Artykuły w czasopismach na temat „Democratic Left Front (South Africa)”

Black politics in South Africa changed dramatically after 1976. It spread far and fast, with black organisations multiplying at all kinds of levels. The African National Congress (A.N.C.) returned and the United Democratic Front (U.D.F.) emerged. The trade unions strengthened considerably and black youths demonstrated their power. Ideologies changed and evolved. Yet at the same time as the movement broadened and deepened its hold on black people, internal divisions grew more intense. Organisational, ideological, and strategic differences became more bitter, and leaders continued to accuse each other of betraying the struggle.

South Africa’s transformation to constitutionalism in 1994 saw the addition to a mixed legal system of a supreme constitution that requires all law to conform to its provisions, principles, and values. This new constitutional design was developed for the circumstances and modeled on existing liberal democratic constitutions, the most influential of which were Canadian and German. Adopted in 1993, the first constitution introduced the notion of the “constitutional state” but being only a transitional document, it provided for the creation of a “final” constitution crafted in conformity with prescribed principles. The final constitution, adopted in 1996, made no mention of the “constitutional state”, including instead the expression “rule of law”. Since the constitutional principles laid down in 1993 referred to neither the German “Rechtsstaat”, nor Diceyan “rule of law”, the replacement of the former term by the latter was permissible. The two constitutional texts did not, however, elaborate on these two terms. It was left to constitutional interpreters, especially the judiciary, to give meaning to these historically disconnected but conceptually related ideas. The result was a completely novel and pervasive constitutional doctrine. The judicial process of merging these notions may be described as “comparison by global assimilation”.

This article explores theorisation that identifies the locus of South Africa’s scorched-earth lived experiences in the fixation on scientific dogma and conceptual binaries as well as governance utopianisms, wherein the latter are derivatives of the former. It explores South African’s lived experiences over the past 28 years in order to demonstrate that politicians’ reverence for governance utopianism has failed to appreciate the unity of realities, facts, values, objectivities, subjectivities, permanences, fluxes and changes, which consist of complex intricacies that are not amenable to dogmatic “incontrovertibly true” sets of authoritative principles and catchy governance utopianisms, because humanity’s imagination and creative thought are experimental in nature given the diversity of spatialities and “geography differences.” From desktop-based research literature survey and theorisation, the article advances a theoretical argument that if “science is one,” and if reality is unitary, then fragmentary theories and models are creatures of humanity’s world of imperfections. Additionally, the article analyses statistical evidence drawn from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) in order to demonstrate that the scorched-earth metaphor is real for South Africa’s 28-year democratic governance. It finds that in South Africa’s twenty-eight years of democratic experiment, lived experiences resemble scorched-earth metaphor with no silver lining in sight. Philosophically, the paper concludes that if what resides on God’s left is on humanity’s right, then the “rightness” and/or “leftness” of people consists of intractable complexities of particularity, individuality and incommunicability that have led to fragmentary science, fixation on dogma and binaries as well as politicians’ reverence for governance utopianisms, simultaneously as society’s lived experiences resemble normalised scorched-earth.

Democratic change In South Africa has left the country reeling wrth exhiliration, but also battling with the difficulties of transfonnation. The media are no exception. The .: role of the Independent Broad· casting Authority as regulatory body becomes critical as the electronic media and radio In particular struggle through the transitional pains of deregulation, privatization and liberalization. The author brieny sketches the departure points and background for the ISA action frame, and then posits an implied warning against these objectives by using, inter alia. arguments posed in qualitative research by. in particular, Splichal (1992) and Rothenbuhler (1996) as a springboard. Parallels between media demqcratization in CentralEastern Europe and South Africa are drawn, and the danger of an overriding commercial motive in radio broadcasting is outlined.

In his work on the media, Hans Enzensberger challenges many of the traditional assumptions of the Left. These challenges form the sub stance of this essay. Importantly, Enzensberger was not content with merely attacking the (Marxist-domi nated) Left Rather, he simulta neously proposed an 'alternative' left-wing communication theory. His proposed "praxis" theory of com munication and related demand for democratic participatory media structures are examined with some reference to their adoptability in South Africa. The Enzensbergian challenge, how ever, has implications not only for left communicologists, but for com- munication studies in general. This is because he raises important issues for political communication such as the relationship of the media to democracy; of access to the media; and of media manipula tion; etcetera.

Before President F. W. de Klerk's epoch-making address on 2 February, 1990, anyone who predicted that within less than two years virtually all the major political parties and groupings in South Africa would be sitting around a conference table negotiating a new constitution, would have been dismissed as naive at best. Even more amazing is the substantial degree of consensus which has been achieved in what is a relatively short time, given the long history of conflict which preceded the dawning of the “new” South Africa.The focus of the negotiations is the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (commonly referred to by the acronym Codesa). A wide spectrum of political opinion is represented here (a total of 19 different organizations at the last count), although organizations and parties on both the extreme right, and the extreme left, have refused to participate. While the government, the National Party and the African National Congress (ANC) may be seen as the main players, the role played by even the most minor participants cannot be discounted, because of the emphasis that is placed on consensus by most of the parties involved.

The idea of democracy is a curious oneand puzzling. There is reason for this;everyone talks about democracy no matter whether their views are on the left, centreor right of the political spectrum. Various politicians, regimes, whether in Africa, Europe or America claim to be democratic;yet what each says and does is usuallydifferent. Democracy as a practice is supposed to bestow rules, laws and decisions that are justifiable on democraticgrounds. Democracy also has evolved through social struggles. This article examines the practice of democracy withinthe context of local government in South Africa, and is an attempt to explore the concept of democracy without escaping other historical aspects of the idea and practice. From a methodological standpoint, this article is based on a literature assessment. Lastly and most importantly, this paper has made a scholarly contribution to the scholarship of Political Science and Public Administration with regard to the nexus between democracy and public participation at local government level in South Africa.

To this day, apartheid is still regarded as one of the most heinous crimes to have affected humankind. The brutality of the apartheid system and its impact not only left devastating effects in the minds of the black majority who were affected by the system, but also drew international attention. This prompted the United Nations Security Council to pass drastic resolutions to try and end the apartheid system. It is important to highlight that apartheid crime was committed at the behest of the-then National Party government at the expense of the black majority. The attainment of democratic rule in 1994 also saw the emergence of the need for transitional justice. However, after 25 years of foot-dragging, the National Prosecution Authority in South Africa has still not been fully committed to prosecute apartheid atrocities. This article examines the crime of apartheid and the impact of the transitional justice process in South Africa. The article further reflects on the National Prosecution Authority’s reluctance to prosecute crimes of apartheid and examines the final report of the People’s Tribunal on Economic Crimes in South Africa.

The African National Congress (ANC) has ruled post-apartheid South Africa since the dawn of democratic rule in 1994. Since then, the ANC enjoyed fluctuating majority voter turn-out until recently when the party won the elections with less than 60% in the 2019 general elections. The genesis of this neglected swing is attributed to the rise of the alternative left, economic freedom fighters, unemployment rate and corruption scandals witnessed during the administration of Jacob Zuma and his cronies (the Gupta brothers) who championed state capture. Emerging heavily from the above sentiment, this study reviews the major challenges facing the ANC-led South African government. These are challenges that the Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration (incumbent) is still facing. The adoption of Afrocentricity in the study is indicated by the Afrocentric drive of casting out the demonic spirits of ignorance and arrogance in those who lead the ANC. The objective of this study is to highlight the significant challenges facing the ANC. Methodologically, this study relied on document reviews.

When our article was first written, the Occupy movement was in full swing and we were clearly in optimistic mode. However, as all studies of social movements have shown, from the antiapartheid struggles of South Africa to the rebellious nineteenth century in France or Britain, the road of mobilization is never straightforward. Nor did we assume that “Occupy” in the United States or even the popular rebellions of the Arab Spring would lead to a blossoming of democratic nations. We take these understandings from writers such as Eric Hobsbawm (1996), who understood the French Revolution and the British industrial revolution as complementary processes that set the stage for the imperfect and unequal nation-states of France and Britain today. In South Africa (to pick one historic moment), after the high school students who took to the streets in protest in Soweto were mowed down by South African army tanks, the streets were virtually quiescent for a decade. However, over 40 years of fascism in South Africa, the 1950s bus boycotts, the 1960s Sharpeville massacre, the famous trials of Mandela and others, the Soweto school children, and finally the union mobilization in a United Front and international sanctions led to the end of apartheid. But, as we are all now aware, these battles did not end inequality or neoliberalism.

This article aims to show the relevance of the Bandung Asia Africa Conference in 1955 to the current debate on democracy. It argues that the Bandung Asian-African Conference was the second massive but wellcoordinated democratic movement on a global scale. It has paved the way for the production of new political space globally as well as for individual nations -- space that is more democratic in nature, where people can claim and exercise their citizenship rights. Re?ecting on Soekarnos speech at the opening of the Asia Africa Conference, this article argues that there is an urgent need for a deeper involvement of political and social forces of the Global South to put themselves as the front liners in defning and making use of democracy, instead of leaving it to be dictated by Neo-liberal lines of thinking. This is so because Indonesian experience during the last 15 years or so has clearly demonstrated the very limits of liberal democracy. This article further argues the need to build a collaborative e?ort amongst scholars of the Southern Hemisphere to challenge the superiority of liberal ideas and practices of democracy.

In 2004 South Africa embarked on a mission of reforming its higher education system, merging and incorporating small universities into larger institutions, and renaming all higher education institutions university. The democratic country’s universities and technikons, which were incorporated with others and thus no longer exist, will be mentioned in this study. There are also a large number of institutions in South Africa, some are local campuses of foreign universities, some conduct classes for students who write their examinations at the distance education University of South Africa and some offer unaccredited or non accredited diplomas. Public universities in South Africa are divided into three types; traditional universities, which offer theoretically oriented university degrees; universities of technology, which offer practically-oriented diplomas and degrees in technical fields; and comprehensive universities, which offer a combination of both types of qualifications. Disciplinary problems at universities interfere with the educational process and place a burden on Management and academics. Misdemeanours have long been linked to negative outcomes for students, such as course failure and dropping out of universities. University senior management team is interested in keeping the institution safe and maintaining positive environment conducive to learning. To accomplish this mission, universities employ a range of policies and approaches to managing student behaviour, including positive behaviour support, exclusion, suspension and expulsions. Research was conducted in three types of South African universities. Management of each type of university was interviewed. From each type of university, three institutions were randomly selected. This left the researcher with a total of 9 universities out of 23. Responses from management of various institutions were related.

The post-apartheid education in South Africa is based on the Constitution of the Republic (Act 108 of 1996). Among its aims are to heal the divisions of the past and improve the life of all citizens. The policy is also intent on preparing the learners to live in a free non-racial and democratic country. This curriculum is ideal; with learner-centred approaches, learners are expected to act in the interests of a society that respects human dignity and morality. Schools are seen as institutions that could instill the democratic ideals in a country that is still trying to address the past ills left behind by the apartheid damage. However, years after the attainment of the democratic society, there are a number of challenges that schools face: drug abuse, sexual violence and hate crimes are among these. Recently, South African children have witnessed widespread xenophobia meted by society against black African foreign nationals. This article explores Peace Education, an aspect that the current system is hardly emphasizing. Effective Peace Education goes beyond building peaceful citizen; it yearns to develop citizens that can enhance democracy and social justice. There is a need to create proactive citizens who will be creative peace soldiers, who manage conflicts effectively, showing respect for fellow human beings. Teachers and schools can play a vital role in the creation of these future citizens. Some critics perceive Peace Education as a contentious and value-laden approach; however, the society needs strategies to act against the threat of violence that has brought the culture of learning and teaching almost to a standstill in many schools. Key words: peace, peace education, human rights, Ubuntu

Globally, there is welter of evidence demonstrating that cooperative government is likely achievable where the same political party in charge of the national government is also a power holder at sub-governments level. This has been the experience of the South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) which has been in charge of the national government and the majority of provinces for 30 years, except in few instances where opposition parties are in control. Since the ANC lost Western Cape (WC) province to the Democratic Alliance in 2004, cooperative government has been a difficult practice due in part to party ideological differences. The contradictions often play out at executive levels but the silence of legislation, in as far as ensuring that cooperative government is achievable for common goal, necessitates attention. This non-empirical article refers to numerous cases of intergovernmental tensions, with the intention being to debate the discursive issues under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (hereafter referred to as 1996 Constitution). Following comprehensive reflection, the article concluded that the extent to which national government is showing inherent inertia to work with WC and other areas where the DA is governing has been perpetuated by the lacuna in the current legal framework, but most of the conflicts have much to do with party ideology and politics of the ‘left’ where parties just oppose executive decisions and programmes not on substance but because they are official opposition. As a result, the continuation of these actions stands to bedevil the national and provincial executive relations in a decentralised South Africa.

Democracy is associated with particular kinds of spatialities. In this paper I address two aspects of the spatiality of democracy through an assessment of transitional arrangements for local government in South African cities. Political identities, as well as spatial arrangements, involved in democratic politics are associated with instability, uncertainty, and ongoing contestation. In democracies, the contestation both of identities and of spaces is institutionalised and this implies the generalisation of particular spatialities. Drawing on a spatially informed interpretation of the work of Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I argue that the transitional phase in the emergence of democracy in South Africa has involved the growth of a democratic culture—even in situations where substantial compromises have been made to keep recalcitrant white interests on board. I question the assertion of a nonracial politics which seeks to erase the possibility of ethnically based political identities and argue that the failure of the left to hegemonise their perspective of a nonracial political project and a nonracial postapartheid city may have ironically assisted in extending the possibilities for democracy. A key conclusion is that democracies are associated with different spatialities which facilitate contestation and representation. A politics of space, given the radical undecidability of spatial boundaries, is supportive of the extension of democracy.

Crony capitalism is the precursor to many of the woes of any country. It makes the rich richer and lessens the participation of the poor in the economy of any country, and thus automatically makes them poorer. This paper therefore, looks at crony capitalism from a South African viewpoint, in order to place into perspective the issues of development that are seriously compromised. In so doing the paper will attempt to look at some issues that affect development because of the scourge of crony capitalism. It would therefore, discuss the hidden billions of South Africa’s elite, which hampers progress and development, ushers in strikes and thus compromises stability and the economic balance of the country. That the billions of rands earned by chief executives could be used to promote and advance the issues of development, bring about stability in all sectors of the economy and, particularly in the mining sector of South Africa and issues that confront the poor. The paper expands the discussion by asking the question – Is South Africa’s left on the right road to socialism? It therefore explores the allegiance to Marxist – Leninism and statism and argues that that they are out of step with modern democratic practice. The paper also exemplifies the problems that confront Zimbabwe, in terms of its debt crisis due to overt cronyism and shows that Zimbabwe is at the crossroads of development with increasing poverty, unemployment and inequality, and is drowning in debt. It argues that it is crunch time for President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU political party.

This article explores the lessons learnt from the short-term emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL) approach adopted to tackle the continuation of the higher education (HE) academic programme during the COVID-19 pandemic. It first examines the primary goals of the official South African “No student left behind” (NSLB) campaign, which emphasises the agenda to address a social justice concern about students’ participation and access to HE. It reflects on recent research studies around this matter which tended to foreground technical and operational considerations. Instead, this article presents an alternate lens for shifting the discourse of HE, especially postgraduate studies, to activate deep, critical and autonomous engagement in teaching and learning. The theoretical model presented highlights staff and students working outside pedagogies of comfort and expanding into spaces of disrupting previous habituated pedagogies. The article draws on the reflective experiences of facilitating postgraduate education programmes: two PhD cohort programmes in Mauritius and South Africa (involving students who were schoolteachers and HE lecturers) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education Studies (involving students from rural university settings in South Africa). The data reveals that despite intentions to drive an alternative mode of critical, disruptive online modalities in curriculum delivery, students subtly pushed back towards working within the comfort zones of their previous conceptions of front-led, teacher-driven pedagogies. A disruptive pedagogy was not fully activated as students professed preferences to revert to the old routine agendas in pre-COVID times. This article argues that this constitutes a missed opportunity to learn from the ERTL era to inform alternative, more robust, critical pedagogies for the long term. The responses suggest that the HE system will continue to bifurcate disparities between those more willing to look to the past and those embracing a learning opportunity for the future.

Whilst many will speak today of the historic and invaluable contributions of Essop Pahad to our country’s liberation struggle and at the dawn of democracy, it is often forgotten that this came at great pain for him to live a life in exile, isolated from family and friends. Such was the often silent struggle that happened parallel to the struggle for freedom. Though this was an immensely politically active time for him, it was also incredibly taxing. It was in this time that Essop clung to the promise of a free and democratic South Africa. As the Greek tragedian Aeschylus once said: ‘I know how men in exile feed on dreams.’ So desperate was his dream for a better tomorrow that he worked tirelessly with members of the international community to bring attention to the plight of those he left behind. Throughout his life, he continued to cling onto this dream as he fought for justice and equity long beyond the advent of democracy. He once said: ‘Our march to a better life requires that each and every South African should put shoulders to the wheel – all of us as partners in transforming ours into a society that cares. We must know our rights and exercise them, in the same measure as we take on our collective responsibility to build South Africa into a nation of our dreams.’

Abstract: After declaring the country's independence from Portugal in June 1975, the Mozambique Liberation Front focused its efforts on building a modern nation-state and implementing a development strategy to pave the way for a socialist society. The initial lack of cadres for building and managing a postcolonial national state and the new state economy led it to request the international cooperation and solidarity of the Global Left. The aim of this paper is to analyze the notions and practices of international solidarity among leftist Chilean and Argentine exiles who assumed the role of professional-technical cooperators in independent Mozambique between 1976 and 1986. The working method is based on a qualitative analysis of the information obtained from oral sources, documents of the period, and specialist literature.

In this article the case of the August 2008 to March 2009 cholera epidemic is used to examine the intersections between health and politics in Zimbabwe. The focus is on the different narratives deployed by the mainstream opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change under Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU -PF) to explain the causes of, and responses to the cholera epidemic which emerged in the immediate aftermath of the disputed June 2008 presidential runoff. An analyses of how regional governments, especially South Africa, responded to the cholera outbreak is made. The opposition argued that the epidemic was a clear indicator of government’s mismanagement. On the other hand, public intellectuals aligned to ZANU-PF and government ministers invoked conspiracy theories and blamed external forces for the epidemic. South Africa and the region saw it through a humanitarian crisis lens. In the discussion the varied narratives explaining the causes of the outbreak and responses to the cholera epidemic exposed ongoing internal and external political contestations are noted. The epidemic seems to have become inextricably entangled with discourses revolving around political governance, human rights problems and the struggles over political power between the ruling party and opposition parties.

Children being the most vulnerable members of society are the one's most affected by living in poverty. This unacceptable situation can inter alia be attributed to the disastrous effects of Apartheid. During this unfortunate period in our nation's history millions of people were unjustly evicted from their homes and forced to live in deplorable conditions. Moreover, many of these people were left homeless or without the necessary adequate shelter. Children who were born into these circumstances were denied basic resources such as proper shelter, food, water and health care services. These unfortunate circumstances existed at the adoption of South Africa 's democratic Constitution. The preamble of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa , 1996 reaffirms government's commitment to heal the inequalities of the past and improve the quality of life of all citizens. The Constitution is based on certain fundamental values, most importantly, human dignity, freedom and equality. The fact that these values are denied to those people living without access to basic resources such as adequate housing/shelter, food, water or health care services cannot be dismissed. To facilitate South Africa 's development as a democratic state based on human dignity, freedom and equality, the problem of poverty must be addressed. The Constitutional Court , in Government of the Republic of South Africa and Others v Grootboom and Others 2000 11 BCLR 1169 (CC), has recently stated that the effective realisation of socio-economic rights is key to the advancement of a value based democratic South Africa . Section 26 of the Constitution grants everyone the right to have access to adequate housing and section 28 that grants every child the additional right to basic shelter among others. By virtue of section 28(1)(b) the primary responsibility to provide children with the necessary adequate housing/shelter is vested in their parents, unless the parents are unable to fulfil their duty or the children are removed from their care. This does not in the least mean that the state has no responsibilities to children living with their parents. The state must still provide the framework in which parents can facilitate the realisation of their children's rights. The state can fulfil this obligation by taking reasonable legislative and other measures within its available resources to realise everyone's right of access to adequate housing progressively. Therefore, it is submitted that the measures taken to realise section 26 also indirectly ensures the realisation of children's right to basic shelter (section 28(1)(c)). It has been largely accepted by the courts and academics alike that all fundamental human rights are indivisible and interrelated. Clearly then, the state's obligations in terms of section 28(1)(c) cannot be properly interpreted without referring to the interpretation of those obligations conferred upon it by section 26(2) and the other socio-economic rights in the Constitution. Hence, section 28(1)(c) must be seen in the context of the Constitution as a whole. Put simply, the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures within its available resources to realise children's right to basic housing/shelter progressively. This article will focus on the utilisation of the right to shelter of the child to alleviate poverty. Essential to this discussion is an effective understanding of the right to basic shelter as entrenched by section 28 of the Constitution in conjunction with the right of access to adequate housing conferred on everyone by virtue of section 26. This will be achieved by studying the general working of such rights including their limitations and enforcement.

South Africa’s 2019 elections, like others before, will be remembered for the historical significancearound the ANC ruling party’s sharp decline in polls, the surging and re-emergence of theideologically extreme parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Freedom Front Plus(VF+). This election, for the first time since the rebranding of the main opposition, the DemocraticAlliance, saw that party losing its momentum, culminating in the eventual resignation of the party’sfirst black leader, Mmusi Maimane. This study examines how the three dominant parties in SouthAfrica contest with each other in the race to attract potential voters through poster advertising andcampaigns. Going into the 2019 election, the three dominant political parties were – the AfricanNational Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).Specifically, the paper examines messages on the posters, the parties’ manifestos and speechesat different rallies before the elections. Drawing on our analysis, we make a claim in this paperthat the 2019 election in South Africa for the ANC, DA and EFF was largely about “unresolvedquestions”.

The purpose of this study is to explore the IDP process for improved public participation and thereafter assess the barriers to the design and implementation of the IDP. The IDP process was developed to improve strategic planning and ensure that no one is left behind at the grassroots. This was done by promoting public participation in municipal affairs. Many South African municipalities have been struggling to use the IDP process to improve public participation. A mixed-methods approach to investigate the participative IDP process and barriers, using the Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM) as a case study was adopted. The methodology included 400 respondents who were chosen through a probability sampling technique and probed to complete the online survey using a closed-ended questionnaire guide, and 10 respondents were also chosen through a non-probability sampling technique and were face-to-face interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The key results revealed that poor public participation exists in the study area due to a lack of encouragement from responsible authorities. Many barriers hinder the effective design and implementation of the participative IDP process, such as protests, working in silos, a lack of institutional resources to address the competing needs of communities, and a lack of transparency, accountability, and consultation. Lastly, the lack of oversight by the municipality in the adoption of e-participation has been discovered as a barrier to the design and implementation of participative IDP process during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study concludes by providing a few recommendations to enhance participative IDP process. The GTM should at all times uphold democratic principles by ensuring active and effective public participation, transparency, and accountability in municipal affairs. South African municipalities, especially GTM, should develop innovative institutional and organizational skills to make better use of their resources, solve socioeconomic barriers, and enhance service delivery.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has led to unprecedented media coverage globally and in South Africa where, at the time of writing, over 20,000 people had died from the virus. This article explores how mainstream print media covered the COVID-19 pandemic during this time of crisis. The news media play a key role in keeping the public informed during such health crises and potentially shape citizens’ perceptions of the pandemic. Drawing on a content analysis of 681 front-page news stories across eleven English-language publications, we found that nearly half of the stories used an alarmist narrative, more than half of the stories had a negative tone, and most publications reported in an episodic rather than thematic manner. Most of the stories focused on impacts of the pandemic and included high levels of sensationalism. In addition, despite the alarmist and negative nature of the reporting, most of the front-page reports did not provide information about ways to limit the spread of the virus or attempt to counter misinformation about the pandemic, raising key issues about the roles and responsibilities of the South African media during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study shows that South African newspaper coverage of COVID-19 was largely negative, possibly to attract audience attention and increase market share, but that this alarmist coverage left little possibility for citizens’ individual agency and self-efficacy in navigating the pandemic.

The South Africans Schools Act mandates institutional policy duty bearers such as the school governing bodies (SGBs) and school disciplinary committees (SDCs) through which education stakeholders such as school principals, teachers, parents and learners to democratically formulate and implement school policies. The effectiveness of these bodies in carrying out their responsibilities in most cases is left to speculation. Based on a case study of high schools in a rural district setting in South Africa, this paper reports on the extent to which SDCs are democratically constituted and function in conducting their responsibilities. A qualitative approach was employed to gather data from a purposeful sample of 53 participants at two secondary schools that comprised 10 SGB members, 10 school management team (SMT) members, 9 SDC members, 10 Representative Council of Learners (RCL), 4 class teachers and 10 previously disciplined learners (PDLs). Focus group and individual interviews were the primary data gathering instruments but were complemented by document analysis to cross-check participants’ narratives where necessary. Results indicated that the discharge of the SDC responsibilities was largely undemocratic in both composition and functioning, and therefore unjust in disciplining learners who acted outside school rules. On the basis of our findings, we recommend that the policy duty bearers in school institutional management structures such as the SMT, SGB, RCL and SDC should first be inducted on school policies, roles and responsibilities on assumption of duty. Received: 28 June 2020 / Accepted: 18 November 2020 / Published: 17 January 2021

The catalyst of millions of arrests, fervent protests, and a police-led massacre, the passbook is a haunting relic of apartheid South Africa. Operating as a colonial appendage to be carried, tucked away, and presented to police on demand, these pocket-sized identification books radically constrained the mobility and selfhood of Black South Africans. They also gesture toward a perhaps unanticipated symptom of South Africa’s democratic turn: the issue of confronting the stuff of apartheid, the archival debris left over from a system reliant on exhaustive administrative documentation to surveil and compel its subjects. This article contends with the material status of the passbook, examining legacies of haptic contestation enacted upon it in protest alongside a close study of Apartheid Scrolls (1995), a series of intaglio photo-etchings by South African artist Rudzani Nemasetoni, derived from the pages of his father’s thirty-year-old passbook. Tearing, collaging, flattening, printing, Xeroxing, and reconfiguring the document, Nemasetoni signals the fundamental instability of the passbook and the potential to upheave its function, composition, and materiality, and in doing so, joins a lineage of actions that deconstruct and delegitimize the object. Passbooks did not disappear with the abolition of pass laws nor at the end of apartheid. Preserved in institutional and personal archives, thrown in trash heaps, stored in drawers and closets, or configured anew in art, they survive as objects to be faced and contended with. Nemasetoni’s Apartheid Scrolls offers one such way.

Fifty years ago, around 1960, the widely accepted sociology of modernization divided the world into ‘modern societies’ and societies that still had to undergo processes of ‘modernization and development’. After fundamental criticism of its evolutionist and functionalist assumptions, the theory was widely discredited two decades later. Its demise, though, has left the comparative sociology of contemporary societies with numerous problems. First, modernization theory has not been replaced by any other approach that aims at providing a sociological analysis of the global social configuration, despite all the talk about ‘globalization’. Second, the critique of functionalist reasoning has deprived sociology of the means of assessing collective problem-solving capacity. As a consequence, neo-liberal economics and comparative political economy have come to dominate this issue. Third, the critique of evolutionism has tended to throw overboard all normative concerns in the sociological analysis of social configurations. As a consequence, normative political theory in various guises has tended to become more central than sociology in the assessment of contemporary socio-political constellations. This article explores the ‘conceptual relation’ between the so-called modern societies of the 1960s and apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa over the past half century with a view to elaborating elements of a new sociology of the global social configuration, or in short: a world-sociology. Discussing at the outset the common assumption that a conceptual abyss separated apartheid society, which operated by means of violent oppression, from liberal-democratic societies, in which public action wants justification, the article insists instead on the need for a comparative-historical reconstruction of the trajectories of ‘Western societies’, on the one hand, and South Africa, on the other, in their changing connectedness in the world context. It is argued that violence has never been absent from the history of modernity and that concerns for justice can be expressed in more varied ways than much modernist thinking assumed. The comparative observations, furthermore, show that key questions of socio-political organization, such as the formation of a collective will, the relationship between individual freedom and collective self-determination, and social justice, have not found permanent answers; and that there is little reason to assume that the responses found in the ‘old modernity’ of the 1960s are superior to others in the current condition of global modernity.

South Africa celebrated twenty years of democracy in 2014 following more than 100 years of colonization and institutionalized discrimination through Apartheid. A ‘broken’ family structure is one of the pathetic legacies left by political instability in post-colonial and post war countries globally. This phenomenon of broken families is evident in South Africa following the period of discrimination against Black people and the systematic migrant labor system that was sponsored by and for the Apartheid government. The migrant labor system separated fathers from their families and men left their families in the rural communities to work in the burgeoning mines and factories in urban areas. The current democratic State has a responsibility to strengthen broken families through policies and intervention informed by research evidence. There is an emerging body of research on Father Connections in post-war and post-colonial settings. This special issue brings together eight articles on Father Connections in South Africa. The articles present data from diverse but interesting research; for example the piece by Nduna M and Taulela M focuses on the experiences of ‘discovering’ biological fathers for youth who grew up with absent and unknown fathers. The participants that the article draws from are young women from a small town, in Mpumalanga. Through narrative analysis, the article explores how young people deal with finding out who their biological fathers are. In the article by Selebano N and Khunou G, the experiences of young fathers from Soweto are explored. It is illustrated in this article that, there are strong ties between young men’s experiences and the community values, history and culture where they experience fatherhood. The article by Langa M interestingly looks at narratives and meaning makings of young boys who grew up without fathers. Langa looks at how young boys can adopt alternative ideas of what it means to be a man in contexts that would otherwise be assumed to automatically lead to an embrace of hegemonic notions of masculinities. On a similar note the article by Nduna M focuses on experiences of young people who grow up without a father entering into endeavours to find and use their father’s surname. The article looks at how the signifying paternal ancestry is developed and maintained in contexts of father absence, through pursuing an absent father’s surname as the ‘right surname’. The article by Lesch E and Ismail A focuses on the significant question of the father daughter relationship and examines constraining constructions of fatherhood for daughters with a specific focus on the Cape Winelands community in South Africa. In Chauke P and Khunou G‘s contribution on the media’s influence on societal notions of fatherhood in relation to the maintenance system is examined. The article looks at how cases of maintenance are dealt with in print media. Franklin A & Makiwane M’s article provides a significant examination of male attitudes of family and children. This article begins to speak to the transformations of expectations of men in families. This transformation is addressed through a look at racially disaggregated quantitative data. Mthombeni A reviews a book, Good Morning Mr. Mandela by Zelda Le Grange where she examines some of the challenges of fatherhood in South Africa’s past and present.

In the second part of the article three topics are reviewed. The US secretary of state visit to Senegal (November 20, 2021). Senegal was of particular interest to the United States as a member of French speaking community of African countries and a 2022 chairmen of the African Union. A. Blinken was received by President M. Sall. A comprehensive discussion with Foreign minister Aissata Sall was devoted to the cooperation in five areas of “common interests - global health, the climate crisis, inclusive economic growth, democracy, peace and security”. During the visit the Senegal government and four American companies signed a Memorandum of $1 billion investments into infrastructural projects of the country. The remarks made by the secretary during his stay in Africa provide the materials for the assessment of the US position on four acute conflict situations on the continent. Proposed schemes of settlement: Ethiopia - end of hostilities between the Federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, dialogue and negotiated political agreement; Somalia - the conclusion of parliament formation and presidential elections; Sudan and Mali - transit from military regimes to democratic civilian led governments. The author cites factual aspects of Africa participation in the virtual global “Summit for democracy” initiated by President Biden (December 8-10, 2021). The Summit was conceived as a step toward the establishment of the US-led global alliance against China and Russia under the cover of democracy protection from “authoritarianism”. Out of 54 African states only 17 were invited. Surprisingly Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt were left out.

In the second part of the article three topics are reviewed. The US secretary of state visit to Senegal (November 20, 2021). Senegal was of particular interest to the United States as a member of French speaking community of African countries and a 2022 chairmen of the African Union. A. Blinken was received by President M. Sall. A comprehensive discussion with Foreign minister Aissata Sall was devoted to the cooperation in five areas of “common interests - global health, the climate crisis, inclusive economic growth, democracy, peace and security”. During the visit the Senegal government and four American companies signed a Memorandum of $1 billion investments into infrastructural projects of the country. The remarks made by the secretary during his stay in Africa provide the materials for the assessment of the US position on four acute conflict situations on the continent. Proposed schemes of settlement: Ethiopia - end of hostilities between the Federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, dialogue and negotiated political agreement; Somalia - the conclusion of parliament formation and presidential elections; Sudan and Mali - transit from military regimes to democratic civilian led governments. The author cites factual aspects of Africa participation in the virtual global “Summit for democracy” initiated by President Biden (December 8-10, 2021). The Summit was conceived as a step toward the establishment of the US-led global alliance against China and Russia under the cover of democracy protection from “authoritarianism”. Out of 54 African states only 17 were invited. Surprisingly Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt were left out.

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of hydropolitics in South Africa. The country remains one of the driest countries in the world with a below average rainfall of 450 mm per annum. The country’s economic hub in the Gauteng province is largely dependent on water from the neighbouring Kingdom of Lesotho. On a geopolitical level the country also shares various water sources with neighbouring states. This is especially relevant due to the dependence on South Africa, as the regional hegemon, for access to markets and income. However, large areas of South Africa experience extreme water scarcity due to a combination of factors that include climate change related drought, urbanisation and government-related water management failures. In many local government municipalities across the country the lack of government capacity to supply water resources and manage waste water have reached crisis proportions. Many towns and communities across South Africa have been left with unreliable access to sustainable water resources. This is mainly due to a combination of corruption, poor management and the lack of institutional capacity at local government level. The institutional incapacity of government is a result of the governing party African National Congress’ ideological approach to government, combined with political factionalism, which has stripped the civil service of expertise and led to the exodus of skilled individuals from both government and the country. The government’s implementation of the communist ? based Leninist democratic centralism, commonly known as a cadre deployment strategy, has resulted in large scale state capture and corruption that has had a devastating impact on the delivery of basic services such as water. Hydropolitical civil unrest has increased to an extent that, in instances such as the Majakeng and Maluti-a-Phofung municipalities, unrest became extremely violent and disrupted businesses and well as state education and health facilities. This article is an ontological investigation into the hydropolitical impact of, and ideological reasons for, state incapacity to manage water resources and deliver safe and sustainable supply of water to the population. While reference will be made to the general situation in the country, the Majakeng and Maluti-a-Phofung municipalities will be used as a case studies for the impact of water insecurity on political stability. On the other hand, the City of Cape Town’s ability to manage water scarcity and avert a drought related “day zero” scenario is used as an example of what can be achieved through sound management. The article will combine ideological considerations with theoretical explanations of ideology and state failure within a hydropolitical context in order to explain the current water crisis at local government level in South Africa and the threat that this poses to the political order in the country. Being a regional hegemon, any political disruptions in South Africa also threaten the geopolitical stability of the entire Southern African region. There remains a great deal of scope for future geopolitical co-operation around water within the Southern African Development Community that can secure a sustainable sources of future water supplies for South Africa and generate further income for the country’s neighbours. The article evaluates the current water situation in the country, explains the water related geopolitical considerations that the country has to take into account, investigates the ideological basis for government policy and institutional strategy and the impact that this has on the capacity of the state to deliver sustainable and reliable water access to local communities, and then evaluates some case studies that include both failures and a success story. This assessment includes various sources of literature that supply a theoretical conceptual basis for terms such as hydropolitics and ideology. These academic concepts provide the basis for the practical considerations that are an integral part of the ideologically ? based hydropolitical ontological assessment. The article concludes with some broad recommendations on how the country could mitigate some of the hydropolitical challenges that it faces.

AbstractThis Special Issue explores the complicated relationship between women's rights and global socialism during the Cold War. This Introduction describes how the articles deal with this relationship in three, partly overlapping, periods. The first set of articles looks at how the ethos of the Popular Front resonated among women's movements in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, and examines the connections between interwar anti-fascist and anti-imperialist feminisms and those that re-emerged after World War II. The second set of articles focuses on the role and development of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) and its model of internationalism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China in the early Cold War. The final articles centre on the challenges faced by the WIDF from the 1960s, exploring issues such as the anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa, the Portuguese wars of decolonization, and the United Nations Decade for Women (1976–1985). Together with this process of decolonization, this Special Issue also examines how the consequences of postsocialism, in particular for women's rights (the loss of social rights, material security, and substantial challenges to reproductive freedoms), have triggered renewed debates about the history and legacies of communist women's liberation movements in the former socialist world.

Some of the most pressing and challenging problems facing South Africa are unemployment, poverty, urban redress, infrastructural decay, under-education, and the transformation of the landscape left by apartheid. In an effort to address these problems, the successive democratic governments embarked on a number of initiatives that were aimed at providing relief through building and construction projects, which require the participation by, and employment of local community members. To facilitate the desired redress, various programmes were launched and a number of projects undertaken. Some of these projects were flagship projects that were lauded by the architectural profession and attracted wide publicity. The socio-economic benefits to the community and local area, the extent of skills transfer to the community participants, and the long-term benefits they brought to the community participants are less obvious. This article revisits three such projects as case studies, with the aim of determining the extent to which they helped address the aforementioned problems and the extent of the benefits they brought to their physical and social contexts. This is done through a literature review supported by semi-structured interviews of relevant role players and an observational visit to each, in order to make recommendations suggesting how future projects could be configured to maximise the long-term benefit they could bring to their physical and social environments while addressing the national challenges. It is recommended that infrastructural development programmes such as the Extended Public Works Programme must prioritise the socio-economic upliftment and sustainable empowerment of people and configure projects with this as their main aim.

This article considers two of the methodological steps in a Community of Philosophical Enquiry: developing the questions and voting on the questions. Both of these practices are enacted by the 8-9 year old children who are the participants in a philosophical enquiry, which I facilitated at a government primary school in South Africa. Matthews (1994) reminds us that children as philosophical thinkers/doers have been left out of the dominant narratives about children and childhood. A question that guides this research is where is the place for philosophical questions (developed by children) and the kind of philosophical thinking/drawing/creating/being for child (and adults) in schools? How do we make space for such questioning–so that the richness of these pedagogical encounters can really matter and make a difference to the teaching and learning taking place? Gandorfer in an interview with Barad (2021), suggests that critical thought “is to encounter what is unrecognizable and imperceptible, yet sensible and constructive of sense without separating it from the physical world” (p. 20). I would agree and apply this to the critical thoughts of child. This thinking is not located in the child, in their mind and does not emerge only through the thoughts, child verbalises. A critical posthumanism theory/practice analysis ensures that as researcher, I do not stand outside of the research peering in at a distance. Similarly the children, the questions, the voting and the enquiries are not separate from the world, they are all already entangled with the world. When the children are voting on the questions, this performs as a pedagogy of interruption (Michaud, 2020). As the facilitator, I do not know which question will receive the largest number of votes for the philosophical enquiry. This makes possible an emergent curriculum in its be(com)ing. Toby Rollo’s (2016) formulations about child as political agent and not just moral agent and the implications for more democratic and just schooling are theorised in this paper through the act of the children voting on the questions. I argue that children are not just excluded from participating in decisions about what and even how they are learning at school but from most pedagogical practices in classrooms and schools. I show how the children creating the questions and voting on the questions can be democratic practices with political and moral implications in a community of philosophical enquiry.

While a stalemate in the predominantly Tamil North and East of Sri Lanka continues despite Indian intervention on the government's behalf, in the Sinhala South death squads associated with the pseudo People's Liberation Front, the JVP, have been ruthlessly eliminating its opponents. The United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), having created and nurtured popular racism for over thirty years in order to get into power (through a ready-made Sinhalese majority of 70 per cent of the population), * would now like to draw back from the brink of another crippling civil war, this time in the South. But they are unable to do so because the JVP has taken up the Sinhala cause and pushed it to the point of social fascism through assassination and murder. Popular racism based on Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism promoted in the schools and expressed in song, textbook and media served to fuel the anti-Tamil pogroms of 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983, in which thousands were killed at the hands of street mobs. Some of the most violently anti- Tamil propaganda (deriving inspiration from mythical Sinhalese history) has emanated from the present government. Colonisation of Tamil areas by Sinhalese was justified on the pretext of protecting ancient Buddhist shrines. And it is an open secret that ministers hired their own hit squads in the 1983 pogrom. When, in a bid to end the unwinnable war with the Tamils, the UNP signed the Indo-Lanka Accord in 1987, allowing Indian troops to operate on Sri Lankan soil, it alienated the very Sinhala nationalists it had itself fostered. And it was the JVP which capitalised on the resentment over India's interference in Sri Lanka's internal affairs. Accusing the UNP government (and other supporters of the Accord) of treachery, it enlarged and deepened popular racism into fanatical patriotism. But what has given the JVP terror tactics a hold over the population has been the steady erosion of democratic freedoms, on the one hand, and the self-abasement of the Left, on the other. Both the SLFP and UNP governments have postponed elections to stay in power, but the UNP went further and got itself re-elected en bloc on a phoney referendum to postpone elections. Local elections were never held under the SLFP and whatever elections took place under the UNP have either been rigged and/or carried out under conditions of massive intimidation. In the process, the political literacy that the country once boasted has been lost to the people and, with it, their will to resist. At the same time the collaborationist politics of the Left in the SLFP government of 1970-77 have not only served to decimate its own chances at the polls (it obtained not a single seat in the election of 1977) but also to leave the working-class movement defenceless. So that it was a simple matter for the UNP government to crush the general strike of 1980, imprison its leaders and throw 80, 000 workers permanently out of work. And it has been left to the JVP to pretend to take up the socialist mantle of the Left even as it devotes itself to the racist cause of the Right, and so win the support of the Sinhala-Buddhist people. In the final analysis the choice before the country is that of two terrors: that of the state or that of the JVP. Below we publish an analysis of the situation as at October 1988, put out by the underground Campaign for Social Democracy in the run up to the presidential elections.

This article argues for the strengthening and entrenchment of socio-economic rights provisions in Ghana's jurisprudence. The purpose of this entrenchment is to engender judicial activism in promoting more creative pathways for enforcing socio-economic rights in Ghana. The article traces the development of socio-economic rights in Ghana's jurisprudence, especially the influence of the requirements of the international rights movement, particularly of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The article delves into the constitutional history of Ghana and its impact on the evolution of rights in the country. Of particular historical emphasis is the emergence of socio-economic rights under the Directive Principles of State Policy in the 1979 Constitution. However, the significance of the socio-economic rights only became profound with the return to democratic rule under the 1992 Constitution, again under a distinct chapter on Directive Principles of State Policy. However, unlike its counterpart, the chapter on the Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms, which is directly enforceable, the Directive Principles of State Policy were not. It took the Supreme Court of Ghana a series of landmark decisions until finally, in 2008, it arrived at a presumption of justiciability in respect of all of the provisions in the 1992 Constitution. It is evident that prior to this, the Supreme Court was not willing to apply the same standards of adjudication and enforcement as it ordinarily applies in respect of rights under the chapter on Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms. Having surmounted the non-justiciability hurdle, what is left is for the courts to begin to vigorously pursue an agenda that puts socio-economic rights at the centre of Ghana's rights adjudication framework. The article draws on comparative experiences from India and South Africa to showcase the extent of judicial creativity in rights adjudication. In India, the courts have been able to work around provisions restricting the enforcement of Directive Principles by often connecting them to Fundamental Freedoms. In South Africa, there is no hierarchy between civil and political rights on the one hand and socio-economic rights on the other; for that reason, the courts give equal ventilation to both sets of rights. The article further analyses these examples in the light of ongoing constitutional reforms in Ghana. It argues that these reforms fall short of the activism required to propel socio-economic rights adjudication to the forefront in Ghana's jurisprudence. In this regard, the article proposes social movements as a viable tool for socio-economic rights advocacy by recounting its success in previous controversial issues in Ghana. The article also connects this to other important building blocks like building socio-economic rights into a national development blueprint. Overall, the article calls for an imaginative socio-economic rights enforcement approach that is predicated on legislation, judicial activism, social movements and a national development blueprint aimed at delivering a qualitative life for the Ghanaian.

The hydraenid genera Parhydraena Orchymont, 1937, Decarthrocerus Orchymont, 1948, Protozantaena Perkins, 1997, and Parhydraenopsis nomen novum are comprehensively revised, based on the study and databasing of 13,323 specimens. Decarthrocerus Orchymont is considered a valid genus, not a subgenus of Parhydraena. A new generic name, Parhydraenopsis nomen novum, is provided to replace Pseudhydraena Orchymont, 1947 (a junior homonym of Pseudhydraena Acloque, 1896). The genera are redescribed, and new species are described in Parhydraena (14), Protozantaena (4), Parhydraenopsis (2), and Decarthrocerus (3). Redescriptions are provided for Parhydraena brevipalpis (Régimbart), P. lancicula Perkins & Balfour-Browne, P. seriata Balfour-Browne, Protozantaena labrata Perkins, Parhydraenopsis cooperi (Orchymont), and Decarthrocerus jeanneli Orchymont. Selected morphological features of Pneuminion Perkins, and members of the tribe Hydraenidini, Hydraenida Germain and Parhydraenida Balfour-Browne, are illustrated and compared with those of members of Parhydraenini. Keys to the genera of Parhydraenini and keys to the species of the genera revised herein are given. Male genitalia, representative spermathecae, antennae, and elytra are illustrated. Scanning electron micrographs of external morphological characters are presented. High resolution digital images of the primary types of all species (except the holotypes of three species, which could not be found) are presented (online version in color), and geographical distributions are mapped. The tribe Parhydraenini has both fully aquatic and humicolous adapted species, and shows notable diversity in the lengths of the maxillary palpi and legs, reflecting the microhabitat type. Humicolous species have relatively short maxillary palpi and tarsi, and often have a specialized body form, as in the very differently shaped members of Discozantaena and Decarthrocerus. Parhydraena has both aquatic and humicolous species, the latter being broad-shouldered species with very short maxillary palpi and tarsi. Protozantaena has one aquatic species, the four other species in the genus being collected by sifting litter in humicolous microhabitats. Species of Decarthrocerus have only been collected by sifting litter; many of the specimens are from bamboo forests. As far as is known, members of Parhydraenopsis are fully aquatic, or found in wet streamside mosses. The following new species are described (type locality in South Africa unless otherwise given): Parhydraena ancylis (Western Cape Province, Heuningnes River), P. asperita (Western Cape Province, Knysna, Diepwalle), P. brahma (Mpumalanga Province, Uitsoek), P. brunovacca (Eastern Cape Province, Umtata, Nquadu Mt.), P. divisa (Sudan, Gilo), P. sebastiani (KwaZulu-Natal Province, Cathedral Peak), P. maculicollis (KwaZulu-Natal Province, Polela River, Himeville), P. maureenae (Western Cape Province, W. Wiedouw farm), P. mpumalanga (Mpumalanga Province, Fanie Botha Trail, Maritzbos Hut area, SW Sabie), P. namaqua (Western Cape Province, Van Rhyns Pass), P. ora (Western Cape Province, Cape Town), P. parva (Western Cape Province, George, Saasveld, Kaaimans River), P. semicostata (Mpumalanga Province, Soutpansberg, Entabeni), P. toro (Western Cape Province, Kirstenbosch, Table Mountain), Protozantaena ankaratra (Madagascar, Antananarivo, Ankaratra, Reserve Manjakatompo, M. Arirana, SE drainage River Ambodimangavo), P. grebennikovi (Tanzania, W. Usambara Mts., Lushoto district, Grant’s Lodge, Mkuzu river, 3–4 km upstream of Kifungilo), P. malagasica (Madagascar, Antsiranana, Parc National Montagne d’Ambre), P. palpalis (Madagascar, Antananarivo, Anjozorobe, Ravoandrina, left affluent of River Ampanakamonty), Parhydraenopsis alta (Ethiopia, Wolamo Province, Mt. Damota), P. simiensis (Ethiopia, Simien Mountains National Park, Jinbar Wenz), Decarthrocerus bambusicus (Democratic Republic of Congo, P. N. Virunga, Volcan Sabinyo, Chanya W., W. Sabinyo), D. mahalicus (Tanzania, Mahali Peninsula, Kungure), D. mbizi (Tanzania, Mt. Mbizi, 12 mi. NE Sumbawanga).

It was the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan who first introduced the term ‘global village’ into the lexicon, almost fifty years ago. He was referring to the phenomenon of global interconnectedness of which we are all too aware today. At that time, we were witnessing the world just opening up. In 1946, British Airways had commenced a twice weekly service from London to New York. The flight involved one or two touch downs en-route and took a scheduled 19 hours and 45 minutes. By the time McLuhan had published his book “Understanding media; the extensions of man”, there were regular services by jet around the globe. London to Sydney was travelled in just under 35 hours. Moving forward to a time immediately pre-covid, there were over 30 non-stop flights a day in each direction between London and New York. The travel time from London to Sydney had been cut by a third, to slightly under 22 hours, with just one touchdown en-route. The world has well and truly ‘opened up’. No place is unreachable by regular services. But that is just one part of the picture. In 1962, the very first live television pictures were transmitted across the Atlantic, via satellite. It was a time when sports’ fans would tune in besides a crackling radio set to hear commentary of their favourite game relayed from the other side of the world. Today of course, not only can we watch a live telecast of the Olympic Games in the comfort of our own homes wherever the games are being held, but we can pick up a telephone and talk face to face with friends and relatives in real time, wherever they may be in the world. To today’s generation – generation Z – this does not seem in the least bit remarkable. Indeed, they have been nicknamed ‘the connected generation’ precisely because such a degree of human interconnectedness no longer seems worth commenting on. The media technology and the transport advances that underpin this level of connectedness, have become taken for granted assumptions to them. This is why the global events of 2020 and the associated public health related reactions, have proved to be so remarkable to them. It is mass travel and the closeness and variety of human contact in day-to-day interactions, that have provided the breeding ground for the pandemic. Consequently, moving around and sharing close proximity with many strangers, have been the activities that have had to be curbed, as the initial primary means to manage the spread of the virus. This has caused hardship to many, either through the loss of a job and the associated income or, the lengthy enforced separation from family and friends – for the many who find themselves living and working far removed from their original home. McLuhan’s powerful metaphor was ahead of its time. His thoughts were centred around media and electronic communications well prior to the notion of a ‘physical’ pandemic, which today has provided an equally potent image of how all of our fortunes have become intertwined, no matter where we sit in the world. Yet it is this event which seems paradoxically to have for the first time forced us to consider more closely the path of progress pursued over the last half century. It is as if we are experiencing for the first time the unleashing of powerful and competing forces, which are both centripetal and centrifugal. On the one hand we are in a world where we have a World Health Organisation. This is a body which has acted as a global force, first declaring the pandemic and subsequently acting in response to it as a part of its brief for international public health. It has brought the world’s scientists and global health professionals together to accelerate the research and development process and develop new norms and standards to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and help care for those affected. At the same time, we have been witnessing nations retreating from each other and closing their borders in order to restrict the interaction of their citizens with those from other nations around the world. We have perceived that danger and risk are increased by international travel and human to human interaction. As a result, increasingly communication has been carried out from the safety and comfort of one’s own home, with electronic media taking the place of personal interaction in the real world. The change to the media dominated world, foreseen by McLuhan a half century ago, has been hastened and consolidated by the threats posed by Covid 19. Real time interactions can be conducted more safely and more economically by means of the global reach of the internet and the ever-enhanced technologies that are being offered to facilitate that. Yet at a geopolitical level prior to Covid 19, the processes of globalism and nationalism were already being recognised as competing forces. In many countries, tensions have emerged between those who are benefitting from the opportunities presented by the development of free trade between countries and those who are invested in more traditional ventures, set in their own nations and communities. The emerging beneficiaries have become characterised as the global elites. Their demographic profile is one associated with youth, education and progressive social ideas. However, they are counter-balanced by those who, rather than opportunities, have experienced threats from the disruptions and turbulence around them. Among the ideas challenged, have been the expected certainties of employment, social values and the security with which many grew up. Industries which have been the lifeblood of their communities are facing extinction and even the security of housing and a roof over the heads of self and family may be under threat. In such circumstances, some people may see waves of new immigrants, technology, and changing social values as being tides which need to be turned back. Their profile is characterised by a demographic less equipped to face such changes - the more mature, less well educated and less mobile. Yet this tension appears to be creating something more than just the latest version of the generational divide. The recent clashes between Republicans and Democrats in the US have provided a very potent example of these societal stresses. The US has itself exported some of these arenas of conflict to the rest of the world. Black lives Matter and #Me too, are social movements with their foundation in the US which have found their way far beyond the immediate contexts which gave them birth. In the different national settings where these various tensions have emerged, they have been characterised through labels such as left and right, progressive and traditional, the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have nots’ etc. Yet common to all of this growing competitiveness between ideologies and values is a common thread. The common thread lies in the notion of competition itself. It finds itself expressed most potently in the spread and adoption of ideas based on what has been termed the neoliberal values of the free market. These values have become ingrained in the language and concepts we employ every day. Thus, everything has a price and ultimately the price can be represented by a dollar value. We see this process of commodification around us on a daily basis. Sports studies’ scholars have long drawn attention to its continuing growth in the world of sport, especially in situations when it overwhelms the human characteristics of the athletes who are at the very heart of sport. When the dollar value of the athlete and their performance becomes more important than the individual and the game, then we find ourselves at the heart of some of the core problems reported today. It is at the point where sport changes from an experience, where the athletes develop themselves and become more complete persons experiencing positive and enriching interactions with fellow athletes, to an environment where young athletes experience stress and mental and physical ill health as result of their experiences. Those who are supremely talented (and lucky?) are rewarded with fabulous riches. Others can find themselves cast out on the scrap heap as a result of an unfair selection process or just the misfortune of injury. Sport as always, has proved to be a mirror of life in reflecting this process in the world at large, highlighting the heights that can be climbed by the fortunate as well as the depths that can be plumbed by the ill-fated. Advocates of the free-market approach will point to the opportunities it can offer. Figures can show that in a period of capitalist organised economies, there has been an unprecedented reduction in the amount of poverty in the world. Despite rapid growth in populations, there has been some extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, the numbers in poverty fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people (The Economist Leader, June 1st, 2013). Nonetheless the critics of capitalism will continue to point to an increasing gap between the haves and don’t haves and specifically a decline in the ‘middle classes’, which have for so long provided the backbone of stable democratic societies. This delicate balance between retreating into our own boundaries as a means to manage the pandemic and resuming open borders to prevent economic damage to those whose businesses and employment depend upon the continuing movement of people and goods, is one which is being agonised over at this time in liberal democratic societies around the world. The experience of the pandemic has varied between countries, not solely because of the strategies adopted by politicians, but also because of the current health systems and varying social and economic conditions of life in different parts of the world. For many of us, the crises and social disturbances noted above have been played out on our television screens and websites. Increasingly it seems that we have been consuming our life experiences in a world dominated by our screens and sheltered from the real messiness of life. Meanwhile, in those countries with a choice, the debate has been between public health concerns and economic health concerns. Some have argued that the two are not totally independent of each other, while others have argued that the extent to which they are seen as interrelated lies in the extent to which life’s values have themselves become commodified. Others have pointed to the mental health problems experienced by people of all ages as a result of being confined for long periods of time within limited spaces and experiencing few chances to meet with others outside their immediate household. Still others have experienced different conditions – such as the chance to work from home in a comfortable environment and be freed from the drudgery of commuting in crowded traffic or public transport. So, at a national/communal level as well as at an individual level, this international crisis has exposed people to different decisions. It has offered, for many, a chance to recalibrate their lives. Those who have the resources, are leaving the confines of the big capital cities and seeking a healthier and less turbulent existence in quieter urban centres. For those of us in what can be loosely termed ‘an information industry’, today’s work practices are already an age away from what they were in pre-pandemic times. Yet again, a clear split is evident. The notion of ‘essential industries’ has been reclassified. The delivery of goods, the facilitation of necessary purchase such as food; these and other tasks have acquired a new significance which has enhanced the value of those who deliver these services. However, for those whose tasks can be handled via the internet or offloaded to other anonymous beings a readjustment of a different kind is occurring. So to the future - for those who have suffered ill-health and lost loved ones, the pandemic only reinforces the human priority. Health and well-being trumps economic health and wealth where choices can be made. The closeness of human contact has been reinforced by the tales of families who have been deprived of the touch of their loved ones, many of whom still don’t know when that opportunity will be offered again. When writing our editorial, a year ago, I little expected to be still pursuing a Covid related theme today. Yet where once we were expecting to look back on this time as a minor hiccough, with normal service being resumed sometime last year, it has not turned out to be that way. Rather, it seems that we have been offered a major reset opportunity in the way in which we continue to progress our future as humans. The question is, will we be bold enough to see the opportunity and embrace a healthier more equitable more locally responsible lifestyle or, will we revert to a style of ‘progress’ where powerful countries, organisations and individuals continue to amass increased amounts of wealth and influence and become increasingly less responsive to the needs of individuals in the throng below. Of course, any retreat from globalisation as it has evolved to date, will involve disruption of a different kind, which will inevitably lead to pain for some. It seems inevitable that any change and consequent progress is going to involve winners and losers. Already airline companies and the travel industry are putting pressure on governments to “get back to normal” i.e. where things were previously. Yet, in the shadow of widespread support for climate activism and the extinction rebellion movement, reports have emerged that since the lockdowns air pollution has dropped dramatically around the world – a finding that clearly offers benefits to all our population. In a similar vein the impossibility of overseas air travel in Australia has resulted in a major increase in local tourism, where more inhabitants are discovering the pleasures of their own nation. The transfer of their tourist and holiday dollars from overseas to local tourist providers has produced at one level a traditional zero-sum outcome, but it has also been accompanied by a growing appreciation of local citizens for the wonders of their own land and understanding of the lives of their fellow citizens as well as massive savings in foregone air travel. Continuing to define life in terms of competition for limited resources will inevitably result in an ever-continuing run of zero-sum games. Looking beyond the prism of competition and personal reward has the potential to add to what Michael Sandel (2020) has termed ‘the common good’. Does the possibility of a reset, offer the opportunity to recalibrate our views of effort and reward to go beyond a dollar value and include this important dimension? How has sport been experiencing the pandemic and are there chances for a reset here? An opinion piece from Peter Horton in this edition, has highlighted the growing disconnect of professional sport at the highest level from the communities that gave them birth. Is this just another example of the outcome of unrestrained commodification? Professional sport has suffered in the pandemic with the cancelling of fixtures and the enforced absence of crowds. Yet it has shown remarkable resilience. Sport science staff may have been reduced alongside all the auxiliary workers who go to make up the total support staff on match days and other times. Crowds have been absent, but the game has gone on. Players have still been able to play and receive the support they have become used to from trainers, physiotherapists and analysts, although for the moment there may be fewer of them. Fans have had to rely on electronic media to watch their favourites in action– but perhaps that has just encouraged the continuing spread of support now possible through technology which is no longer dependent on personal attendance through the turnstile. Perhaps for those committed to the watching of live sport in the outdoors, this might offer a chance for more attention to be paid to sport at local and community levels. Might the local villagers be encouraged to interrelate with their hometown heroes, rather than the million-dollar entertainers brought in from afar by the big city clubs? To return to the village analogy and the tensions between global and local, could it be that the social structure of the village has become maladapted to the reality of globalisation? If we wish to retain the traditional values of village life, is returning to our village a necessary strategy? If, however we see that today the benefits and advantages lie in functioning as one single global community, then perhaps we need to do some serious thinking as to how that community can function more effectively for all of its members and not just its ‘elites’. As indicated earlier, sport has always been a reflection of our society. Whichever way our communities decide to progress, sport will have a place at their heart and sport scholars will have a place in critically reflecting the nature of the society we are building. It is on such a note that I am pleased to introduce the content of volume 43:1 to you. We start with a reminder from Hoyoon Jung of the importance of considering the richness provided by a deep analysis of context, when attempting to evaluate and compare outcomes for similar events. He examines the concept of nation building through sport, an outcome that has been frequently attributed to the conduct of successful events. In particular, he examines this outcome in the context of the experiences of South Africa and Brazil as hosts of world sporting events. The mega sporting event that both shared was the FIFA world cup, in 2010 and 2014 respectively. Additional information could be gained by looking backwards to the 1995 Rugby World Cup in the case of South Africa and forward to the 2016 Olympics with regard to Brazil. Differentiating the settings in terms of timing as well as in the makeup of the respective local cultures, has led Jung to conclude that a successful outcome for nation building proved possible in the case of South Africa. However, different settings, both economically and socially, made it impossible for Brazil to replicate the South African experience. From a globally oriented perspective to a more local one, our second paper by Rafal Gotowski and Marta Anna Zurawak examines the growth and development, with regard to both participation and performance, of a more localised activity in Poland - the Nordic walking marathon. Their analysis showed that this is a locally relevant activity that is meeting the health-related exercise needs of an increasing number of people in the middle and later years, including women. It is proving particularly beneficial as an activity due to its ability to offer a high level of intensity while reducing the impact - particularly on the knees. The article by Petr Vlček, Richard Bailey, Jana Vašíčková XXABSTRACT Claude Scheuer is also concerned with health promoting physical activity. Their focus however is on how the necessary habit of regular and relevant physical activity is currently being introduced to the younger generation in European schools through the various physical education curricula. They conclude that physical education lessons, as they are currently being conducted, are not providing the needed 50% minimum threshold of moderate to vigorous physical activity. They go further, to suggest that in reality, depending on the physical education curriculum to provide the necessary quantum of activity within the child’s week, is going to be a flawed vision, given the instructional and other objectives they are also expected to achieve. They suggest implementing instead an ‘Active Schools’ concept, where the PE lessons are augmented by other school-based contexts within a whole school programme of health enhancing physical activity for children. Finally, we step back to the global and international context and the current Pandemic. Eric Burhaein, Nevzt Demirci, Carla Cristina Vieira Lourenco, Zsolt Nemeth and Diajeng Tyas Pinru Phytanza have collaborated as a concerned group of physical educators to provide an important international position statement which addresses the role which structured and systematic physical activity should assume in the current crisis. This edition then concludes with two brief contributions. The first is an opinion piece by Peter Horton which provides a professional and scholarly reaction to the recent attempt by a group of European football club owners to challenge the global football community and establish a self-governing and exclusive European Super League. It is an event that has created great alarm and consternation in the world of football. Horton reflects the outrage expressed by that community and concludes: While recognising the benefits accruing from well managed professionalism, the essential conflict between the values of sport and the values of market capitalism will continue to simmer below the surface wherever sport is commodified rather than practised for more ‘intrinsic’ reasons. We conclude however on a more celebratory note. We are pleased to acknowledge the recognition achieved by one of the members of our International Review Board. The career and achievements of Professor John Wang – a local ‘scholar’- have been recognised in his being appointed as the foundation E.W. Barker Professor in Physical Education and Sport at the Nanyang Technological University. This is a well-deserved honour and one that reflects the growing stature of the Singapore Physical Education and Sports Science community within the world of International Sport Studies. John Saunders Brisbane, June 2021

In this paper I discuss three case studies of facilitation and mediation in South Africa: 1) facilitation between the South African apartheid establishment and the African National Congress in exile from 1963 to 1989; 2) facilitation that eventually led to mediation between Inkatha and the United Democratic Front in Natal over 10 months from 1985 to 1986; and 3)mediation between the African National Congress and the Afrikaner Freedom Foundation (Afrikaner Vryheidstigting, also known as Avstig) over 18 months from 1991 to 1993.

This study involves the evaluation of pre-purchase radiographic studies of South African Thoroughbred yearlings. Radiographic changes were recorded and compared with similar international studies. The study differs from other studies in that a lower prevalence of pedal osteitis (1.26 %), dorsal osteochondral fragmentation of the metatarsophalangeal joint (1.60 %), distal metacarpal sagittal ridge changes (15.7 %), ulnar carpal bone lucencies (8.33 %), carpal osteophytes (1.19 %), distal intertarsal and tarsometatarsal joint radiographic changes (9.92 %), tarsal osteochondrosis lesions (4.40 %) and stifle osteochondrosis lesions (0.4 %) was found. The prevalence of dorsal osteochondral fragments in the metacarpophalangeal joint was similar to other studies (1.60 %). A higher prevalence of vascular channels as well as irregular borders and lucencies was evident in the proximal sesamoid bones. There was a higher prevalence of palmar metacarpophalangeal and plantar metatarsophalangeal osteochondral fragments (2 % and 7.10 % respectively). Palmar metacarpal disease, metacarpal supracondylar lysis, proximal sesamoid bone fractures and carpal osteochondral fragmentation were absent in the current study. Additional findings recorded in the current study were proximal interphalangeal joint hyperextension (left front 15.13 %, right front 18.91 %), the solar angle (right front 2.38°, left front 2.79°), the prevalence of carpal bone 1 (30.95 %) and carpal bone 5 (1.59 %). Management, nutrition and genetics in the various groups of Thoroughbred yearlings should be further investigated in order to explain the reasons for the differences recorded in the current study.

This article examines and analyses Biko’s contribution to the liberation struggle in South Africa from the perspective of politics and religion. Through his leading participation in Black Consciousness Movement and Black Theology Project, Biko has not only influenced the direction of the liberation agenda, but he has also left a legacy that if the liberated and democratic South Africa were to follow, this country would be a much better place for all to live in. In fact, the continent as a whole through its endeavours in the African Union underpinned by the African Renaissance philosophy would go a long way in forging unity among the continent’s nation states. Biko’s legacy covers among other things identity, human dignity, education, research, health and job creation. This article will have far reaching implications for the relations between the democratic state and the church in South Africa, more so that there has been such a lack of the church’s prophecy for the past 25 years.