South Africa

[This was a presentation delivered at Wits and University of Michigan Workshop on the Politics of Municipal Infrastructure held at the Durban University of Technology, 12 July 2016.]

One of the students that the apartheid colonialist police shot dead on 16 June 1976 was Hector Pieterson. According to the late Rev.

[Veli Mbele delivered this talk at the Nelson Mandela Metro University's Racism and Power Dialogue Series, held at Rhodes University on 15 June 2016].

Introduction

The alarm-bells had better be ringing in the South African Left after Andrew Chirwa, the president of the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), referred to “Numsa’s planned new workers’ party” (‘New union federation comes from grassroots’, Mail and Guardian, 13 to 19 May).

History was made in South Africa on 30 April 2016 when 1406 representatives of 29 separate  trade unions and one existing federation, Nactu, with 22 affiliates, supported by a range of civil society and community organisations, came together to  commit themselves to building a new, work

I do not usually give much credence to government officials’ whitewashing, excuses or blame games.

I had mixed feelings when I learned that Palestine has erected a statue of Nelson Mandela, the iconic South African anti-Apartheid leader.

The Programme Director,
Africa Institute of South Africa colleagues,    
Distinguished guests,    

As we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of our Constitution, the government’s cavalier disregard for the rule of law suggests no real commitment to the human rights which are its cornerstone.

“We are to have land again….Our land is us. We are our land. You took our land …. Without land we cannot be.” - Prince Maqoma imprisoned on Robben Island by British colonialists in 1859. He died there at 75 years of age.