29 June
On this day in 1949, a year after assuming power in South Africa, the Nationalist Party introduced apartheid with the passage of the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. The Group Areas Act, determining where people can live according to their race, was passed the following year.
On the same day in 1986, Zulu Chief Gatsha Buthelezi denounced a US bill proposing sanctions against the apartheid regime. His words, asserting that blacks ‘want more jobs, not less jobs. They want more investment, not less investment’, were seized upon by US president Ronald Reagan, who urged western governments to ‘resist this emotional clamour for punitive sanctions’. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher lined up alongside Buthelezi and Reagan, and against the ‘terrorist’ Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress.
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Even worse than failing to win office would be winning it while unprepared for the realities of government. Christine Berry considers what Labour needs to do to avoid the fate of Syriza in Greece
The crisis of Conservatism
The Conservative Party is in a process of ideological decline or even disintegration, argue James Butler and Richard Seymour.
Why we’ve joined the global climate strike
Landry Ninteretse and Ian Rivera share perspectives from Kenya and the Philippines and call for universal energy systems that are clean and renewable, public and decentralised
The World Transformed, FYI
Red Pepper’s picks of The World Transformed festival, in Brighton from 21-24 September
Take part in building a people’s manifesto for the movement
Winning elections is not enough. To transform society we need to involve the people in policy making, argue Kerem Dikerdem and Annie Quick
This is how we build a National Education Service in the UK
Chloe Tomlinson lays out the battle lines for a more egalitarian, democratic and holistic education system. Essential reading ahead of The World Transformed education sessions
Nurses say: Patients’ rights have no borders
As a US-friendly no-deal Brexit inches closer, Bonnie Castillo of National Nurses United explains why US nurses have joined the fight against NHS privatisation. Recommended reading ahead of The World Transformed health sessions
