part of no part

Corruption and Cadre deployments exist in every part of the world. Hell, the entire Western Neo liberal edifice is constructed on just that. I have great respect for Robert and other cadre`s who have performed so valiantly in the struggle against apartheid. For this, the ANC and the people of South Africa owe him and others like him a debt of gratitude. No, I am not going to argue “behaviour pre and post 1994”, even though there might be merit in such an argument and even though I believe that the ANC should accommodate him within their own structures rather than use state positions to reward cadres.   No I am not going to use the race card either. My concern rather, is the context of the appointment. Firstly it is the context of a contested state in which the levers of state power has become the key prize in an ongoing battle between the political elites who happen to be mainly located within the ANC, but which has also seen a growing fragmentation of the centre of power...

Pixley Ka Izaka Seme, the founder of the African National Congress, explained the purpose of the first conference of what was to become the ANC, in these words: “ Chiefs of royal blood and gentlemen of our race, we have gathered here to consider and discuss a scheme which my colleagues and I have decided to place before you. We have discovered that in the land of their birth, Africans are treated as hewers of wood and drawers of water. The white people of this country have formed what is known as the Union of South Africa - a union in which we have no voice in the making of laws and no part in their administration. We have called you, therefore, to this conference, so that we can together devise ways and means of forming our national union for the purpose of creating national unity and defending our rights and privileges. ” It is an irony then, that Wednesday 11 th September 2013, marked the beginning of the Parliamentary hearings in which the continuation of this exclusion ...

“Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused”. This quote by Woodrow Wilson, that liberal president of the United States who sought to found the League of Nations, in a lecture he delivered at Columbia University in 1907, clearly outlined the complete dedication of the West to the domination of world trade.  By the 1980`s the naked aggression of the West was reconfigured into what today is known as neoliberalism. David Harvey in his work A Brief History of Neoliberalism concludes that “ the process of neoliberalization has, however, en...

Recently on a flight from Nairobi, I was trying to catch a nap when I opened my eyes to realize that there was a row of people stretching down half the plane. I soon realized that the queue that had formed was a result of the basic human need to take a piss. As is the custom on most flights these days the air hostess had announced previously that there were two toilets on board, the one at the front where business class is situated and one at the back in cattle class.  All passengers were requested to use the toilet in their respective classes. Now all this sounds rather standard, given the way that we have been socialized and brow beaten into believing that classes are part of our life, a natural reality and burden which has to be carried with a smile, a wink and silent suffering. But when you have half the plane lined up down the corridor desperately trying to control their bladders, waiting to use one toilet, while the other, just a couple of steps away, remains comp...

History is littered with a litany of peoples popular struggles which have been hijacked by elements which are antithetical to the interests of those struggles. The most recent manifestations of this are currently playing themselves out in Libya, Egypt and Syria. In Egypt where almost 90 million people are facing the brunt of an economy and state in crises, the military has engineered a social process that has thrown up the Muslim Brotherhood as the face of the new state. The Brotherhood, like the ANC in South Africa, had gambled that public office would secure sufficient leverage with which to bring about change in the ownership of the means of control, or in other words, the means of production. The economic agents who shape the political discourse and economic trajectory of Egypt, and here it must be acknowledged the Egyptian Army is reported to control up to 40% of the Egyptian economy, besides its direct funding by the United States, had also gambled that it would be able t...

Greetings, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Minster Shabangu and Chairman Gona We write this open letter to you in response to the government’s intervention in the mining sector and the release of a Draft Framework Agreement for a Sustainable Mining Industry. The Draft agreement has outlined in its preamble the recognition that “the rule of law and stability is a fundamental pillar of our democracy and a necessity to ensure economic and social development”, it further recognises the “need to expedite further transformation in the mining sector” and commits all the parties to “work together to put in place processes that will bring about real changes”. While it is apparent that the main protagonists within the conflict, which has seen a growing death toll, are drawn from the ranks of labour, government and business, it is most disturbing that the trend of excluding communities who are affected by mining from the process of dialogue and the attempts to seek a lasting resol...

As the leaders of Africa gather in all their pomp and ceremony, 50 years after the founding of the Organisation of African Unity(OAU), Africans go about their daily struggle to place food on the table. I was starkly reminded of the widening gap between Africa`s political and economic elites and the people living in poverty across Africa, when departing from the Lilongwe airport in Malawi on Friday. The red carpets had been laid out and the entourage of President Joyce Banda was in full preparation for her departure to Addis Ababa, to attend the AU summit. Joyce Banda had been in the news for all the right reasons having sold the presidential jet and a fleet of Mercedes vehicles in order to appease International Donors (Donors make up about 40% of Malawi`s budget and had reduced aid to Malawi by up to 80%), who had objected to the purchase of the jet by her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika in 2009. This gesture of austerity by the new leader of the struggling East African country ...

South Africa has seen a range of protests over the course of the last decade which points to a growing discontent of the working classes throughout South Africa. According to research conducted by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) entitled, South Africa`s Rebellion of the Poor , protests have grown by an enormous 279% between 2004 and 2012. Their evidence suggests that between 2009 and 2012 there is a significant increase of protests in rural municipalities, with 2012 seeing more than two thirds of all protests taking place in rural areas. The research however points out that these protests are not necessarily linked in any direct or overtly political way and that quite often the participants of these actions are first time participants in organised protest and thus do not necessarily see their actions as a political action. Unfortunately the research does not suggest an alternative to the “non political” nature for their actions, but posits that an urgent question for these strug...

In a society that has been characterized by a deliberate policy of preference and institutionalised discrimination against a particular group within that society, it would not only be morally sound and correct to institute mechanisms that would redress the artificial imbalances caused by such a policy or institution, it would also be a rational cause of action. Discrimination which disadvantages an entire community has been widely accepted as an immoral act and has been legislated against in most countries of the world and is recognized by the United Nations as a normatively immoral practice. Failure to redress the latent disadvantage that discrimination may engender, not only legitimizes the past discrimination but also condemns the victim of this discrimination to unequal access to opportunities in the present and future, thus perpetuating the discrimination. Does Affirmative Action Work? The policy of affirmative action was, implemented with relative success all over the wor...

The controversy which has developed around the issue of global warming is by all accounts one which is more prevalent in the popular media than within the scientific community. The genesis of the view opposing a theory of climate change can be traced back to conservative think tanks in the USA which started to question the agreed scientific view between 1990 and 1997. This essay attempts to place the two positions in context and tries to determine which view is most rational. Global Warming is the rise in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980 (Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate , 2011). Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90% certain that it is primarily caused by increasing concentrations ...