Browsing All posts tagged under »politics«

Failing the children of the poor

January 15, 2013

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South Africa continues to fail the children of the poor and is once again reaping the results of that failure. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recurrent violent eruptions in the fruit and wine farm regions of the Western Cape.

Citizens’ coaltion infrastructure is in place

December 31, 2012

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In South Africa, all the infrastructure exists to institute the modern world's first attempt to extend the partial democracy we now have into the real thing: a truly egalitarian system that could make a reality of the values of human dignity, equality and freedom. All it requires is organisation.

The ‘Secrecy Act’ is coming

December 28, 2012

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The "Secrecy Act" is coming. And we can get a good idea of government’s intentions from the way ministers and officials have flouted existing freedom of information legislation.

An alternative to more chaos and destruction?

December 17, 2012

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The promises and the policies, the personalities elected, even the potential political punch-ups at Mangaung are basically irrelevant. Only a radical move toward a new political dispensation could stop the social fabric of the country from continuing to fray and tear, causing further moves towards repression.

The road from 1996 to Mangaung

December 13, 2012

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The tortuous road to the governing ANC’s centennial conference at Mangaung ends next week. And, not to put too fine a point on it, much of the country is gatvol with the route it has taken and where it has arrived.

A route to a truly democratic society

December 7, 2012

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South Africa's Bill of Right provides the cornerstone on which a truly democratic society can be built. The technical resources exist in a world of surpluses. Only imagination and political will are missing.

The myth of a ‘Lula moment’

November 30, 2012

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Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of South Africa's major trade union federation, Cosatu, has proposed a "Lula moment" to defuse the country's "ticking time bomb" of poverty and unemployment. But there is a growing band of doubters who see this belief that Brazil's former president has — or had — a cure-all recipe for poverty, unemployment and economic growth as a myth.

Marikana, farms and forestry

November 24, 2012

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There are none so blind as those that will not see. It is a saying popularised more than 300 years ago and it has had marked resonance following the bloody events at Marikana and the more recent upheavals among the fruit and wine farms of the Western Cape. At Marikana, 34 striking miners were shot […]