South Africa | Terry Bell Writes

Browsing All posts tagged under »South Africa«

Sensational slogans and reformist reality

March 13, 2011

(First published February 25, 2011) Never judge a book by its cover. Nor, for that matter, the prospect of revolution by the labels given to mass protest, the radical tone of slogans or the harshness of repression. In a South African context, it also means not jumping to the conclusion that our liberal parliamentary democracy […]

Operation Daisy and the art prof spy

March 7, 2011

At the height of the 1976 rebellion against apartheid in South Africa, the security police launched an audacious scheme that enabled them to steal anti-apartheid funds with the aid of bogus trusts headed by an apparently respectable fine arts professor at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Advocating ‘any job’ is part of the problem

February 3, 2011

The trade union movement, nationally and internationally‚ can be excused for being more than a trifle sceptical about announcements that the world is recovering from economic crisis. Unsurprisingly, this was the reported assessment of most business delegates to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos that ended last weekend. In one, very narrow, respect this […]

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?

An economy riddled with a legacy of contradictions

January 20, 2011

This chapter on the South African economy was written and submitted on August 3, 2007 for a proposed book. It was not published and the chapter was not submitted or published elsewhere. However, given developments to date this text may be of some interest to anyone concerned about economic developments in South Africa.

Voodoo economics, journalism & human rights

January 7, 2011

It is time we all stopped bowing down at the altar of voodoo economics and acknowledged that our world is in crisis. And that this crisis is a consequence of adherence to an almost religious belief that “the market” is some sort of sane and sensible mechanism; that the mystical “invisible hand” mentioned by Adam Smith is a reality.

Some food for thought in 2011

December 17, 2010

This is the last Inside Labour column for 2010. So I want to take this opportunity not only to wish all readers the best for the season and the coming year, but also to touch on some of the baggage — on a micro and macro level — being carried forward into 2011. At a […]

Farewell to an anti-apartheid battler

December 17, 2010

Tom Newnham, the man who probably did more than any other single individual in New Zealand to break rugby and other sporting ties with apartheid South Africa, died in Auckland this week, aged 84. And educator, editor, publisher, author and activist, he was the driving force behind the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality (CARE) that, […]