None of the big political parties are showing the kind of leadership that is needed when it comes to housing.
Nathan Geffen
Opinion | 29 August 2012
“Money, historic distrust, poor communication by and between different parties and the intervention of a small criminal element provided the volatile mix that exploded into violence....."
Terry Bell
Opinion | 27 August 2012
Given the amount of often dangerous nonsense being sprouted about "anarchists" and about Amcu allegedly being a newly formed union sponsored by everyone from the Chamber of Mines to BHP Billiton, I provide this historic record: an Inside Labour column published on February 19 this year with which nobody from the NUM or SACP disagreed.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 22 August 2012
A few weeks ago, the City of Cape Town was rocked by a spate of road blockades and other significant protests. Certain liberal NGOs joined the Democratic Alliance in condemning the protests claiming that they are violent and motivated by political party agendas.
Jared Sacks
Opinion | 22 August 2012
On the evening of Friday 3 August thousands of Khayelitsha residents were nearing the end of the long and difficult bus journey that city workers endure twice a day.
Gavin Silber
Opinion | 17 August 2012
The ongoing tension and violence at South Africa’s Lonmin platinum mine is a much more complex and messy business than a simple turf war between unions in the Rustenburg region of the country.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 17 August 2012
On 6 August, something extraordinary happened: NASA, the US space agency, landed a research craft called the Curiosity rover on Mars.
Jacques van Heerden
Opinion | 15 August 2012
In this week of Women’s Day, the 30th summer Olympiad is coming to an end. Over the past week and more, women and men from all backgrounds have displayed their sporting abilities, watched on television by more than 1 billion people around the world.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 13 August 2012
I live in a house in Nyanga township in Cape Town. But before 1994 I lived in Nyanga Bush in a tent, then a plastic shack, then a corrugated iron shack.
Vuyiseka Dubula
Opinion | 8 August 2012
That there is widespread and apparently growing cynicism within the labour movement about politics and politicians is perfectly understandable. Recent history provides many reasons, not least of them the corruption scandals, the circumstances surrounding the murder of Moss Phakoe and the ongoing school textbook crisis.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 8 August 2012
Mary Waters High School in Grahamstown has 1087 learners from poor families.
Doron Isaacs
Opinion | 6 August 2012
The controversial medical parole of former top cop, Jackie Selebi, has once again thrown into stark relief questions about kidney disease and treatment, questions that have long disturbed the labour movement.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 2 August 2012
This past Saturday, 28 July, saw the launch of the ‘My Vote Counts’ campaign. The event took place at the District Six Museum in Cape Town and was attended by more than 40 social activists, all of whom participated in their personal capacities. The occasion was marked by speeches from veteran activist Zackie Achmat, director of Cape Town-based social justice organisation Ndifuna Ukwazi, and well-known cartoonist Jonathan ‘Zapiro’ Shapiro.
Fritz Schoon
Opinion | 1 August 2012
The youth of Khayelitsha have been infected with a terrible "disease of gang violence"--as ‘Big Guy’, a radio presenter from Radio Zibonele called it--that is destroying tomorrow’s leaders. It is not hardened gangsters who are involved but children, some as young as 13.
Axolile Notywala
Opinion | 1 August 2012
Every finish line is the beginning of a race. I’m on the finish line of my gangster life and at the beginning of whole new life.
Mzi
Opinion | 1 August 2012
Hope springs eternal in the human breast. So wrote the much-quoted 18th Century English poet, Alexander Pope. And, although this has all too often described the
futility of chasing after rainbows and never finding a promised pot of gold, hope continues to sustain millions of people in situations that, to the more fortunate, might seem hopeless.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 25 July 2012