Angela Davis on Obama re-election

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/21/angela_davis_now_that_obama_has

Angela Davis argues that despite completely supporting the re-election of Barack Obama, broader democratic demands cannot be subordinated to presidential agendas

Pete Seeger: We shall overcome

This famous US civil rights song, may derive from an African-American composer, Charles Albert Tindley published in 1947, although Pete Seeger has said that nobody knows exactly who wrote the original.  In the 1960s the song was made famous in the United States civil rights struggle.  It was widely sung at concerts and rallies by Seeger, Joan Baez and others.

 

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Raymond Suttner, ANC and the popular

When I first made contact with the ANC and its allies in the late1960s it followed a period where I was not clear about what road to take politically. I had been a liberal but came to believe that this was leading nowhere in terms of changing SA. But where were the alternatives? Continue reading →

Raymond Suttner, Chris Hani legacy is contested

The legacy of Chris Hani is obviously contested. Underneath many of the tributes referring to his selfless and revolutionary qualities there is on the one hand an attempt to legitimate the decadent, looting leaders of today. They have the resources to be present and in the forefront of a range of events to commemorate Hani’s life, as they will be later this month when OR Tambo is remembered.

On the other hand, those who are being robbed, evoke the memory of Hani as an alternative to what they see and know and even what they do not know but have come to expect will happen with their resources and the dreams they cherish for improvement of their lives.

No matter how many layers of red some of the leaders may wear, or the number of times they use revolutionary phrases or call others counter-revolutionary, they will not be able to stand in for Hani. He used to listen carefully to people. His speeches were not rhetorical displays, but responses to what he heard. That is what the people who loved him now miss.

Raymond Suttner, Remembering Chris Hani

I have hesitated to write about Chris Hani, partly because I did not know Comrade Chris all that well, meeting him for the first time in 1990. But I want to convey a few things that I learnt. The first is that Chris cared about people and this one hears from all the MK soldiers, that he was concerned about every one of them, spending evenings with them, remembering their names even after fleeting meetings. Continue reading →

Abuse of woman by security guards in Limpopo and prevalent violent culture

We are in a country that is in denial in the sense that there is not recognition of the scale of the crisis of violence, predominantly violent masculinities, manifested in schools, shops, in the streets, by the police and also by the public in various situations.   Continue reading →

Questions about current politics

Article and audio-visual interview prior to ANC Mangaung conference, in December 2012

Questions about current politics