Against the Tide by Steven Friedman

2026-04-30
The Cabinet has approved a bill which, if it becomes law, will allow courts to throw homeless people who occupy land onto the streets without a roof over their heads. So the coalition government is showing whose side it is on - and it is not the people whose side every government since 1994 said it was on.

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Steven Friedman is a public commentator and an academic, currently employed as a Research Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He has been writing on South African politics for the entire democratic period both as a scholar and public commentator. He has published books on South Africa’s transition to democracy, the role of the trade union movement, and current South African politics. He has also written columns and articles for several South African newspapers. His writing seeks to use academic research to shed light on current politics but to ensure that this is conveyed in a way easily understood by people who have no academic training.