A Political Overview of the Current Situation – Some questions for the left in South Africa
By: David Van Wyk
2014 was born in class struggle. Mineworkers on the Platinum Belt immediately resumed the struggle for a living wage. This struggle is now in its third year.
Government Sponsored houses at the centre of fraud and corruption in West bank – Western Cape
Report by citizen journalist: Luthando Vikilahle
A community near Cape Town is shocked and in despair after discovering that many of its members are being evicted from houses they had purchased a few years back.
“South Africa is Burning.”
By: Gillian Schutte
‘The country is burning’. ‘ Burning frustration.’ ‘Hot Headed protestors burn houses’. These are the headlines that abound about the many protests that are currently erupting around South Africa.
The Ten layers of Oppression When You are Black and Poor in South Africa
By: Sipho Singiswa & Gillian Schutte:
Photo: Jared Sacks:
Oppression, when written about, is often reduced to one layer of suffering. Yet when one unpacks the lives and narratives of the poor it becomes clear that their struggle to survive takes place under many layers of oppression.
Waiting to inhale – The struggle for clean air and adequate housing in Wentworth.
It’s a blistering hot afternoon when we arrive at the Barracks. This regimentally built cluster of council houses was erected as a transit camp in Wentworth in 1972.
The terminal nature of poverty
By Gillian Schutte & Sipho Singiswa:
Photo: Jared Sacks
As academics, journalists, social commentators and activists we have a sense that we know the poor. We are outraged by poverty and inequality and advocate for equity and a life of dignity for all. We look for ways to bring the voices of the poor into the public debate and ask questions around how we can get democracy to work for the poor. But few of us have even an inkling of the full spectrum of what it means to be poor.
