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Bleak treatment: Botswana’s first people not only experience negative stereotyping, humiliation and discrimination, but their customary land rights are not acknowledged or protected. Photo: Kimmer Conner

San people still ‘invisible, voiceless in their homeland’

The indigenous people in Botswana want recognition and be allowed to be self-reliant to restore their dignity

  • Eyaaz
4 min read
Rural people are dispossessed and displaced by companies that collect awards for ESG credentials, corporate social investment and sector excellence. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Award-winning exploitation: South Africa’s sustainability façade unmasked

Rural people are dispossessed and displaced by companies that collect awards for ESG credentials, corporate social investment and sector excellence

  • Eyaaz
4 min read
New social contract due: Mining’s harms are mainly to the environment – water, air, and soil, for example – but these have consequences for mining affected communities’ health and their land. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy

Mining’s revival must also deal with its legacy

Little has been invested in mining and exploration, and that includes in social compacts

  • Eyaaz
7 min read
South Africa may have attained political emancipation but economically the chains largely remain. (File photo)

Economic apartheid: South Africa’s transition a warning for a two-state agreement for Palestine

South Africa may have attained political emancipation but economically the chains largely remain

6 min read
Hope: The Freedom Charter was adopted on 26 June 1955 at Kliptown in Soweto. Its contents were drawn from submission from people all over South Africa.

Struggle for the Freedom Charter goes on

Signed 70 years ago, today’s Constitution was built on it, but not everything has been realised

  • Eyaaz
8 min read
Africa is sitting on the raw materials to power the world’s green revolution — cobalt, lithium, graphite, rare earths.

Lithium rush a crossroads for Zim’s future

Zimbabwe’s government can use the critical minerals surge to empower communities and foster inclusive development

  • Eyaaz
7 min read
Zimbabwe’s monetary system is marked by a farcical series of failed experiments. Photo: Getty Images

Zimbabwe: Why does the state persist when its outputs are poverty, violence and humiliation

After 45 years of independence, issues such as the disintegration of the country’s monetary system are illustrative of the crisis.

6 min read
The struggle to reclaim or protect land is fundamentally a struggle to restore human dignity. Photo: Lucky Nxumalo/City Press/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Land and dignity: A global reflection anchored in Palestine

Land is more than a physical resource — it is the foundation of identity, freedom and dignity in places as far-flung as North America, Australia and New Zealand to Gaza, India and Brazil.

8 min read
(Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

How the Expropriation Act can revitalise South Africa’s economy

This legislation could help unlock the potential of underused assets and abandoned properties, including mines, inner-city buildings and land

  • Des Erasmus
3 min read
The land question is an issue of race but it is also about class and what the land is used for. Photo: Rogan Ward

The land question is about social relations as well as race

Organisations such as South Africa’s Abahlali baseMjondolo, Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement and the Diggers in England’s 17th century have faced violent repression from the authorities

7 min read
The Constitution makes provision for the restitution of land to those who were dispossessed during apartheid rule. The Expropriation Act is not a land reform law

Deal with South Africa on the basis of facts, not rumour

The country stands firm on the principle that diplomacy is the most viable route for settling differences in a complicated geopolitical world, including the conflict in the Middle East

8 min read
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)

Expropriation law: Not new or dangerous

The 2025 law differs from the old Act in that it includes fixing skewed land patterns, and introduces compensation based on ‘justice and equity’ and not ‘willing buyer, willing seller’

  • Eyaaz
7 min read
Women have fewer rights to access land for homesteads and businesses in rural South Africa than men. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Women have fewer rights over land ownership than men in rural South Africa, study finds

The report by the Commission for Gender Equality says while the country’s Constitution and laws aim to fight discrimination based on sex and race, cultural norms make this difficult.

6 min read