Chapter 6
‘We, the People’
The opening lines of South Africa’s constitution — ‘We, the people’ — are the marrow in the bones of a sturdy democracy. The people will govern society collectively, and appoint a government of elected people to do so on their behalf.
But the democratic process isn’t just about showing up at the poling stations every five years. It calls for active, daily participation by the people, for the people. Here’s how citizens are doing it.
21 April 2025
New African zeitgeist — citizens want climate action, digital age might be how they get it
Citizens across Africa want climate action. New research shows that internet connectivity, which plugs people into novel media forms, can bridge the climate literacy gap and mobilise citizens to demand more from their governments in North-South negotiations. It can also boost ground-up participation in developmental decision-making as the continent’s climate becomes increasingly unstable..
First published in the Daily Maverick.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
AA spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining.
A spiritual connection with “the land” drives the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining..
More wordsmithery…
‘A spiritual connection with “the land” fuels the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining on South Africa’s Wild Coast, and it is this same force that fuelled a peasant revolt against the apartheid government in 1960. Environmental defenders are willing to die for their land. Some already have.
The day the prospectors came, so did the storm. It was in 2007, and clouds barrelled towards the coast, driven by a wind that churned up dust and foretold of the downpour to come. Beyond the rusty dunes to the east, the Indian Ocean surged with equal force.
“It was scary,” says Mamjozi Danca, a traditional healer and grandmother who has lived here all her life.
Her family couldn’t bring the cattle in from grazing, and “even cooking wasn’t easy”. They hunkered down in their rondavel, a traditional round homestead with a thatched roof not far the now iconic mineral-dense dunes of Xolobeni on South Africa’s aptly named Wild Coast, to wait it out.
Xolobeni is a village on a 24 kilometre (15 mile) stretch of wilderness about four hours’ drive south of the port city of Durban. It has become synonymous with a two-decades long fight by the Indigenous amaMpondo against extractive mining interests that had their sites on the powdered titanium in the dunes here. There have also been more recent attempts to do seismic surveys to find offshore oil and gas deposits.’
Read the full story here.
“Xolobeni... has become synonymous with a two-decades long fight by the amaMpondo against extractive mining interests that had their sites on the powdered titanium in the dunes.”