South Africa: lessons for the SNP and for Radical Independence
Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine has become a staple (some might say clichéd) reference point for many on the anti-authoritarian left. However in the lead-up to the Scottish independence referendum,…
Remembering Mandela
Innes MacLeod is a socialist and social justice campaigner in Edinburgh. He tweets In the hours following Mandela’s death many eulogies were written. Representatives of every shade of mainstream, western…
Nelson Mandela: see the movement he personified as well as the great man
There’s not much that anyone can add to the massive outpouring of grief and admiration for Nelson Mandela. His status as the greatest secular saint of our era becomes clearer…
Chris Hani died 20 years ago today: why he’s still a hero
Twenty years ago today Chris Hani was murdered while returning to his house in Boksburg outside Johannesburg having bought the paper. He is virtually unknown in this country, and as…
Are the strikes in South Africa good for platinum producers?
As the dispute continues in Marikana, and appears, if anything, to be spreading to both other platinum mines and to more and more workers at Lonmin, perhaps it's worth taking…
Last week's agreement on oil could lead to war between the Sudans, not avert it
Tim Flatman, writing from Juba, South Sudan The “international community”, a nebulous concept at the best of times, achieved rare unity in its desire for and welcoming of an agreement…
Kony 1984
On Tuesday, as I logged into facebook and twitter, it seemed everywhere I gazed people were posting videos and hash tags telling me that it was 2012, Kony 2012 in…
If in six months they say they didn’t know, they’ll be lying
Seve Cockburn writes from Dakar. This piece first appeared on his blog. Sometime last February I sat in a meeting when people were talking about how there was going to…
Lessons from Libya – Democrats make for effective emperors
You have to hand it to Obama. The man is a smooth operator. When he got into power, Republicans threw up their hands in horror at the prospect of a…
No shock doctrine for Libya
To say that the West's involvement in Libya was all about oil was always far too simplistic. For any country to commit military force, a number of people must conclude…