International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

If only land were expropriated in South Africa…

Fani Ncapayi, Mercia Andrews — 2025-08-29T14:08:50Z

South Africans have been bombarded with criticisms of South Africa's Expropriation Act in recent months. It has even become a major talking point on social media platforms. One unforgettable moment was the infamous scene on national television featuring claims of “mass graves and killings” of white farmers, an absurd spectacle promoted by Trump and his allies in the White House. This propaganda video claimed that white farmers were being systematically murdered, feeding the narrative that the Expropriation Act was a tool for reverse racial discrimination, land seizure and genocide.

- IVP607 - August 2025 / South Africa, Farmers/peasants/land

Renewing the left: not just doom and gloom

Mercia Andrews — 2023-07-28T08:51:14Z

This article seeks to respond to the questions posed by Amandla! which relate to the South African Left in particular: where is the Left intellectually, programmatically and organisationally? What has happened to it, and why has it become so fragmented and marginal? Given the broadness of the questions, it is necessary to engage with them within a particular timeframe. Therefore this article is located in the post-apartheid political moment.

- IV582 - July 2023 / South Africa

Land at the centre of President Zuma's Radical Economic Transformation

Mercia Andrews — 2017-10-12T06:48:04Z

Farm workers and farm dwellers have generally been excluded “as beneficiaries” of radical land distribution.

- IV513 - October 2017 / South Africa

Claude Gabriel, Claude Jacquin (1947-2016): Comrade, friend and mentor – an immense human being

Brian Ashley, Mercia Andrews — 2016-05-02T10:58:15Z

This tribute was made at the the funeral of Claude Jacquin (see Claude Jacquin (Gabriel) â€” an internationalist commitment to the end) at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris on 27th April 2016 by Brian Ashley and Mercia Andrews.

- In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Obituary, Fourth International, South Africa

David and Goliath : The story of farm workers and farm bosses in the Breede River Valley

Mercia Andrews — 2013-07-22T14:23:38Z

On Wednesday 6 March 2013 in Ashton, 180 km from Cape Town, people started gathering for a meeting early in the morning. Outside the library, one could observe the expensive bakkies and luxury sedans of the consultants and lawyers representing 42 farms that had been called to a meeting by the (Commission for Conflict Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). The CCMA is a parastatal that has the power to mediate and solve conflict and problems between workers and their bosses.

- IV462 - July 2013 / South Africa

Harvesting discontent

Mercia Andrews — 2013-01-14T11:49:19Z

“I earn R800,00 per month and with this money I have to feed, clothe and fend for my family of eight. We barely survive; I cannot even afford to buy school shoes for the children. I cannot take it any longer”- Gertie Beukes, Ashton farmworker.
“We produce the food that we cannot even afford to buy, we often go hungry” says Denico Swartz, a farmworker from Robertson.”
(Farmworkers at a meeting in Ashton, Western Cape 26th November 2012)

- IV456 - January 2013 / South Africa

The ANC transformed

Mercia Andrews — 2012-06-19T15:00:58Z

The ANC celebrated its hundredth anniversary on the 8 January 2012. This is indeed a major achievement for the oldest liberation movement in Africa. In its history it has had to negotiate many difficult challenges, perhaps none more so than retaining a broad unity while maintaining the ability to act and implement strategy. This is a remarkable part of the history of the ANC and bears testimony to generations of extraordinary leaders who shaped and guided the ANC.

- IV449 - June 2012 / South Africa