Opinion and Analysis
No angels in the bloody Lonmin clashes
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
Mars and the need to imagine a different South Africa
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
The forgotten history of workers’ Olympics
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
Service delivery failures: we need leadership not opportunists
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
Know clearly what you want - and will fight for
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
An important victory for education rights
Mary Waters High School in Grahamstown has 1087 learners from poor families.
Doron Isaacs
Opinion | 6 August 2012
Parole furore raises the dialysis conundrum
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
Helping Khayelitsha’s children escape gang violence
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
Message from a gangster
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