Portside

The prospects that the ANC, SACP and Cosatu alliance once offered the broad masses have been forgotten at the feeding trough, says Raymond Suttner.

Readers Comments - The Expendables -Temps Getting Crushed; The Counter-Revolution of 1776 - Slave Resistance & the Origins of the USA; Poem for Trayvon Martin; Government Spying & Snowden Revelations; Graça Machel; South Africa; Marriage Equality;

South Africa is not a perfect society. Full equality - social and economic - does not exist, control of the country's wealth remains in the hands of a few, so new challenges and frustrations arise. I believe we should be doing far better. Our liberation struggle reached a high point, not its zenith when we overcame apartheid rule.

A Book Review by the Nobel Laureate, Nadine Gordimer, on Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, a new biography of South Africa’s revolutionary couple. One is reading not of self-perceived martyrs but individuals greedy for life even while giving up so much personal fulfillment for a way of intense certain risk. A level of involvement, the process in making a life, living, hardly to be imagined.

As the world's thoughts turn towards Nelson Mandela, it is becoming clear that his wife too will take her place in history as a huge figure in the fight against poverty, illiteracy and injustice

A broad coalition of South African organizations, including COSATU, has called for mass demonstrations against President Obama's visit to Johannesburg. Coalition is in opposition to the University of Johannesburg plan to award Obama with an honorary doctorate for his contributions to the international community. Among the coalition demands are freedom for Bradley Manning, support for the Cuban Five, and the closing of Guantanamo.