socialism | Terry Bell Writes

Browsing All posts tagged under »socialism«

July 19, 2013

Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has now emerged as a new, self proclaimed, socialist party. It plans to stage a mass rally at Marikana on August 17, marking the anniversary of the bloody fracture in the local trade union and political environment. Dressed in their red berets, a la Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the […]

Left spectre haunts the ANC/SACP

June 27, 2013

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe conjured up a spectre from South Africa’s trade union past when he blamed the "Swedes and Irish" for the "anarchy" on the platinum mines.

Seeking a definition of socialism

May 11, 2012

Is North Korea socialist? That question was put on the South African labour movement agenda by SA Communist Party general secretary, Blade Nzimande when he urged the union movement to affiliate to the North Korean backed WFTU as a oute to "socialism".

The role of unions — and threats they face

July 10, 2011

The labour movement has always professed — and has the potential — to be the bulwark against authoritarianism, a standard bearer of such concepts as liberty and social justice. Unfortunately, there are many instances where these goals have been subverted, where governments, political parties and organised crime, sometimes as overlapping entities, have dominated, corrupting or badly weakening organised labour.

Schisms open up in the SA Alliance

January 27, 2011

Whither South Africa's macro-economic policy? The government has taken its New Growth Path framework to the Wor4ld Economic Forum in Davos, but the unions on the home front, along with the SACP, are deeply divided. Is the NGP another Gear or Asgisa or is it something really new?

The history of an exceptional newspaper

December 8, 2010

The Guardian — The History of South Africa’s Extraordinary Anti-Apartheid Newspaper. By James Zug (Michigan State University Press/UNISA Press) (First published, May 2009) The Guardian, a polemical newspaper that survived three bannings and subsequent name changes and was once charged, alongside 156 individuals, with treason, is part of the anti-apartheid folk lore of South Africa. […]

Lessons to be learned from Cosatu’s 25 years

November 30, 2010

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) turns 25 in December. But the birthday celebrations around the country will be dampened by heightened tension and some mildly acrimonious outbursts resulting from the content of the government’s New Growth Path (NGP) for the economy and the manner in which it was announced. Like the 1996 […]