Crystal Dicks was a remarkable South African activist, feminist, and gender and development specialist. She dedicated her life to fighting for social justice, particularly in the areas of gender equality and worker education.
Activist
Department of Labour: Toothless as a snail
President Zuma has signed a contentious round of amendments to the Labour Relations Act into law. After protests from Cosatu, the government withdrew the proposal of compulsory secret balloting among union members before a strike, as demanded by the DA and the...
People’s Pride and the backlash blues | by Katherine Robinson
Johannesburg, 14 October: The recent Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Asexual, Queer (LGBTIAQ) marches held across Gauteng that culminated in Pride Month came at a contentious and opportune time, considering the recent, somewhat more explicit...
Occupy with Turkish features
By Joe Lombardo For Turkey, Occupy Gezi is an historically unprecedented event as each declaration of defiance issued from the protesters is met with an equally forceful response from the state and the police. These protesters are unique in that their participants are...
The Left and Political Islam | by Farid Esak
The task of defining both the Left and political Islam is no mean one. Both function and are understood within their own conceptual frameworks, geographical locations and time frames. In the limited space available here one can only speak in broad terms – thereby...
In Memoriam: Chinua Achebe
(1930-2013) | by The Botsotso Collective Chinua Achebe was a writer with massive influence in Nigeria, in Africa and, indeed, in the world. He was the first African writer to achieve this status with his first novel, Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, which was...
Farewell to a great thinker, educator and activist | by Jonathan Jansen
Language was the tool of Dr Neville Alexander's fight for freedom, writes Jonathan Jansen, rector and vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State. "I was nervous as I made my way through Salt River to my first physical meeting with my childhood hero. No youth...
Bona fide progressive leaves a lasting legacy | by Jonathan Jansen
I knew only one genuine revolutionary in my life, and he died this week. The news floored me, and for an hour I roamed around the office in a daze. " He was the standard for a revolutionary" "It is not true," I kept telling myself, for this great man, simply by being...
Rachel Corrie verdict: Death under IDF bulldozer was an accident
An Israeli judge ruled Tuesday morning that the State of Israel is not to blame for the death of Rachel Corrie, an American who was killed on March 16, 2003 in the Gaza Strip when she she stood in front of an IDF bulldozer that crushed her. The judge called her death...




