Geography Archives: South Africa

Forty years later, Lehlohonolo Kennedy Mahlatsi looks back on the Vaal Uprising in South Africa, which marked a turning point in the growth of mass-based organizations throughout the country and the mass rejection of apartheid colonial rule.

What do two South Pacific countries, two North American countries, one country in the Middle East, and (until recently) one country in southern Africa have in common with Europe?

The articles, speeches, and communiqués of Amilcar Cabral are required reading for revolutionaries today who are struggling with the agrarian question and the current wave of revolutions.

From the 1942 ‘American century’ to Trump’s ‘American carnage’, the U.S. has shifted from a post-WW2 boom to decline, facing political divides, economic crisis, poverty, and social decay.

These are dark days for the empire.

South Africa is in the throes of a deepening political and social crisis.

The SACP Political Bureau emphasised the importance of meaningful Alliance consultation and building and maintaining national stability and certainty. This requires decisiveness against any section that has resorted to trickery, brinkmanship and untenable demands to steal power and thus undermine the will of the people.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has noted the election results following the elections which took place on the 29th of May. For the first time since the dawn of democracy, the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC) lost majority control of the National Parliament, giving way to a scenario where […]

The votes received by the ANC maintain it as the largest party by electoral support in our country and reaffirm its outright majority in five provinces: Limpopo with 73.3 per cent, Eastern Cape with 62.16 per cent, North West with 57.73 per cent, Free State with 51.87 per cent and Mpumalanga 51.15 per cent. This is the will of the people.

To understand the growing support within union ranks for an end to unconditional U.S. military and financial support for Israel in its conduct of a brutal war, it is important to look back at the legacy to which the UAW statements refer.

The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel must cease its warmaking in Gaza–cease committing and inciting genocidal acts–and that the case charging Israel with genocide must proceed.

On 12 January, the day commemorating the 1904 revolt of the Herero people against German colonialism, Olaf Scholz’s government announced that it would intervene in the International Court of Justice to oppose South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel.

This is extraordinary because the states supporting Israel, above all the United States, have claimed the high moral and legal ground and lectured the states of the Global South about the importance of the rule of law.

On 11 January, Adila Hassim, an advocate of the High Court of South Africa, stood before the judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and said: ‘Genocides are never declared in advance. But this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim of genocidal acts’.

The Namibia presidency issues scathing criticism against Germany for failing to draw lessons from its genocide against the people of Namibia.

Former British diplomat Craig Murray was in the public gallery for the first day of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. Here is his highly-personal account.

Hundreds flee Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation across the enclave as Israel presses its assault.

Culture is a vital centre of struggle. It is where people see who they are, learn what they are capable of, and dare to imagine what they would like to build in this world. Art itself does not change the world, but without bringing imagination to life through art, we would resign ourselves to the present.

Every year, thousands of healthcare workers leave South Africa, in order to chase better opportunities, as wealthier countries exploit desperate working conditions faced by them. This brain drain is a direct result of neoliberal policies, especially austerity.

The story of Medu is not just a South or southern African story, but an international one. No single liberation struggle can exist without the circulation and exchange of ideas, strategies, material resources, political solidarity, and culture across the globe.