History Matters

Recent calls for nationalisation of mines and expropriation of land  without compensation have  evoked a sense of anxiety  and discomfort in  sections of  South African society,  the international financial sector and observers of South Africa’s policy processes. These ideas are said to be to be based on the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People, on [...]

Côte d’Ivoire: No War, but No Security AfricaFocus Bulletin Jun 10, 2011 (110610) (Reposted from sources cited below) Editor’s Note “Between May 13 and 25, Human Rights Watch interviewed 132 victims and witnesses to violence by both sides during the battle for Abidjan and in the weeks after Gbagbo’s arrest. Killings, torture, and inhumane treatment [...]

By Jane Duncan Christopher McMichael is a PhD candidate in the politics department of Rhodes University. His research investigates the ways in which the international governing body of football, FIFA, used the security arrangements for the 2010 World Cup to cannibalise public funds to the benefit of the Association and its sponsors. South Africa had [...]

by Raymond Suttner With Ma Albertina Sisulu’spassing, many feel they havelost a political figure, but alsosomeone who meant much more thanthat, who sensitively but where necessary firmly, guided others on a path thatwould help them as human beings.Ma Sisulu was warm and generallysmiling while she hugged and kissed allher children. She combined this withstrict ethical norms [...]

The temptation to deploy identity politics is always tempting, but should be resisted, writes Mamphela Ramphele May 29, 2011 Sunday Times The contest for power in the run-up to the May 18 local elections raised a very sensitive issue of the ownership of national symbols, including former president Nelson Mandela. I had hoped that the [...]

by Ferial Haffajee news24 The first reason it lost the coloured and Indian vote is that the ANC sees it as a coloured and Indian vote – when it didn’t, the ANC was much more successful in these former strongholds. I’m black, as defined by Steve Biko, but apartheid meant that I spent my childhood [...]

by  Blade Nzimande – Jeremy Cronin 17 May 2011 – Tomorrow’s local government election Tomorrow, South Africans will be going to the polls for the third, non-racial local government election in our country’s history. Much is at stake. As the SACP we are confident that once more the ANC, supported by its Alliance partners, will [...]

KWANELE SOSIBO for the Mail & Guardian  | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Apr 21 2011 00:00 Chalk inscriptions still mark Voortrekker Street in Ficksburg’s Market Square where Andries Tatane died after police allegedly beat and shot him during a march to the Setsoto local municipality offices on Wednesday last week. Phillip Selokoe, his former high [...]

ADOPTED BY THE FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE 20-23 January 2011 Post-apartheid capitalism is leaving a trail of hunger, poverty, anger and misery. The wealthy elite, the bosses and their hangers on refuse to concede a single inch to the urgent needs of the majority. They label even the most modest reforms as the thin edge of [...]