The old guard of South Africa’s ruling party put on new clothes last year, and a new party of the working class finally made its debut.

A recent conference in South Africa raised issues on whether universal healthcare should be a private or state-driven endeavour.

Trade union renewal is high on the agenda in many countries, but we need to think carefully about why we want it.

On what has been hailed as a great day and a milestone for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, the plenary assembly session of the SADC parliamentary forum recently adopted the first ever SADC model law on elections.

The minimum wage law, the land question and the economics of imperialism are to shape the character of the coming electoral period in South Africa. 

This week’s hush-hush visit by International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde to Pretoria (between stops in Ghana and Angola) is mysterious. In contrast to last week’s IMF press briefing claim – “Madame Lagarde will hold meetings with the authorities, as well as fairly extensive meetings with the private sector, civil society, academia, women leaders, and of course the media” – there is a complete information void here, with no public events scheduled.

The World Social Forum’s “Thematic Forum on Mining and Extractivism” convenes from 12-15 November 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa, just after the Southern Africa People’s Tribunal on Transnational Corporations. In between, at the notorious 2012 massacre site on the platinum belt to the west, there is a launch of a new book – Business as Usual after Marikana– critical not only of the mining house Lonmin but of its international financiers and buyers. 

South Africa has just witnessed two major economic events, which spoke volumes about the prospects for global and local capitalism: an austerity-oriented budgetleaving the economy far more vulnerable to renewed world financial chaos; and a sham investment conferencefeaturing capitalists with just as strong a record of super-exploitation and deceit as those who went to Mohammed bin Salman’sin Riyadh the week before.

The legacies of colonial rule, both generally and in particular categories of colony, have and still continue to affect post-colonial economic development in Africa through the extraction of resources and illicit funds. The new agency for this is the “Corporation”, which has its origins in the East India Company sanctioned by Queen Elisabeth I as a royal charter. 

In recent years, South Africa has witnessed a rapid expansion of mining in mineral-rich rural areas of the former apartheid Bantustans or homelands that are vulnerable to mining land grabs. Worryingly, there are intensive and wide-ranging “cold wars” going on in these areas that do not ordinarily get much prominent coverage by the mass media. These battles, hostilities or feuds are between the indigenous black rural folks and “lily-white owned” foreign mining companies.  In many ways the battles resemble the biblical battle between Goliath, the Philistine and David, the Israelite. 

Almost three years ago, I wrote an article titled, “Dear Academia, Take Us Black”. The article came after my first encounter with the Fees Must Fall protest action. The observation I made was that University of KwaZulu-Natal’s academic staff had shut the blinds, got into their cars and drove off to God knows where “intellectuals” run to when their safe spaces are breached. This is the anti-black nature of academia.

This brief input deals with the meaning of Steve Bantu Biko for young people today and whether his vision of bestowing upon South Africa “a more humane face” remains valid. Biko is without doubt one of the most important figures of Black liberation of the past century. Today, 41 years after his murder, his mission of total independence for Black people, remains unfinished.

This essay explores the historical consciousness of young workers in South Africa, focusing on young black women workers. It draws on Lucaks ideas on history and class consciousness and Freirean participatory pedagogy to facilitate a critical reflection and dialogue between young Black working women on their memories and perspective of the conditions, realities and experiences of Black working women in colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.  

The second quarter of 2018 has seen South Africa register a negative growth designated recession while the country’s currency, the rand, continues to be volatile. 

The author reviews the book The Lost Boys of Bird Island, which reveals how black children in South Africa were kidnapped, violated, raped and molested by senior apartheid government ministers and businessmen in the 1980s.

This paper deals with the meaning of Mwalimu Marcus Garvey and the Afrikan Revolution in the 21st century. Mwalimu Garvey is without doubt one of the most important figures of the Afrikan Revolution in the last 50 years and today, more than 70 years after his passing, his mission of total and unapologetic independence for the Black race, remains unfinished.

The March undertaken by the women of South Africa to mark the opening of Women’s month is a stark reminder that women are still demanding basic respect, and the right to be treated as equals even amongst their most intimate partners. The struggles of women across the world are far from homogenous. From Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar: the atrocities committed against women are an indictment on humanity.

This is a brics-from-below reader put together for the 23-24 July 2018 Johannesburg Teach-In ahead of the July 2018 BRICS Summit hosted by South Africa. 

The timely City Press article by Benzi Ka-Soko on Sunday, 15 July 2018, titled “Affirming Sobukwe’s Legacy Is Imperative”, is an excellent and timely intervention in acknowledging Sobukwe’s towering, yet concealed and obscured, role in the Azanian (South Africa) liberation struggle, both as a political ideologue, an intellectual and a philosopher par excellence. 

On the 18 July 2018 the world celebrated the international centennial anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth. It was a significant moment in history for us to pause and reflect on the intrinsic values exhibited by one of Africa’s greatest sons, our very own global leader and icon – Madiba.