Democracy is criticised as an externally imposed and unsuitable system for African traditions or as ineffective.
West African coups: just changing masters
read more
dictatorship
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...
Marxism, the 21st century and social transformation | by Bill Fletcher, Jr.
A discussion of the future of socialism and social transformation must be grounded in two realities. The first reality is the broader economic, environmental and state-legitimacy crises in which humanity finds itself. In other words, the convergence of these three...
Is an alternative possible? | by Phil Gasper
Phil Gasper reviews what Marx had to say about the transition from capitalism to socialism THE REMARKABLE emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the closing months of 2011 has not only shifted the political debate in the United States, putting issues of...
The Arab revolutions: A year after | by Samir Amin
Arab regimes achieved success within a short period but then ran out of steam as a result of their internal limits and contradictions. The ruling circles have given in to neo-liberal globalization, leading to rapid decline in social conditions. That is what caused the...
Egyptian election: Odds stacked against democracy | by Sokari Ekine
Whilst the Egyptian people continue artistically expressing themselves, the Egyptian government is busy painting over the walls of history in and around Tahrir square that document the uprising. [attributed to Angry Egyptian] It’ been 16 months since the start of...
Chile: The student return to politics | by Carlos Torres
2011 will be remembered as the year of the Arab spring, Spain’s indignados and Occupy Wall Street and the thousands of other social mobilisations which coalesced around the dissatisfaction with the multiple crises of capitalism. A social model that incessantly and...
On the Wall Street occupation – What it will take to win concrete victory | by Richard Pithouse
In ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, John Steinbeck's novel about the Great Depression, Tom Joad, the novel's central character, a man who has been made poor and who is on the run from the law, tells his mother in the climactic scene that: ‘I been thinking about us, too, about...
Red Shirt democratic movement faces armed might of the ruling elites
Turn Left Thailand April 13, 2009 For the fourth time in forty years, troops have opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok. Each time, the aim has been the same: to protect the interests of the conservative elites who have run Thailand for the past 70...