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News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing All posts tagged under »democracy«
Showing up the farce of SA democracy
April 4, 2017
South Africa’s constitutional democracy has, over the past week been shown up for the farce that it is. And the call now must be for a system that will extend democracy and grant real power to the people “on the ground”,
A Turkish lesson for democrats everywhere
July 23, 2016
The latest snub to the rule of law in South Africa came this week with the sacking of SABC journalists by management in flagrant disregard of the ruling made by the Independent Communications Authority. It follows a litany of questionable official actions, comments and downright disregard for the judicial system, the labour laws and, in […]
Nothing new in ANC ignoring democratic will
June 25, 2016
There is nothing new about the ANC imposing candidates and leaders against the wishes of the majority of members. A long history of this practice extends into the exile years. But t2here are differences between the past and the eruptions in Tshwane over the past week.
The threat behind Zuma’s ’embarrassment’
May 20, 2016
According to South African President Jacob Zuma, opposition parliamentarians are an embarrassment to him, at home and abroad. “I go around Africa and people ask me very embarrassing questions about this parliament,” he told a national assembly boycotted by almost all the opposition parties following the physical expulsion of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members.
The prospects for a ‘confusion of unions’
May 7, 2016
The best way to describe the situation in the South African labour movement at present is that it is in a state of flux: of ongoing change in conditions of instability. As such, an appropriate collective noun may be a confusion of unions; confusion that may, hopefully, be resolved.
Time to learn lessons — & face reality
November 29, 2015
True shopfloor democracy and the tolerance of difference may be the only hope left to halt a slide toward irrelevance for South Africa's major trade union federation. And there are lessons to be learned from recent events in Britain.
How ‘the people’ can capture the state
April 9, 2017
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Direct democracy, a system where the citizens as a whole have control over their lives and welfare is not only desirable, it is possible, given the very technology that is now destroying jobs. But it requires education and organisation.