Opinion – Zabalaza for Socialism

Meet the billionaires praying for a fascist apocalypse

Judy Cox8 October 2026

Judy Cox reviews End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor and finds much to fear. But, she says, the authors’ strategy for resistance is far too meagre. What do you see when you look at the ruins of Gaza? A catastrophe? A mass grave? Donald Trump and his cronies see Gaza as a real […]

Being Against Capitalism Isn’t Enough

Mike Beggs/ Ben Burgis/Bhaskar Sunkara8 October 2026

Socialists need more than a critique of capitalism. We need a concrete account of how a socialist economy could work — and make ordinary people’s lives better. Adapted from The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World by Mike Beggs, Ben Burgis, and Bhaskar Sunkara (Verso, 2026). Get a copy of the book with free […]

The afterlives of Biko: Remembering Mbongeni Baninzi

Ashwin Desai1 October 2026

But they/They would have Me/They would haveYou/Believe/That Steve Biko is Dead/You and I…We know better. – Millard Arnold On September 25, 1977, Steve Biko was buried. Beaten to death by the apartheid state. Spawning a new language of struggle and cajoling new subjectivities into being, Biko’s Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) influenced a generation. What happened […]

The Biko Inquest: ‘We carry our history with us’

Ashwin Desai11 September 2026

THE ROAD FROM LIBERATION TO DISILLUSIONMENT Reflecting on detention during apartheid and Steve Biko’s enduring influence, Ashwin Desai connects the past to anxieties about corruption, political radicalism and South Africa’s democratic future. ‘Our pains will petrify when our gestures no longer make sense. But our tears, brother, who will take them on himself?’ – (Edmond […]

TOWARDS A CONFERENCE OF THE LEFT: THOSE MAKING THE CALL NEED TO ANSWER CRITICAL QUESTIONS

Brian Ashley14 May 2026

South Africa is living through a deepening social crisis. Unemployment, inequality, hunger, state decay, ecological destruction, and violence continue to define everyday life for millions. The political formations that once claimed to represent the aspirations of the working class have lost legitimacy, while the Right – both neoliberal and authoritarian – has grown stronger. In […]

RESPONSE TO THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY

Lebohang Phanyeko13 May 2026

The inclusion of right-wing populist formations in the South African Communist Party (SACP) ‘Conference of the Left’ to be held at the end of the month alongside formations such as the African National Congress (ANC) and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), can only escalate rather than resolves the deep contradictions facing the South African left […]

The Architecture of Continuity: How One Magistrate’s Gavel Speaks for a Whole System

Suliman Rajah21 April 2026

A single sentencing in April 2026 reveals the apartheid logic still running through South Africa’s courts, its water pipes, its power grid, its housing policies, and its hospitals. I. The Core Argument The April 2026 sentencing of Julius Malema is not an aberration. It is not the act of a single biased magistrate. It is […]

Back to the Stone Ages

Charlie Kimber7 April 2026

In his book, Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost, Joe Allen analyses why President Lyndon Johnson decided on all-out war in Vietnam rather than make a deal that was on offer with nationalist forces. He writes, “The Johnson administration chose war because anything less than a total victory of U.S. imperialism would be seen […]

Zionism, anti-Semitism and eugenics

Terry Bell31 March 2026

The conflation of the religio-nationalist ideology of Zionism not only with Judaism and the nation state of Israel, but also with antisemitism, continues to be widely promoted. Yet the terminology and the manner of its use grew out of the pseudoscientific racism that flourished in the 19th Century. This came in response to the humanist […]

“Bombing never leads to positive regime change”

Charlie Kimber31 March 2026

Mediapart, the French leftist website, has an interview with Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and author of the most-referenced book on the effects of air attacks throughout history. He says, “The carpet bombing of Iran will not achieve its goals, even if the regime has been decapitated.” I post a […]

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Category: Opinion