Popular left magazine to launch

There has been a fair deluge of new consumer magazines on the South African markets recently, but here's something completely different and comes literally from left field. Amandla! makes its appearance this month and quite unlike all the other new magazines launched recently, it is very different, very intellectual and promisingly profound.

By Chris Moerdyk

13 Apr 2007

Published by Amandla Publishers, a collective of socialists based in Cape Town and formed in 2006, the new magazine promises in its publicity brochure not to be “dogmatic, doctrinaire of thick” but rather “popular and accessible”.

Popular left

It will be unashamedly aimed at a popular left market and will be “written by and for activists in political, labour and popular organisations as well as progressive intellectuals at the universities, NGOs, parliament, community based organisations, churches, journalists, lawyers and state institutions”.

The publishers are looking to build an “open, non-sectarian space” where perspectives on the left can be analysed, discussed and debated.

Forum for debate

Content will include coverage and analysis of current political developments, economic policy issues and social processes, as well as being a forum for debate on alternative strategies and perspectives on reconstruction, development, democracy and social transformation in South Africa while at the same time covering issues on the African continent.

Amandla Publishers is registered as a non-profit trust and contributors to the magazine will include Brian Ashely, Shiela Barsel, Jamie Claassen, Roger Etkind, Prakashnee Govender, Terry Bell, Sidney Kgara, Hamied Mohate, Yunus Omar and Mark Weinberg.

Managing editors are Brian Ashley and Mazibuko Jara and contact details are on www.amandlapublishers.com.

Chris Moerdyk

About Chris Moerdyk

Apart from being a corporate marketing analyst, advisor and media commentator, Chris Moerdyk is a former chairman of Bizcommunity. He was head of strategic planning and public affairs for BMW South Africa and spent 16 years in the creative and client service departments of ad agencies, ending up as resident director of Lindsay Smithers-FCB in KwaZulu-Natal. Email Chris on moc.liamg@ckydreom and follow him on Twitter at @chrismoerdyk.