ANC
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Democratic Left Front: Together, a new South Africa is possible
There is a spectre haunting the ruling class and government in South Africa: it is the radical anti-capitalist movement that the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has given birth to at its historic special national congress held last week. The Democratic Left Front (DLF) congratulates NUMSA for this congress that united metalworkers… Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Media’s Hypocritical Oath – Mandela And Economic Apartheid By David Edwards
What does it mean when a notoriously profit-driven, warmongering, climate-killing media system mourns, with one impassioned voice, the death of a principled freedom fighter like Nelson Mandela? Continue reading
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South Africa Under the ANC: A Flawed Freedom By John S. Saul
Has the time come when it might be possible to move past the well-deserved praise-song phase of the marking of Nelson Mandela’s death in order to strike a more careful balance sheet on the meaning for present-day South Africa of his storied career? Continue reading
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How the ANC Sold Out South Africa’s Poor By Ronnie Kasrils
South Africa’s young people today are known as the Born Free generation. They enjoy the dignity of being born into a democratic society with the right to vote and choose who will govern. But modern South Africa is not a perfect society. Full equality – social and economic – does not exist, and control of… Continue reading
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Nelson Mandela’s years in power: Was he pushed or did he jump? By Patrick Bond
The death of Nelson Mandela, at age 95 on December 5, 2013, brings genuine sadness. As his health deteriorated over the past six months, many asked the more durable question: how did he change South Africa? Given how unsatisfactory life is for so many in society, the follow-up question is, how much room was there… Continue reading
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The Legacy of Nelson Mandela: A Dissenting Opinion By Jonathan Cook
Let me start by recognising Mandela’s huge achievement in helping to bring down South African apartheid, and make clear my enormous respect for the great personal sacrifices he made, including spending so many years caged up for his part in the struggle to liberate his people. These are things impossible to forget or ignore when… Continue reading
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South Africa: Tongaat Mall Collapse – the Boomerang Effect By Richard Pithouse
In 1961 Frantz Fanon described the colonial world as “cut in two”, divided into “compartments …. inhabited by different species”. For Fanon the creation of different kinds of spaces was central to the creation of different types of people and their ordering in a hierarchy of value. Almost twenty years after apartheid our society remains… Continue reading
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Terry Bell's 'Right to Fight' download
Now available for download (as pdfs – below) is this selection of 17 years of Inside Labour columns, illustrated by 19 Zapiro cartoons that summarise developments between the watershed years of 1996 (the SA Constitution) and 2012 (Marikana). [Brilliant cartoons by Zapiro. WB] Continue reading
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Terry Bell’s ‘Right to Fight’ download
Now available for download (as pdfs – below) is this selection of 17 years of Inside Labour columns, illustrated by 19 Zapiro cartoons that summarise developments between the watershed years of 1996 (the SA Constitution) and 2012 (Marikana). [Brilliant cartoons by Zapiro. WB] Continue reading
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Where do broken ANC hearts go? By By Ranjeni Munusamy
For people who have been in the ANC from during the liberation struggle, it is no easy choice to leave the organisation, no matter how disappointed and angry they get with it. But as the 2014 election approaches, there might be a whole batch of ANC leaders, members and supporters wondering what they will do… Continue reading
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South Africa: Sectarian shame of the SACP By Terry Bell
Shortly after the column below was written and blogged, the SA Communist Party issued its statement on Marikana that reveals the deep and dangerous sectarianism of this organisation. Here, I feel, is exposed one of the roots of the problem. I include here the final paragraph of that statement as an introduction to a repeat… Continue reading
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Video: South Africa's Largest Union on the Verge of Major Split
Patrick Bond: South Africa trade unions become magnets for capital as an ideological confict masked as a sex scandal threatens to fracture union behind the one-year-old massacre (inc. transcript) Continue reading
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South Africa: Licenced to Kill By Richard Pithouse
There is no properly researched body count but a quick internet search throws up media reports of nearly forty people having being killed by the police during protests since the killing started on a university campus in Durban in 2000. The Tatane murder became so well known for the simple reason that it was captured… Continue reading
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Mandela's greatness may be secured, but not his legacy By John Pilger
When I reported from South Africa in the 1960s, the Nazi admirer Johannes Vorster occupied the prime minister’s residence in Cape Town. Thirty years later, as I waited at the gates, it was as if the guards had not changed. White Afrikaners checked my ID with the confidence of men in secure work. One carried… Continue reading
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Obama in South Africa: Washington tells Pretoria how to ‘play the game’ in Africa By Patrick Bond
US President Barack Barack Obama’s weekend trip to South Africa may have the desired effect of slowing the geopolitical realignment of Pretoria to the Brazil-India-Russia-China-South Africa (BRICS) axis. That shift to BRICS has not, however, meant deviation from the hosts’ political philosophy, best understood as “talk left, walk right” since it mixes anti-imperialist rhetoric with… Continue reading
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Obama in South Africa: Washington tells Pretoria how to ‘play the game’ in Africa By Patrick Bond
US President Barack Barack Obama’s weekend trip to South Africa may have the desired effect of slowing the geopolitical realignment of Pretoria to the Brazil-India-Russia-China-South Africa (BRICS) axis. That shift to BRICS has not, however, meant deviation from the hosts’ political philosophy, best understood as “talk left, walk right” since it mixes anti-imperialist rhetoric with… Continue reading
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How the ANC's Faustian Pact Sold Out South Africa's Poorest By Ronnie Kasrils
A veteran of the South African freedom struggle and its Black-led government says the African National Congress’ soul “was eventually lost to corporate power: we were entrapped by the neoliberal economy – or, as some today cry out, we ‘sold our people down the river.’” Continue reading
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Housmans Books London – Newsletter July 2013
21 June 2013 — Housmans NEWS 1. Reading and discussion groups at Housmans 2. Supporters Card Continue reading
The New Dark Age 