Making a Sow’s Ear from Palestinian Protest
The recent decision by the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) to place a pig’s head in what was assumed to be the kosher section of Woolworths, and then, in fact, turned out to be the halal section, could be written off as a mere “fail of the week.” But it is indicative of a […]
Nationalisation is Not Socialism
Terry Bell Nationalise the mines. That is a demand taken up loudly in recent months by the Economic Freedom Fighters. It is a demand long made by many in the labour movement and it has been given added impetus with the Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) deision to dispose of, or close down, some […]
‘White Foreigners’: History Repeating
Terry Bell Gwede Mantashe, former chairman of the SA Communist Party, former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and now the powerful secretary-general of the governing ANC, sounded furious this week. In what must qualify as the most ironic case of “we’ve heard all that before”, he blamed the platinum […]
‘A Party of Crooks and Thieves’
In the build-up to the 2011 elections in Russia, the opposition rallied around a powerful slogan coined by public corruption fighter and opposition politician Alexei Navalny. The phrase rebranded United Russia, the political party of President Vladimir Putin, from “the party of real deeds” to “the party of crooks and thieves”. As Ben Judah points out […]