Bolivia’s socialist win is a triumph for democracy
South Africa can learn much about progressive governance from the South American nation, where the Movement for Socialism won back power in a landslide after last year’s coup.
Domestic workers devastated by mass job cuts
By the end of June, more than 250 000 domestic workers had lost their jobs because of the Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa. Some of them share their stories.
Text Messages | The month of Red
Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky’s names are synonymous with the October Revolution that Boris Pasternak frames as ‘magnificent surgery’ in his novel, Doctor Zhivago.
From the Archive | Unions and the dictatorship
Communist theorist Antonio Gramsci sets out how revolutionary class struggle by socialist parties can overturn the oppressive systems unions fight when striking for better conditions.
No end in sight to seven years of drought
Thousands of residents of a small Karoo town in the Eastern Cape draw their water from boreholes while emerging farmers have no water supply.
Editor's Pick
Protected areas need not pit humans against nature
The ever-increasing capitalist onslaught on protected environments will be stopped only if we fundamentally change the way we conceptualise their value and purpose.
Long Read | Freedom’s footprints: Freire and beyond
Ideas of freedom were in the air and mass strikes on the ground. Durban in 1973 saw the dream of freedom turning towards a strategy to realise democratic socialism.
Wheeling and dealing for a Covid-19 vaccine
A Covid-19 jab could cost hundreds of rands. Or not. It’s anyone’s guess. Could another pandemic almost a century ago hold clues for handling the coronavirus today?
Long Read | Part two: The start of CSA’s downfall
The board’s inability to rein in Thabang Moroe played a critical part in the organisation’s downfall, highlighted by a dark episode of revoking the accreditation of journalists critical of the cricket body.
Massacre rocks Nigeria’s #EndSARS protest
A dark day in Nigeria’s history has been christened Black Tuesday after soldiers and police officers opened fire on unarmed residents protesting against police brutality, killing more than a dozen people.
Violence continues in Nigeria despite SARS disbanding
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad may have been dissolved, but law enforcement violence continues. Soldiers have killed protesters in Lekki for defying the Lagos state’s curfew.
Podcasts
Mixtape 27: Of monsters, hucksters and pollsters
In this week’s mixtape, Charles Leonard plays songs about Halloween, the United States elections and the biggest crook of all.
S3 Episode 7: #EndSARS | Africa in the US election
We discuss what brought Nigeria to this point. We also look at what the United States election will mean for “shithole” countries, and what a jewellery advert tells us about Indian politics.
Mixtape 26: The Music Time Machine
With his Music Time Machine, Charles Leonard plugs you into the revolutionary sounds that were played 50 years ago and still have relevance today.
COVID-19
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News
Magufuli bulldozes human rights in Tanzania
In the build-up to the Tanzanian general elections on 28 October, the president enforced restrictions on citizens, the media and opposition parties, all while belittling women and girls.
eSwatini needs to talk about illegal abortions
Because pregnancies can only be terminated legally in extreme instances such as rape, many women find other ways. And many do not survive the process.
Public servant fired for absconding while off sick
Darren Sampson is one of a number of public servants with long-term illnesses who have been fired for absconding while ill instead of medically boarded.
Eastern Cape school’s infrastructure horror
For years, nothing has been done to improve the dire state of Inkqubela Primary, forcing parents to remove their children from what is supposed to be a safe centre of learning.
Gender and caste violence persist in India
There is an unprecedented rise in sexual violence against women from lower castes under Narendra Modi’s right-wing government, which has empowered the dominant upper caste groups.
Hit and run marks first day of Clover strike
A Clover worker died after being hit by a vehicle while allegedly running from police gunfire on day one of the nationwide strike for better wages at the giant dairy company.
Shack dwellers despair over latest fire in Jika Joe
Hundreds of residents are once again homeless after another fire swept through the Pietermaritzburg shack settlement, with the additional worry of contracting Covid-19 in temporary shelters.
Barloworld workers decry ‘unfair retrenchments’
The future of thousands of former employees and trainees looks decidedly bleak after they were retrenched in what they – and labour unions – say has been an opaque process.
CCMA’s attempt to restrain Socacof overturned
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration has dropped its bid to deter a small activist organisation from aiding vulnerable workers in the security services sector.
Features
Part two | Patric Tariq Mellet on culture and identity
The Lie of 1652 is a decolonised history of land in South Africa. This is part two of a Q&A with the author, in which he speaks about cultural genocide and identity in the country.
New Books | Women in Solitary
Shanthini Naidoo tells the story of jailed activists and those around them – how each person coped with the brutality of detention and exile to find their own versions of freedom.
Cartoon | Handmaid to order
In this week’s cartoon, Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed as a US Supreme Court justice – and, by the look of things, an agent for regressive patriarchy in American jurisprudence.
The survivor’s guilt of a Zimbabwean in the US
Jordan Mubako shares his anguish at living a comfortable life as a student in the United States while his countrymen and women face daily challenges, from hunger to hyperinflation.
Sunetra Gupta and the Covid-19 culture war
Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta has challenged second-wave Covid-19 lockdowns from a humanitarian position. But her argument has become entangled in a libertarian lobbying campaign.
Culture
Langa Mavuso’s love, loss and return
Using sparse prose and his signature sounds, the musician’s third project explores the transformative journey of working through grief to get to a place of healing.
Billboard art makes the questions bigger
A team of artists and poets are annexing Johannesburg’s roadside distractions in a project curated by the Centre for the Less Good Idea.
Man of letters Stephen Gray dies at 78
Stephen Gray’s literary legacy comprises novels, short stories, biography, poetry and journalism, written with incisiveness and wit.
Long Read | Chéri Samba, king of Kinshasa
The Congolese painter’s work is part of the Kings of Kin exhibition at Galerie Magnin-A in Paris. In this interview, Chéri Samba talks of his beginnings and how art and politics are always connected.
The magic and meaning of Dolly Rathebe
Despite being a pioneer of the film and music industry, her career output lacks a proper archive, reflecting the difficulties of life as a black performance artist during apartheid.
Album Review | Access Denied by Asian Dub Foundation
Celebrating a 25-year career in music, Asian Dub Foundation are back with their best album in more than a decade. This latest sound will have your feet moving and your mind thinking.
Queer activist Bev Ditsie amplifies her voice
Twenty-five years after her historic address at the United Nations, the South African rights icon and filmmaker celebrates the event with an insightful documentary.
Sport
Laura Wolvaardt driving her way to stardom
SA’s reigning Cricketer of the Year is back in Australia where she played a memorable shot. She talks about her Proteas role and the impact Covid-19 has had on women’s cricket.
Sport in Africa after Covid-19
The coronavirus has brought every sphere of life to its knees and sport is no exception. Experts offer ways for sport on the continent to come out of the pandemic stronger than before.
The gift and curse of Musa Juwara’s success
The rise in the number of Gambian footballers making a name for themselves in Italy’s Serie A is something for the African nation to celebrate. It’s also a cause for concern.
Long Read | Solomzi Nqweni learns to walk again
Every time the road looks clear for the Eastern Cape cricketer, potholes appear out of nowhere. But his outlook remains positive, even after his own immune system tried to kill him.
SA football is a difficult space for young coaches
AmaZulu’s head coach Ayanda Dlamini discusses the challenges young coaches face in South Africa and how he managed to work his way into managing the first team.
Could reparations solve the gender gap in football?
Co-author of Soccernomics Stefan Szymanski argues that one way of addressing the huge gender pay gap in football is to divert money from the men’s game into women’s football.
The rise and fall of Ajax Cape Town
The club’s formation was a visionary move, marrying South Africa’s talent with the resources and knowledge of the Netherlands. So how did it all go so horribly wrong?
Long Read | Part one: The start of CSA’s downfall
In the first of a three-part series, ousted Cricket South Africa chief executive Haroon Lorgat speaks about the implications of the poor decisions CSA made in 2017 regarding the T20 Global League.
Cindy Nkomo aims to bring glory back to boxing
Boxing SA’s acting chief executive shares her plan to resurrect the pugilist sport she insists is not dead, despite its popularity waning since the heydays of the 1990s.
Editorial and Analysis
A culture of impunity in Nigeria’s police must stop
The world was watching when soldiers and police officers shot into a crowd of #EndSARS protesters, killing more than ten and highlighting police brutality in Africa’s most populous country.
Fake trafficking news targets migrants
Exaggerated reports on social media of human trafficking syndicates snatching people in broad daylight legitimate xenophobia while deflecting from the real problems in society.
New social grants are more than money
Converting grants introduced during the Covid-19 lockdown into permanent ones is not only about securing the bare conditions for life, the prospects for even a limited progressive state are at stake.