This issue focuses on the scourge of gender-based violence that continues to increase in South Africa.
Firstly, the editorial looks more broadly at the sickness of South Africa. It diagnoses the cause—the neoliberal economic strategy of the government over the last 30 years. And it bemoans the terrible irony—that, even as the country is so clearly in crisis, we continue to be prescribed the same medicine that made us sick in the first place.
In the feature itself, Roomaan Leach presents a powerful analysis of GBV, which traces its origins to the treatment of women by the country’s colonisers. It reveals the startling fact that “Countries with colonial histories have rates of intimate partner violence that are 50 times higher than those without such legacies.” There will be no solution to GBV in South Africa “until inherited systems face dismantling rather than reform”. Next, we present one woman’s personal, tragic experience of GBV. Then we have a pair of interviews about the work being done to campaign against GBV and to heal the survivors, first in the rural areas of the Western Cape and then in the townships of Cape Town. Bridgette Nkomana presents the perspective of the LGBTQIA+ community, before the feature ends with a thought-provoking article on general violence in South Africa and how men and boys suffer from that.
In our section on The Economy, Gumani Tshimomola presents a powerful article exposing the role of the Treasury’s Operation Vulindlela in selling off the assets of the South African state to the insatiable private sector, under the guise of helping to make public services function. And Dick Forslund shows that in fact we are wrong to consider public sector workers as a single group. In fact, there are two—one overpaid and over-resourced (the highly paid managers and executives), the other, the poorly paid ordinary workers. It suggests restricting CPI increases to the ordinary workers.
In the Analysis section, Mercia Andrews and Fani Ncapayi expose the bitter truth about the Expropriation Act—that it will have no effect whatsoever on the government’s continuing failure to redistribute land. And the RMF Feminist Collective reflects on the 10th anniversary of the #MustFall movements.
In the International section, Usuf Chikte situates the unbelievable Zionist slaughter and genocide of the population of Gaza, before a moving article by Abdallah Aljazzar on how life in Gaza doesn’t only kill people, it also erases memory. Rahmane Idrissa tells us to have no illusions about the ‘revolution’ in Burkina Faso—” It is an authoritarian revolution, the opposite of a democratic one.” And Gilbert Achcar explains the other genocide taking place in Sudan, neglected by the world’s media because it is a genocide of Black people.
On the 100th anniversary of Ruth First’s birth, Rob Davies outlines her contribution to the struggle in South Africa and its relevance now. And we end with a review by Shaeera Kalla of Mike van Graan’s play, The Good White.
And finally, of course, the Reluctant President is still here in 2025, trying to account to his wife for the disaster in the Oval Office.
Download here: Amandla! Issue #98
