Human Security

With looming refugee and forced migration crises in the Mediterranean, Kenya, Myanmar, Syria, Burundi and elsewhere hitting international headlines, public attention is rightfully drawn to those people immediately affected by war, poverty, and persecution.

“We are holding an object we know was illegally removed from Syria and one day it will go back.” -Neil MacGregor, BBC.

It is most unsettling that South African political leaders and policy makers are not doing enough to encourage South Africans to disabuse themselves of the illusion that their problems can be solved through the logic of exclusion and scapegoating of certain types of foreigners that has pervaded,

Author Nick Turse is continuing his research on the increasing role of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) over the last seven years. These military operations have impacted most countries on the continent through the utilization of military bases, waterways and airspace.

Last week’s drownings in the Mediterranean were the foreseeable, and indeed deliberate, result of the anti-human policies of strategic violence by a dying neo-colonial empire.

Awethu! A People’s Platform for Social Justice was launched in November 2013 with a very specific mandate: to work for social justice in South Africa with like-minded civil society organisations. Since then, Awethu!

“This impressive study focuses on Africa, which has suffered hideous crimes. Yash Tandon’s case is a powerful one, and can be extended: The global class war that is institutionalized in the misnamed ‘free trade agreements’ is also a war against the traditional victims of class war at home.

All over the world people risk and sometimes lose their lives escaping poverty or war fare in their native lands. Throughout human history migrants have sought out places that are safer or more prosperous but they are seldom greeted with open arms.

Political symbols in South Africa are here today, gone tomorrow, but oppressive political economy endures.