COSATU
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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’s ‘sub-imperial’ seductions By Patrick Bond
Thanks are due to an odd man, the brutally frank Zambian vice-president Guy Scott who last week pronounced, “I dislike South Africa for the same reason that Latin Americans dislike the United States”. Thanks are also due to South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma for forcing a long-overdue debate, just as the World Economic Forum Africa… 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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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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The Marikana Massacre and the South African State's Low Intensity War Against the People By Vishwas Satgar
The massacre of the Marikana/Lonmin workers has inserted itself within South Africa’s national consciousness, not so much through the analysis, commentary and reporting in its wake. Instead, it has been the power of the visual images of police armed with awesome fire power gunning down these workers, together with images of bodies lying defeated and… Continue reading
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Marikana, where the ANC’s chickens came home to roost By William Bowles
The African National Congress (ANC) won a resounding victory in South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994 with a host of promises that it would improve the lives of the Black majority (85% of the population). And whilst there have been gains in some areas, overall, most Black South Africans are materially worse off now… Continue reading
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South Africa’s Unfinished Revolution and the Massacre at Marikana
The massacre of 34 miners at Marikana lays bare the central contradiction of the South African “arrangement.” Back in 1994, “the ‘revolution’ was put on indefinite hold, so that a new Black capitalist class could be created, largely from the ranks of well-connected members of the ruling party and even union leaders.” The regime now… Continue reading
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Letter from a South African reader on the Marikana miners massacre
Shortly before the police attack on striking mine workers at Rustenburg’s Marikana platinum mine, police spokesperson Dennis Adriao issued a chilling threat, a portent of the massacre to follow: “Today is unfortunately D-Day.” Continue reading
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A Poisoned Chalice: Liberation, ANC-Style By John S. Saul
There is good and obvious reason to celebrate the long history of the African National Congress (ANC): the organization’s marked dedication over one hundred years to the cause of the betterment of the lot of the oppressed African people in South Africa. It has also sustained an honourable commitment to a multi-racial, pan-ethnic outcome to… Continue reading
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21 YEARS AFTER “FREEDOM:” SOUTH AFRICA’S CANCER OF CORRUPTION AND ‘CULTURE OF CONCEALMENT’ By Danny Schechter
Twenty one years after Nelson Mandela walked free, corruption has become the issue du jour in South Africa. Continue reading
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South African Public Sector Strike Highlights Society’s Contradictions By Patrick Bond
The two major civil service unions on strike against the South African (SA) government vow to intensify pressure in coming days, in a struggle pitting a million members of the middle and lower ranks of society against a confident government leadership fresh from hosting the FIFA World Cup. Continue reading
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South African civil servants on strike over pay
One million South African civil servants have begun indefinite strike action, leaving schools without teachers and trials postponed. Continue reading
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Neville Alexander: South Africa – An unfinished revolution
In the Marxist paradigm, the word “revolution” has very precise meanings. Most often, it is used to refer to a “social revolution”, i.e., the displacement of the rule of one class by that of another, usually by violent means, i.e., in the course of a civil war or an armed struggle. Thus, for example, the… Continue reading
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Selling South Africa: Poverty, Politics and the 2010 FIFA World Cup By Chris Webb
Why is it that governments can find billions of dollars for global sporting events and little to deal with the grinding poverty that affects impoverished populations? Canada applauded itself for the $135-million in aid and disaster relief it sent to an earthquake ravaged Haiti while spending nearly $6-billion on the two-week long Vancouver Olympics. A… Continue reading
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Statement by SA Palestine Solidarity Movement and COSATU
We salute the gallant and heroic actions of over 1,400 people from around the world – especially the South African delegation – who went to Cairo to embark on the historic Gaza Freedom March (GFM). The South African delegation truly represented the revolutionary and humanitarian character of our country even when faced with the harassment… Continue reading
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Video: South Africans protest for higher wages
Protests and strikes have broken out in recent weeks across South Africa where workers are demanding higher wages and the unemployed pushing for better living conditions. Analysts say the current unrest could put a strain on Africa’s biggest economy as the government seems unable to find any solution. Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa reports. Continue reading
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South African Political Power Balance Shifts Left – Though Not Yet Enough to Quell Grassroots Anger By Patrick Bond
Since the early 1990s, neoliberal policies have made SA economically more vulnerable than at any time since 1929. If five major currency crashes since 1996 were not evidence enough, the 6.4% quarterly GDP decline for early 2009 was the worst since 1984. By late 2008 it was apparent that labour would suffer vast retrenchments, what… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 