Some suggest that unemployment rates are high because of laziness or a dependency effect created by social grants, but numerous studies have failed to find empirical support for these claims. The one drum of this kind that continues to be beaten is the claim that...
arguments
Revolt and Revolution – Syrian Illusions and Syrian Realities | by Reuven Kaminer
If one tries to read most of the more serious material dealing with the Syrian crisis, one cannot but notice that the discussion has polarized around two major approaches. And after the polarization, it seems that the participants in this debate are merely scouring...
Resisting hysteria, populism and indifference in the face of Islamophobia Forum speech delivered | by Nina Trige Andersen
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new enemy has replaced the figure of the communist in the propaganda of Western imperialism. Migrants in general and Muslims in particular, are now casted as the threat of liberty and prosperity...
Report that claims ‘there is no occupation’ presents an opportunity | by Itamar Mann
What is behind the left’s anger at a government commission report that rejects the existence of the occupation? The report presents an opportunity to replace empty political rhetoric and legality with a focus on facts on the ground. The Israeli left responded with a...
A Morsi victory was better than a Shafiq victory, but the real power is still in the hands of SCAF | by John Rees
Even those who had called for a boycott of the Egyptian Presidential election run-off were cheering the news alongside Muslim Brotherhood supporters in a packed Tahrir Square when the results were announced. They were right to cheer. But they would also be wise to...
Why I find The Spear unsettling | by Sabelo Ndlangisa
The controversy surrounding Brett Murray’s portrait of President Jacob Zuma has stirred up a hornet’s nest. On the one hand, it has elicited outrage even from people I know to have antipathy towards our head of state. On the other, defenders of The Spear feel that...
Another world is possible | by Phil Gasper
Capitalism creates a society that robs most people of their creative potential, says Phil Gasper PHIL GASPER responds to a supporter of capitalism In the last issue of the ISR (#74), I wrote a column about Marx’s concept of alienation and why work—which Marx claims...
Inclusive Green Growth Or Extractive Greenwashed Decay? | by Patrick Bond
The debate over the Green Economy rages on next month in Rio de Janeiro, at the International Society for Ecological Economics meetings, the Cupulo dos Povos alternative people’s summit, and the UN’s Rio+20 Earth Summit. Proponents and critics of ‘green growth’...
Letter to the Editors of Amandla! | by John S. Saul
Although all too familiar with the hard, even bitter, kind of South African political “debate” on the left and centre-left that too often turns potentially comradely exchange into a mind-numbing dialogue of the deaf, even I was a little taken aback by the tenor of...




