As this issue of Amandla! goes to press, we read disturbing accounts of South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) shop stewards being prevented by private security personnel from entering the union's Johannesburg headquarters, and being physically attacked with...
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Why Did The Heaven’s Not Darken? Fear and Loathing in Girl Killer SA
The life and death of Rene by Andre Marias This newspaper headline refers to the rape and murder of my niece Rene, 28 years ago. She was four years old at the time of her death on Xmas Eve, 1986. As is so often the case, she knew her killer and he was known to the...
Europe: Existential Danger: New Political Challenges
In Europe we are at a new stage of class confrontation. Despite the systemic crisis not only of finance but of the whole of the mode of accumulation and reproduction of 'financial market capitalism,' this system has been able to maintain itself. Its transnational...
What the frack: will shale gas develop or retard the Karoo? | by David Fig
The South African government lifted the moratorium on fracking on 7 September, opening the way for exploration of what's been sold as a massive shale gas resource beneath the beautiful, sparsely populated Great Karoo. Fracking (short for hydraulic fracturing) is a...
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...
Can’t you hear the thunder? | by Jay Naidoo
The headlines scream 'Marikana Massacre'; 'Killing Fields of Rustenburg'. Radio and TV Talk shows and social media all display the anger and expose the psyche of a nation badly wounded. The bloodiest security operation since the end of apartheid has left us shocked...
Cheap Labour, Cheap Lives: Contextualizing Farm Worker Deaths in South Africa and Canada.
by Chris Webb There is a passage from Olive Schreiner’s 1883 novel The Story of An African Farm where she describes the isolated existence of the rural Karoo, with its “weird and almost oppressive beauty...the stone walled sheep kraals and kaffer huts.” This cursory...
ANC and the Alliance: transition deferred?
The ANC, SACP and COSATU will hold vital conferences that will shape the Tripartite Alliance for the next years. Given the role of the ANC in power, these meetings have the potential to shape the direction of the country for a number of years to come. A major question...
The Left under threat in Nigeria | by Baba Aye
May 4, 2012 is a day that I shall not forget. Early in the morning, I heard that my trade union comrade and friend, Olaitan Oyerinde, had been killed. He was shot four times in his home, in front of his wife, about an hour after midnight. Lintin, as some of us used to...





