South Africa
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Video: Unhinged: Surviving Joberg – A Teaser
Unhinged: Surviving Joburg is a film about Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city – a place where red is green, left is right, cops are robbers and deadlines tight. Take a moment to see what it’s like in this crazy, fast paced city. A wicked commentary on the city that used to be my home. Continue reading
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South Africa: Pro-government faction attacks COSATU's Zwelinzima Vavi By Benjamin Fogel
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is in the midst of the biggest crisis in its 27-year history. This crisis has arisen from a South African Communist Party (SACP)-driven attempt to oust democratically elected COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, under the guise of corruption charges. Continue reading
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A TV Network Prematurely Reports Nelson Mandela Died–Do Some Want Him Gone? By Danny Schechter
New York, New York: A South African media outlet, no doubt eager to be first, aired a TV obituary of Nelson Mandela. It was very positive and respectful, except for the fact he hadn’t died. Continue reading
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Video: South Africa: The Big Debate – Episode 1 – Land
The recent farmworkers’ strike in the Western Cape has highlighted low pay and unbearable working conditions as the main causes of the workers’ grievances. However, some farmworkers have also revealed that land reform and redistribution are at the centre of their concerns. Continue reading
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BRICS from Below!
In Durban, South Africa, five heads of state meet on March 26-27, to assure the rest of Africa that their countries’ corporations are better investors in infrastructure, mining, oil and agriculture than the traditional European and US multinationals. The Brazil- Russia-India-China-SA (BRICS) summit will also include 16 heads of state from Africa, including some notorious… Continue reading
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Popstars Politics in the New South Africa: A Conversation with Masello Motana By Zachary Rosen
Well, life would be much simpler for Masello if only she was content with collecting paychecks from beauty contracts and soap opera gigs. If only she pretended last year’s horrific massacre of mineworkers at the now infamous Marikana platinum mine in South Africa’s northwest never happened. If only she ignored the fact that businessman Cyril… Continue reading
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BRICS: ‘Anti-imperialist’ or ‘sub-imperialist’? By Patrick Bond
“We reaffirm the character of the ANC as a disciplined force of the left, a multi-class mass movement and an internationalist movement with an anti-imperialist outlook” — so said Jacob Zuma, orating to his masses at the year’s largest African National Congress celebration, in Durban on January 12, 2013. Eleven days later, Zuma spoke to… Continue reading
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Sequesters To Trim Government Debt; Malls Raise Consumer Debt for The “Sheeple” By Danny Schechter
Durban, South Africa: Back in 2002, South Africa hosted a UN environmental Summit on sustainability. It drew a rag tag army of green activists from all over the world, many excited to visit the now free South Africa that they fought for through the apartheid years, and hoping to meet members of the liberation movement… Continue reading
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Video: South Africa and the Resource Curse
Patrick Bond: Mining interests are a powerful force shaping African politics (inc. transcript) Continue reading
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End rural slavery in South Africa!
During the month of November last year, the world watched farm workers strikes, particularly those working in vineyards in the Western Cape Province, in South Africa. They were protesting against exploitation and poor working and living conditions on farms, demanding an increase in minimum wages. Continue reading
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Video: Platinum Miners and Class Struggle in South Africa By Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond: Platinum miners strike inspires workers across South Africa; Billionaire mine owner becomes deputy head of ANC Continue reading
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South Africa: The road from 1996 to Mangaung By Terry Bell
The tortuous road to the governing ANC’s centennial conference at Mangaung ends next week. And, not to put too fine a point on it, much of the country is gatvol with the route it has taken and where it has arrived. Continue reading
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Workers’ Rights in South Africa: Does the Ruling ANC Party Represent the People? By Eric Draitser
The ruling class in South Africa, though fronted by black faces, continues to work in the service of Western finance capital and the neoliberal agenda, lining their own pockets while the streets, mines, and slums ring with the cries of the workers and the poor demanding justice. Continue reading
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South Africa: Politics, profits and policing after the Marikana Massacre By Patrick Bond
Lover of fast cars, vintage wine, trout fishing and game farming and the second richest black businessperson in South Africa (global financial publication Forbes puts his wealth at $675 million or £416 million), Cyril Ramaphosa (left) celebrates his election as deputy president of the ANC with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. Ramaphosa demanded that police… Continue reading
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Video: Sbujwa
I had a treat when I was in Johannesburg recently. I was about to jump into a cab when this van pulled up and out piled these colourfully clad kids. With their exit came the loud, blasting house-sort of music, then the dance moves, taunting, shouting matches, some alcohol, and street fashion … but at… Continue reading
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The Political Pied Pipers on the Road to Mangaung: A Different Kind of Tale By Dale T. McKinley
South Africa’s modern-day political pied pipers are, like the fairy tale character’s clothing, a patch-work collection. But we should not be deceived by appearances alone, for the securocrat-inspired tune of intolerance and political similitude they are playing with increasing enthusiasm and volume on the road to Mangaung is as deadly to all South Africans as… Continue reading
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The commodification of crap and South Africa’s toilet apartheid By Patrick Bond
In central Durban, the mafia of the global water and sanitation sector – its corporate, NGO and state-bureaucratic elite – have gathered at the International Convention Centre, just a few blocks west of the Indian Ocean, into which far too much of our excrement already flows. They’re at the same scene of the crime as,… Continue reading
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South Africa after Marikana massacre: Strike wave and new workers' organisations challenge old compromises By Leonard Gentle
Over the November 10-11, 2012, weekend striking mineworkers of the Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) corporation gathered at a mass rally in Rustenburg and howled their defiance of a series of ultimatums issued by the company. At De Doorns, farm workers are on a “wildcat” strike — the latest of a series that has become a… Continue reading
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100 Years of the ANC: From Liberation Movement to State Power in South Africa by Adèle Kirsten and Tshepo Madlingozi
There is no doubt that South Africa is in deep crisis – an unfinished revolution. “The land question is unresolved, economic redistribution is not addressed, racial equality is not attained.” Yet the ruling African National Congress remains deeply embedded in the nation’s political culture. “The ANC remains the central organizational pivot in South Africa’s peoples’… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 