimidation.” This, of course, is bolstered by every tame economist saying what they are so well paid to say: “The strikes are bad for the country. Labour laws are too rigid and strikes will only scare off investors and drive up joblessness. The demands being made are way above necessary, and therefore, certain to fuel inflation.”
This is the kind of journalism...
Leonard Gentle -
Now that the dust has settled on the 2011 local government elections and the frenzied one-upmanship of the leading political parties has momentarily calmed down, its time to take a long hard look at the results of the South African people’s most recent exercise in democracy.
Much has been made of the gains that the Democratic Alliance (DA) made on the African National Congress (ANC), but the ANC still won the election and continues to govern all the major cities except for Cape...
Leonard Gentle -
The arrest of Dominic Strauss-Kahn (DSK) on allegations of attempted rape certainly has got tongues wagging. In the Guardian newspaper, French journalist Angelique Chrisafis alleged that DSK “always had a problem with women.” Also writing in the Guardian, Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington DC-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research, notes how ironic it is that the immigrant hotel worker who made the allegations may simply have been dismissed under the “flexible...
Leonard Gentle -
On one side of the world NATO bombs Libya and on the other, the newly expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) meet on the island of Hainan, off the south coast of China. Two seemingly unrelated events. But there are links and forces at play fuelling important new power contestations in the world.
Western bombs are raining down on Libya and a “no-fly zone” is being imposed after a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution. At the UN,...
Leonard Gentle -
The spat between Trevor Manuel and Jimmy Manyi has brought the question of racism to the fore. Manuel rightly attacked Manyi’s remarks about an “oversupply of coloureds in the Western Cape,” for being racist.
Of course, whilst this has been presented as a spat within the African National Congress (ANC), the real manipulator is the Democratic Alliance (DA) playing the race card on the eve of the local government elections in the Western Cape.
At the same time,...
