By STEVEN FRIEDMAN If that well-worn cliché about never wasting a crisis applies to anything, it is the labour movement today. Contrary to some current rhetoric, the movement does not need to return to what it was: it needs to become something different. Deepening tensions in Cosatu, which saw the departure of the National Union…
Does the ANC intend to expropriate land in South Africa any time soon? President Jacob Zuma doesn’t appear to care for the landless at all. He doesn’t seem to believe that landlessness is even a problem. Zuma caused alarm last week when he claimed that South Africans were going hungry and living in squalid conditions…
A commitment to changing society must include an openness to the unexpected moment in which new modes of politics appear By RICHARD PITHOUSE If you’re up early in Dakar and decide to take a walk along the shorefront before the day gets going you may see fishermen setting out on a raft cobbled together from…
By MANDISI MAJUVA who asks if Black South Africans are expected to talk about colonialism in a manner that doesn’t cause discomfort to Whites It has taken the University of Cape Town (UCT) 15 years to seriously consider the views of its black students concerning the statue of Cecil John Rhodes. Way back in 1999, Melissa…
By GLENN ASHTON Both the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party and the South African flag have prominent splashes of green featuring in their respective colour schemes. After 1994 the new government was keenly focussed on demonstrating its green credentials in line with our constitutional commitment to environmental protection and sustainable use of our diverse…
South Africa transfers just over R50 billion a year to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland with no strings attached By ALEXANDER O’RIORDAN The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is most easily identifiable in Botswana’s, Lesotho’s, Namibia’s and Swaziland’s (BLNS) use of the South African Rand as the basis for their own currencies, albeit through printing…
By ANNA MAJAVU After almost 21 years, affirmative action has not taken root in South Africa and most sectors of the economy, including academic institutions, remain “untransformed”. The most recent Commission for Employment Equity’s annual report noted that whites continued to retain the vast majority of the top positions in South Africa (over 62 percent…
Big Business is both the primary consumer of electricity and the principal culprit when it comes to non-payment for services By DALE T McKINLEY AMANDLA NGAWETHU! We hear it all the time and many regularly shout it. Indeed, “power to the people” has been a crucial part of South Africa’s political vocabulary for decades, first…
By JANE DUNCAN On 21 March 1960, the apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of protestors in Sharpeville, killing 69 people. Five decades on, post-apartheid South Africa remembers these events annually, on Human Rights Day. The government has attempted to depoliticize the event, shifting the day from one that is associated with the Pan Africanist…
By ANNA MAJAVU South Africa has a growing number of unemployed teaching graduates, especially newly qualified Black teachers. When Dr Blade Nzimande took office as Higher Education minister, he increased the number of bursaries for teacher training, supposedly to remedy the extreme shortage of teachers. Last year, R2.4-billion was allocated by the Higher Education ministry…
