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News & Views by Terry Bell
The real radical transformation required
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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Sticks, stones, words & Adam Habib
April 8, 2021
(First published in City Press, April 04, 2021) Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. So goes an old adage. But, of course, words can be hurtful: it all depends on the context. But words, because they exist, cannot be made to de-exist and nor can the use of […]
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Orange protest highlights a democratic farce
March 27, 2021
Hopefully, we on the cusp of a new and radical democratic breakthrough with the launch of the orange-flagged Defend our Democracy campaign, aimed at rooting out corruption. But, if we really hope to root out corruption, we have to deal with its causes, a major one of which is the very “democracy” we now practice. […]
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How about some real change, next time round?
March 15, 2021
There has been much said and written in recent months about how there will be no going back to normal in the wake of Covid-19; that the gross inequalities highlighted by the pandemic mean that change must come. But, if history is any guide, we could face more of the same, only worse. As such […]
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June 27, 2021
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