Even though it is the officers who carry out the physical force, it is our prejudice that lays fertile ground for the abuse of power to entrench itself
Marikana massacre
Posted inGeneral
#FeesMustFall is unravelling SA’s founding pact
Post-1994 South Africa is founded on the principle of progressive access to privilege. This principle implies that those in the suburbs will continue to live there while those in shacks will be progressively admitted into the ranks of those with houses and amenities. It also implies that those that earn decent salaries will continue to […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, News/Politics
BASF, Lonmin and how the Marikana battle for justice is taken to Germany
BASF is a huge corporate that gives Lonmin a lot of business. Today, April 29, in Germany they are gathered for their annual shareholder meeting. Along with the usual shareholders who attend these meetings there’ll be some less familiar faces, two of the women made widows by the Marikana massacre. Thirty-four miners brutally gunned down […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Lest we forget: What Marikana means to me
Your blood asks, how were the wealthy and the law interwoven? With what sulphurous iron fabric? How did the poor keep falling into the tribunals? How did the land become so bitter for poor children, harshly nourished on stone and grief? So it was, and so I leave it written. Their lives wrote it […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Farlam Commission is being unfairly targeted
The final report of Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the events at Marikana, released last week, has been widely lambasted in the press. Equally scathing about commission’s “failure to get justice” for the 34 miners killed by the SA Police Service, has been the social media commentariat. The amount of criticism directed at Judge Ian […]
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Mr X versus the Marikana miners
The mysterious Mr X has been testifying against the striking miners at the Farlam Commission for the past two months in which he claimed the miners engaged in murder conspiracies and flesh-eating rituals. But Geoff Budlender has questioned parts of Mr X’s claims and provided evidence that disputes his claim that Association of Mineworkers and […]
Posted inMedia
Age of Truth…revolution betrayed?
Many hip-hop fans from the current generation may not know much about Prophets of da City (POC). Largely credited by academics for getting Cape Afrikaans hip-hop off the ground and paving the way for Spaza rappers, POC also put their heads on a block for their political principles … literally. The banned video “Understand Where […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Is SA ready to lead by example?
The inauguration of Advocate Lawrence Mushwana last week as the new chairperson of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC) came at a time when South Africa’s human rights record is at its lowest. Mushwana, who is the chair of South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Marikana Files
Social Justice Journalist and Filmmaker, Sipho Singiswa, takes us inside Marikana to meet the miners and community members who live in the impoverished settlements around the Lonmin Mining operation. He also interviews Head Researcher of the Bench Marks Foundation David Van Wyk on the issue of socioeconomic transgressions that this community is forced to deal […]
Posted inGeneral
No miracle arose in SA’s transition from apartheid
We can’t ask him, because he’s six-months dead, but I’d be surprised if Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki thought South Africa’s transition from apartheid was a miracle. I didn’t know him at all, so wrapping my thoughts around his shoulders, as I do now, as he did the blanket that earned him the nickname in the press […]