Spotlight

In 1871 a revolutionary takeover of Paris created a vision of a new society and inspired socialists everywhere. Today in Cape Town so-called occupiers have turned the Cissie Gool House in Woodstock into a working commune, creating a vibrant communalism. The City is trying to evict them and shut down the house.

Proper debate on corruption and democracy eclipsed by media obsession

The Zondo Commission is acting as a vehicle for ANC factional disputes under which powerful social forces are settling scores, according to the writer.

The lecture hall was where he opened the eyes of students to an alternative view of law and history. His story-telling was both didactic and insurgent. Lovell had mastered both Africanisation and decolonisation in his teaching of law long before they became buzzwords in the legal academy.

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on lives and livelihoods, especially the poor and vulnerable. South Africa’s education system, which has been in crisis for many years, has also been negatively impacted, as a Grade 11 learner has revealed.

Recently I met a grade 11 learner who is enrolled at a high school in a township outside of Gauteng and he shared information with me that sounded all too familiar, and yet so disturbing.

Covid-19 has exposed the faultlines of egregious inequality, both between and within countries. It’s time the world woke up, assert the writers.

This inequality will kill people on a global scale, as it did with HIV, until civil society forces Big Pharma to cede power. That’s the scenario we are looking at again. Hopefully, we have learnt something from the past, before too many of our people die.

“The much-praised US Constitution was never primarily about protecting human rights – it was about hammering out a deal between states. This is why the presidency is about winning states and why tiny states have as many Senators as huge ones.”

The abuse of women in South Africa happens in the safety of the home, in places of work, at schools and more recently all over the internet – pretty much anywhere. In addition to living with the fear of death, often from an intimate partner, women in South Africa endure cat-calling and sexual harassment in the streets and at work.

“As with the TRC cases of apartheid-era crimes that are finally reaching the courts, the family of every person killed unjustifiably deserves justice one day too.”

Reforms to the police oversight system are long overdue. Forensic expertise and investigative skills are low, pathology services in disarray, and witnesses terrified of coming forward.

Nollywood celebrities, musicians and Big Brother winners must speak out on the side of the people

To recap, in 1992, the Nigerian government set up the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) as a branch of the Nigerian Police with the remit of tackling armed robbery, kidnapping, and other firearms crime.

Downsizing will abandon the majority in this “information age”

The editor of The Journalist spotlights developments at the SABC, arguing that the democratic role of the public broadcaster is being rolled back under the guise of economic austerity.Two events have been noteworthy in our South African news over the last month or so. One is the US Presidential election, which saw Joe Biden win against Donald Trump…

“What the municipality told us is that when they open water to our taps, the hospital and the town suffers. It means if we have water, then the hospital and the town will be out of water.”

Villagers in Ngqushwa in the Eastern Cape say they have marched and sent petitions to authorities but little relief has been provided to their shortage of water that has lasted about 10 years.In the 1970s, South African student protests spurred an international divestment movement.

The pandemic intersects with several historical factors that include the tragedy of sugar, land dispossession and the subversion of the global food economy.

The ties that bind transatlantic struggles

Climate change activists in the United States of America draw hope and courage from a previous generation that fought for divestment from apartheid South Africa. The latter were inspired by the student generation of 1976…

Caught between those who have captured the state and those who have not

Generation Equality for Greater Inclusion

The title is inspired by the United Nations’ 2020 International Women’s Day (8 March) theme “I am Generation Equality: RealiSing Women’s Rights”. The Generation Equality campaign which seeks to bring together people of every gender, age, ethnicity, religion and country, to drive actions that will create a gender-equal world.

1936 – 2020

Fawzia Lowe, who passed away at the beginning of September, was already in her 50s when she was thrust into the turbulent world of political activism following the arrest and imprisonment of her son.It took all kinds of acts of bravery by people from all walks of life to topple apartheid.

Choosing between pestilence and plague.

There is a ghastly economic dilemma facing many South African households living in poverty and operating cottage industries – in order to eat they have to accept being slowly poisoned inside their own homes.In 2007, I was part of a South African Medical Research Council team conducting a survey of the blood lead levels

A champion of the cause of democracy

The former president of Brazil says the WikiLeaks founder is a champion of democracy and that the charges against him affect journalists around the world.The British courts will soon be deciding the fate of the Australian journalist Julian Assange, a man who has been unjustly charged as a criminal.

Call for better living and working conditions

At the beginning of August a number of communities across South Africa vented their anger at the growing sense that working class people are being abandoned by the government during the Covid 19 pandemic. This article first appeared on Elitsha.Protests around the country to mark the start of a national campaign by different organisations…

The system of cheap labour on the mines contributed to toxic masculinity and female dependence

The writer argues that the influx control and pass laws of apartheid legislation aimed at providing cheap labour on the mines for capitalist barons destroyed family life and deepened the patriarchal oppression of black women.As we have seen with the Black Lives Matter movement and the removal of colonial symbols globally

The young man from Salt River who joined Fidel’s revolutionary forces

The passing of struggle stalwart John Nkadimeng earlier this month, prompted the writer to reflect on his role in the return to his homeland of Salt River born Ronald Herboldt after some 40 years as a Cuban army officer.The life and times of John Nkadimeng who died and was laid to rest earlier this month, in its many iterations

Breaking down the dignity of women and girls in the digital era

Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is an age-old problem in a patriarchal society that has been brought into terrifying focus once again in recent months.

Looking for food sovereignty in the promised land

Residents of eKhenana, a land occupation in Cato Manor, Durban, have started planting vegetables. Food sovereignty and other forms of self-sufficiency, they say, will be achieved through tilling the soil and opening themselves up to new knowledge.The settlement was created in 2018. Many of its residents came from rented lodgings in a nearby area.