By Richard Pithouse In 1652, the year that Jan van Riebeck first stepped on to these shores, Gerrad Winstanley, an English radical, published a pamphlet called The Law of Freedom in a Platform. Three years earlier he had led a land occupation on St. George's Hill in...
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City of Cape Town makes up law to justify eviction of the poor by Jared Sacks
The City of Cape Town has been caught red-handed using a fraudulent legal pretext to justify the eviction of shack dwellers who had occupied a vacant piece of City-owned land, by citing a non-existent law they claim is called the "Protection of the Possession of...
Centenary of the 1913 Land Act | By Colin Bundy
Why consider the history of a hundred-year old law? Surely the Marikana massacre and farm-workers' strikes are more urgent? In fact, there are direct links between the Natives' Land Act of 1913 and current struggles. The Land Act and its consequences still shape rural...
BLACK NOISE
Black Noise is a new column that features young black writers dedicated to critiquing and undermining racism, sexism and economic exploitation in South Africa and beyond. I can't even imagine the terror Anene must have felt on that construction site. The details of...
Book Review: Racecraft| by Thoko Madonko
What can an American book tell South Africans about race and racism that they don't already know? Racecraft: The Soul of the Inequality in American Life Karen Fields and Barbara Fields Verso, October 2012 What can an American book tell South Africans about race and...
Chávez’s Chief Legacy: Building, with People, an Alternative Society to Capitalism | by Marta Harnecker
When Hugo Chávez triumphed in the 1998 presidential elections, the neoliberal capitalist model was already foundering. The choice then was none other than whether to re-establish the neoliberal capitalist model -- clearly with some changes including greater concern...
End rural slavery in South Africa!
During the month of November last year, the world watched farm workers strikes, particularly those working in vineyards in the Western Cape Province, in South Africa. They were protesting against exploitation and poor working and living conditions on farms, demanding...
It’s time for women to lead South Africa | by Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge
You who have no work, speak. You, who have no homes, speak. You, who have no schools, speak. You, who have to run like chickens from vultures, speak. We must share the problems so that we can solve them together. We must free ourselves. Dora Tamana Should we as women...
Tribal courts: land, power and custom | by Mazibuko K. Jara
Throughout the controversial four-year life of the Traditional Courts Bill (TCB), the African National Congress government has firmly allied itself with tribal chiefs (with their new polished image and title of "traditional leaders"), even allowing them a strong hand...








