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04 August 2020 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath

Apart from its devastating impact on people’s lives and livelihoods, the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the nature and quality of our democracies – democracy read in its widest sense here as collective and individual self-determination. Formal, institutional democracy has beencurtailed through the imposition of states of emergency or disaster and the logistical difficulties associated with social distancing. Extra-institutional democratic work, such as protest and social-movement activity, has suffered from prohibitions imposed by law and through state suppression related to ‘lockdown’. The nature (and perhaps democratic quality) of public conversation has changed – for better or worse – from increasing reliance on ‘science’ and ‘scientists’ to justify public choices. The crisis has brought to the fore already existing characteristics of our democracies, such as the prevalence and power of special-interest bargaining, the extreme inequality of our societies, and chauvinist nationalisms that force us to ask whether we have ever had democracy at all. What will be the long-term effects of these impacts of the crisis on our democracies? What will democracy look like post-COVID? What does the crisis teach us about what our democracies have always been?

Join us for a discussion of these and other democracy-related issues in these troubled times by a panel of four hailing from Colombia, India, South Africa, and the USA.

Date: Thursday, 13 August
Time: 14:00-16:00 (South African Standard Time – GMT +2)

 

Please RSVP to Mamello Serasengwe at serasengwemsm@ufs.ac.za no later than 12 August 2020 upon which you will receive a Skype for Business meeting invite and link to access the webinar

Panel

Prof Natalia Angel Cabo (University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia)

Dr Quaraysha Ismail-Sooliman (University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa)

Dr Usha Ramanathan  Independent Law Researcher  (Delhi, India)

Prof Katie Young (Boston College, Boston, USA) 

Moderator

Prof Danie Brand (Free State Centre for Human Rights, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa)   




News Archive

Prof. Strauss' book is launched
2010-08-18

 
At the launch were, from the left: Prof. Francois Tolmie, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the UFS; Prof. Pieter Strauss; and Wikus van Zyl, Manager: SUN MeDIA Bloemfontein.

Kerk en orde vandag: Met die klem op die NG Kerk was recently launched at a function in the Faculty of Theology at the University of the Free State (UFS). Prof. Pieter Strauss, Head of the Department of Church History and Polity at the UFS is the author of this book that is published by SUN MeDIA Bloemfontein.

The objective of the book is to provide the reader with an introductory view on the reformed church law. Therefore it concentrates on themes that are spread across the entire spectrum of the reformed church law.

The book endeavours to provide relevant background information for all the articles of the Church Order of the Dutch Reformed Church, but is not exhaustive in this regard. Prof. Strauss refrained from only writing about existing articles as positivist church law on purpose. He wanted to make more of the background, introductory questions and particularly a normative church law.

According to Prof. Andries le Roux du Plooy from the Faculty of Theology at the North-West University, Prof. Strauss gave evidence that he was experienced and excellently informed about all the themes and topics, had personal experience thereof, and that he could write critically and apologetically about it.

“I want to congratulate Prof. Strauss on the publication. To my mind, there are few other theologians that will be able to write about the topic in such a way with emphasis on the DR Church,” said Prof. Du Plooy.



 

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