These are not happy times for our country. Political violence is becoming normalised, the strike wave shows no sign of letting up, education remains in crisis and corruption has reached the point where people are making comparisons between contemporary South Africa and Mobutu’s Zaire. And our economic crisis, with mass unemployment, seems more or less […]
Imraan Buccus
Imraan Buccus is a university-based researcher in Durban. He is also a PhD Research Fellow at the Centre for International Development Issues, Radboud University, Nijmegen in The Netherlands. Imraan is the editor of Critical Dialogue, a journal on public participation in governance, and his academic interests include issues around civil society and poverty, participatory democracy, social accountability and local governance.
Posted inNews/Politics
Goodbye democracy, hello tyranny
A lot’s been made of the downgrade in the investment rating awarded to South Africa. It’s clear the international business community has lost faith in our leadership. But there are also strong voices at home speaking out to warn us against the path we’re on. When a patriot of the stature of Bishop Rubin Phillip […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Protests: Rethinking the crisis
Recent shocking images of the police shooting at South Africa’s poorest citizens were beamed around the world as people in poor communities were protesting. The damage to the country caused by these images that looked like a flashback to the 1980s is incalculable. There were more than 6 000 protests in 2005 and one academic has […]
Posted inGeneral
We’ve strayed from the ideals of democracy
A few days ago we had gathered in Athens, Greece, for a conference on participatory democracy. The conference organisers had certainly chosen an appropriate city — the city where democracy started. On a free conference day some of us made our way to the Acropolis to visit the memory of Socrates and actual council square […]
Posted inGeneral
Durban breaks new ground in participatory democracy
I have written previously about the need for democracy to be about more than just voting every few years. It has been about the need for democracy to be an everyday way of life for all citizens. Active citizenship is the essence of what is sometimes called radical or deep democracy and active citizenship ultimately […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Neglecting the law and failing the poor
One of the guarantees of our celebrated Constitution is that every child has the right to education. In order to secure this right in practice the law stipulates that fees should not be charged for any child who is an orphan or in foster care, for any child whose guardians receive a state grant or […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Xenophobia and denialism
Denialism no answer to xenophobiaBy Imraan Buccus Imagine if, in 2009, an armed white mob chanting racist slogans stormed a building known to house mostly black people and proceeded to hurl people to their deaths. If local officials and politicians tried to deny that the motive had been racism and said that the mob was […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Caught in a leadership crisis — blue light bullying on our roads
Much has been said recently about our political leaders using threatening blue light police escorts. The blue light scandals have left KwaZulu-Natal reeling from the shocking behaviour of our political elite that has become a predatory and reckless burden on society. This clearly leads us to question the quality of our leadership. We all know […]