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News & Views by Terry Bell
Dangers of returning to a ‘normal’ SA
(First published on Fin24) The events of recent weeks have once again highlighted the gross inequalities and the legacy of apartheid geography that remain South African realities. They also revealed that the poison of ethnic nationalism continues to course through parts of the body politic. As a resut, there are many lessons to be learned, […]
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Uphill fight to vaccinate
July 16, 2021
(First published on Fin24 and in City Press, South Africa) Where are the unions as South Africa limps through yet another ill-considered jobs slaughter of a lockdown? Especially as thousands of teachers and educational support staff continue to refuse the Covid-19 vaccine.It’s a good question to ask, when many — if not most — of […]
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Seeking justice & truth in SA’s tortured past
July 8, 2021
In the wake of renewed efforts — including a court decision — to reopen, investigate and prosecute apartheid era crimes, a number of elderly people in powerful — or once powerful — positions must be feeling more than a shiver of apprehension. And that applies on both sides of the former apartheid struggle divide. […]
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The real radical transformation required
June 27, 2021
The last thing South Africa needs in any effort to clamber out of the deep social and economic mire the country is in is another political party, leader or set of revised economic policies. It needs truly radical transformation at a political and social level and the key lies with our electoral system. ————————————– It […]
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The middle class illusion
June 8, 2021
When the SA Airways pilots’ union takes on the government in the labour court on July 15, the issues raised should go far beyond the fact that the pilots — locked out of work since May 2020 — have not been paid for more than a year. The case may also bring into focus what […]
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Betrayal — amid continuing hope
May 25, 2021
The children of the working poor have been betrayed again. Last week it became clear that almost all the promised Covid-19 emergency payments to tens of thousands of workers who care for an estimated 2.5 million children under the age of six had not been paid, In October last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged R1.3 […]
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Blame for May Day’s bare whimper
May 11, 2021
May Day 2021 has come and gone, without much of a whimper, let alone a bang. And it is the novel coronavirus that is only marginally responsible. Because there would not have been much of a bang even without the pandemic. The virtual May Day commemoration by Cosatu was streamed from the federation’s headquarters, Cosatu […]
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London to France: skulking along the Thames, arriving in Aigues-Morte
April 29, 2021
(Available on Daily Maverick: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-27-reflections-of-a-wayward-boy-skulking-through-the-thames-estuary-guided-by-naked-canoeists/) The great 7,000 mile kayak venture of 1967 began as a comedy of errors, and, with hindsight, many of the elements of farce came close to tragedy. But there were also some incredibly interesting, insightful, even uplifting, events along some 1,500km of sea, canals and rivers before, after nearly three […]
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Terry Bell Writes 
July 25, 2021
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