History Matters

Dear friends, The crackdown and blackout on Iran’s streets and internet is silencing the voices of protesters. Iranians urgently need internet access to communicate with each other and world – let’s fund simple, cheap tools to help them freely access the internet: TAKE ACTION NOW! The brutal crackdown on Iran’s streets is succeeding. Lethal shooting, [...]

Rob Peterson 20th June 2009 This is an extract of a letter circulated by Rob Peterson which raises some interesting issues regarding the Justice Hlophe saga. […] some elementary thoughts: 1) What is quite striking about the Hlophe camp (from which he in no way dissociates himself) is its nakedly political campaigning character. This is [...]

Sokari Ekine and Firoze Manji 2009-06-11, Issue 437 http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/56914 With Shell having agreed an out-of-court settlement of $15.5 million with the families of the Ogoni Nine activists killed in 1995, Sokari Ekine and Firoze Manji argue that a victory should not be confused with justice. Though representative of an emerging movement in bringing a multinational [...]

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Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement Tuesday, 19 May 2009 Now that the election is over and the politicians have finished hunting for positions they are running away from the people. It is impossible for a poor community to get a meeting with a politician. They only send in the police to break the people’s homes and [...]

A friend sent me an sms as she was going into the voting booth on April 22nd. “Going to hold my nose and vote”, she said. She was voting for COPE nationally and ID provincially only because she was sure they would not be in government. She detested many of the personalities in Cope, disagreed [...]

The phrases “climate change” and “global warming” have scared, inspired and confused people worldwide in the recent past. The are many sceptics when it comes to the alarming statistics put forward by environmentalists like Al Gore, however the reality is that the world does not have infinite resources to support an increasing world population. Yes, [...]

ZACKIE ACHMAT: Mail and Guardian Mar 16 2009 ‘Comrades, my addiction to Leninist polemics is slowly coming under control.” I grew up with the political language of the left. We took no prisoners. Polemics and facts were used to deride an opponent and their political argument. “Capitalist apologists” were reformist comrades in the trade union [...]

The PPEN is an important education reform initiative and we support it call for readers to get involved. Dear Colleagues and Friends, Welcome to 2009.  May it mark a ‘turning point’ for public education… Thank you again for expressing your commitment to the public call to education, and your support of the Public Participation in [...]