CCS Events - Other Events

Dennis Brutus at Jubilee SA 10-year anniversary celebration, Johannesburg, 29-30 November 2008

The Present Political Situation and the Tasks of the Social Movements
Khanya building, 7th floor, 123 Pritchard Street, Johannesburg (corner Mooi)
29-30 November 2008

Aims of the Conference:

To celebrate 10 years of the formation of Jubilee South Africa

To provide a platform for social movements to debate the present political situation in the country

To provide a platform for social movements to exchange views about thekey tasks facing the movements in this period

To provide a platform for movements to explore the need for, and the possibilities for, united action in the present political situation.

Programme

Saturday: 29 November
Part I: Welcome and Reflections on 10 Years of Jubilee South Africa

0900 – 0920 Outline of purpose of Conference and Agenda for Conference

0920 – 0935 Welcome Delegates

0935 – 1100 Keynote Address: 10 years of JSA and the struggle for social
justice in post-apartheid South Africa

1100 - 1130 Break

Part II The present political situation and the tasks of the social movements

1130 – 1300 The present political situation and the tasks of the movements

This session will have three presentations followed by discussions:

The present economic crisis and spaces for intervention by the movements

The crisis in the ruling party, the changing political context and tasks of the movements

The state of the movements and the tasks

1300 – 1400 Lunch

1400 – 1515 Discussions continue on present political perspectives

1515 – 1615 Exploring a common political approach to the present political situation

Commissions’ Discussion Questions:

i. Does the present political situation provide a space for movements to
intervene?

ii. If movements intervene in the present situation, what should be the
aims of this intervention?

iii. What would be the key demands of the movements in such an intervention?

1615 – 1645 Break

1645 - 1730 Report-back on commissions There will be no discussions of the reports from the commissions. The reports will be synthesized by rapporteurs and presented the next day.

Part III Exploring common strategic and tactical responses the present
political situation

1730 – 1800 Mapping the responses of the various social movements to the
present situation and the coming elections
[This session will be made up of reports from all the social movements
present on discussions within the organizations on the coming elections]

1800 – 1930 Supper

1930 – 2300 Celebrating 10 Years of JSA – Cultural Event
[Programme to be announced]

Sunday: 30 November

0830 – 0845 Housekeeping and recap on Programme for the day

0845 – 1000 Presentation and discussion of explorations on common
political response to present political period

1000 -1030 Break

1030 – 1130 The elections and the political-organisational principles of
cooperation

This session will be made up of two parallel commissions.

Commission 1: Tactical attitude to the elections
What tactical attitude should the coalition or front adopt to the coming
elections?

Commission 2: Political and organizational principles
What should be the political and organizational principles that should
guide the work of the front? How will the members of the front related
to each other? What political identity will the front adopt? How will
the front ensure the independence and autonomy of its members?

1130 – 1230 Report back from the Commissions

1230 – 1330 Lunch

1330 – 1430 Exploring the organisation and campaigns of the coalition/front

This session will have two parallel commissions

Commission 1: Organisational structure of the front
How should the coalition be organized at a political level? How should
the front be organised in order to ensure strong coordination in action?
How should be the operational structures of the coalition/front look like?

Commission 2: The Coalition/Front’s campaign
How should the front approach its campaign? What should be the key
elements of its campaigns? How will these campaigns link with the
existing campaigns of the members of the front? Who shall the campaign
target?

1430 – 1530 Reports from Commissions and Discussions

1530 – 1630 Way Forward

CCS celebrates Dennis Brutus's 84 birthday 28 November 2008

The Centre for Civil Society presents a book launch and birthday party

DENNIS BRUTUS at 84 and
a critical CLIMATE CHANGE book
(UKZN Press, edited by Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada and Graham Erion)

DATE: Friday 28 November
TIME: 5:30pm (for 6)
VENUE: Ike’s Books 48a Florida Ave
Greyville, central Durban

All welcome! No charge for admission, but RSVP is essential for catering.
CCS contacts: Helen or Lungi at 031 260 3195

Brutus is one of South Africa's greatest civil society activists, having
developed social justice traditions in education, media,
literature/poetry, sports, international relations, labour and community
politics. He served on Robben Island with Mandela and was the main
organiser of anti-apartheid athletics boycotts. Brutus is amongst the
most celebrated of Africa's poets, and was recently was awarded a
Lifetime Achievement award by the SA ministry of culture, and a 2009
honorary doctorate by Rhodes University. He is a UKZN Honorary Professor
based at CCS, and his most recent book is Poetry and Protest (UKZN Press).

BOOK LAUNCH: Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments
edited by Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada and Graham Erion
ISBN: 978 1 86914 123 3
http://www.ukznpress.co.za

CAN GLOBAL WARMING BE MITIGATED BY CARBON TRADING?
With climate change posing perhaps the gravest threat to humanity in
coming decades, and with free market economics still hegemonic, it is
little wonder so much effort has gone into creating a carbon market, no
matter how much evidence has recently emerged about its flaws.

A revealing pilot site, South Africa has initiated carbon trading
projects with adverse economic, environmental and social impacts. South
Africa pollutes at a rate twenty times higher than even the United
States, measured by CO2 emissions generated by each GDP dollar per
person, so the idea of trading for carbon reductions is seductive – and
potentially lucrative. Current state policy is supportive and a former
environment minister is a market promoter, alongside the World Bank, the
Dutch government and big oil companies.

The most destructive effect of the carbon offset trade is that it
allows us to believe we can carry on polluting. This crucially-needed
book provides ample evidence of the trade’s other dangers to
‘beneficiaries’, with case studies of fraud, accounting tricks and
maltreatment of people and the environment.
George Monbiot, Guardian columnist and author of Heat

Oliver Meth at SA Domestic Violence Act conference 26-28 November 2008

Oliver Meth at The South African Domestic Violence Act: Lessons from a Decade of Legislation and Implementation”, Johannesburg 26-28 November

Dear Oliver Meth
It is with pleasure that we invite you take part in the national conference: “The South African Domestic Violence Act: Lessons from a Decade of Legislation and Implementation”, in Johannesburg, South Africa, from the 26 -28th November, 2008.

Since transformation in 1994 – as a result and influence of the country’s women’s movement and some committed parliamentarians - the democratic government has developed and introduced key legislation and policies to address the high levels of domestic violence against women. South Africa has attempted to follow international trends in this regard, aiming at developing coordinated policy and practice responses and integrated service delivery to the survivors of domestic violence. The key piece of legislation passed by the South African government to address domestic violence is the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998.

On par with the criminal justice approach, the South African civil society has in the past ten years developed and implemented a number of interventions ranging from public awareness and education campaigns to provision of counselling, legal services and sheltering for survivors of domestic violence.

The conference aims to:

Take stock of the progress made in the struggle against domestic violence in South Africa since the promulgation of the Act.

Reflect on the gains and challenges faced by both government and civil society in the eradication of domestic violence.

Share and debate the developments at the continental and international level in the field of domestic violence.

Map the way forward.

Besides the formal conference panels, the conference will organise side events such as: book launches, educational material exhibition, photographic exhibitions, movies, etc.

We hope to create a space for reflection and agenda setting. We look forward to the participation of women from all walks of life in South Africa, as well as guest speakers from the SADC region and the rest of the word. We encourage the participation of women from all provinces, from urban to rural areas, women from NGOs and CBOs, and from government and civil society.

Looking forward to seeing you in Johannesburg!

Domestic Violence Act Conference Working Group: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), Gender, Health & Justice Research Unit at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Gender Links, Kwa-Zulu Natal Network on Violence Against Women, , Masimanyane, Mosaic, Nisaa Institute for Women’s Development, People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme, Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre (TLAC), Western Cape Network on Violence Against Women and Women’sNet.

Dennis Brutus at Boston 'Encuentro5', 23 November 2008

Sunday, November 23, 2008, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
A treat: Dennis Brutus, one of the most famous anti-apartheid activists from South Africa, will come to E5 for a special presentation on Global Apartheid and Global Justice. Dennis was imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela. He is a well known South African poet as well as an activist. Over the last decade he has been active in the global justice movement.

DURBAN SINGS: CCS Audio workshops 21- 26 Novmber 2008

Molefi and Claudia are out on first introductory audio workshops with four Youth groups towards the Durban Sings project which is planned to run with 10 different groups (including also two women and two refugee groups) next year:

Fri 21st November in Folweni Township, Umbumbulu (Imisebenzi Yentsha)

Sat 22nd November in Mznyathi (Ibutho Losondonzima, MYD)

Tue 25th November in Clermont

Wed 26th November Inanda (Youth in Action)

Links to preceding audio work from the Albert Park group of DPC refugees can be found at:
http://www.archive.org/details/DurbanSings
http://www.archive.org/details/DurbanSings_84
http://www.archive.org/details/DurbanSings_34

More to come!

You can tune in via www.archive.org
keyword: Durban Sings, or via
http://www.radiocontinentaldrift.wordpress.com

New link for SASF audio:
http://www.archive.org/details/CCS_on_SASF_2008

Southern African Social Forum (SASF)
audio reports from Manzini Swaziland October 2008

The two clips presented here are summery reports about the events in Swaziland based on recordings and texts generated during the forum. radio-ContinentalDrift joined CCS members Faith ka Manzi and Molefi Ndlovu. The first clip was recorded during a public presentation about the SASF, preceding the Wolpe lecture by Tendai Biti at UKZN on 30 October 2008 (also under: http://www.archive.org/details/CcsHaroldWolpeLecture30Oct2008). The second clip is an edited mix by Molefi Ndlovu of songs and voices gathered at and around the forum.

Text reports and images can be found on the website of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) at: http://www/ukzn.ac.za/ccs

Further clips with songs and interviews from the forum will follow
keyword: CCS_on_SASF_2008

These audio reports are published to feed debate and listening exchange. Comments and responses (written or audio) or links and reports of related events are very welcome and can be posted to the contacts below. For audio comments, please up-load your recordings on archive.org and send us the links via the contacts below.

http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za
http://www.radiocontinentaldrift.wordpress.com

DURBAN SINGS introductory audio media workshops
with 4 community groups Nov- Dec 2008

Clermont: Ubuntu Babasha
Folweni Township: Imisebenzi Yentsha
Inanda Newtown A: Youth in Action
Mznyathi: Ibutolondonzima

In these workshops, 4 community groups were testing audio media techniques and slow broadcast concepts developed with black youth in South London during the NO-GO-ZONES audio radio project (www.nogozones.wordpress.com); if and how these methods would translate to the communication needs and desires of young people and community groups in KwaZulu-Natal. The attached texts and the audio links to archive.org on the blog www.durbansings.wordpress.com give details on the process and outcomes of the recordings and on-line work.

text DURBAN SINGS workshop programme

DURBAN SINGS one-week intensive audio media and oral history workshop with 20 co-ordinators of 10 community groups
Februray 2009

Clermont: Thembinkosi Daemane and Sibusiso Mazibuko: Ubuntu Babasha
Chatsworth: Alisha Joseph and Smantha: (Westcliff Flats Residents Association)
Folweni Township: Thulile Zama and Phumelele Dlovo: Imizebenzi yentsha
Marianridge: Beverly Webster and Lucy Kok: MCC (Marian Coordinating Committee)
Merebank: Mrs. L. Perumal and Greesen Perumal: SDCEA (South Durban Community Environmental Aliance)
Mzinyathi: Mthokozisi Ngcobo and Zine Ngcobo: MYD (Malungisa Youth Development)
Inanda Newtown A: Mkhonza Nhlanhla and Nkosinathi Buwa: Youth in Action
Inanda: Phindilie Xulu and Nkosinathi Xulu: Abasha
Umlazi: Nsikelolo Shabane and Gril Linda Nezi: Umlazi Youth Organisation)
Wentworth: Mrs. S. Leafe: CCS

In this CCS certified one-week workshop the specific audio media techniques and oral history methodology for the DURBAN SINGS project were collectively developed, practiced and discussed. More details, text documents and on-line audio from the workshop can be accessed via: http://durbansings.wordpress.com/audio-media-andoral-history-workshop/

DURBAN SINGS one-day follow-up workshop
March 2009

In this one-day workshop, each of the DURBAN SINGS editorial collectives was presenting and discussing their specific local adaptation of the general techniques and methodology which were agreed upon in the previous one-week workshop (on-line update to follow soon via http://www.durbansings.wordpress.com )

Dennis Brutus at Worcester State College 17 -20 November 2008

PHOTOS of Dennis Brutus Week at Worcester State:

Noted Poet and Human Rights Activist Returns to Campus

“Stubborn Hope: A Celebration of Commitment and Action towards Human Rights”

The Center for the Study of Human Rights welcomes noted poet and human
rights activist Dennis Brutus back to the Worcester State College campus
to celebrate completion of the expanded Dennis Brutus Collection at WSC.
Events will highlight the ongoing struggle for social justice.

Reparations for Victims of Apartheid
Date: Monday, November 17
Time: 9:30 to 10:20 a.m.
Venue: Student Center, Blue Lounge

Dennis Brutus will discuss the issue of reparation for the victims of
apartheid in South Africa.
The talk will be followed by Q&A.

Human Rights at Worcester State College:
Past and Present
Date: Tuesday, November 18,
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Venue: Student Center, North/South Auditorium

Wayne Kamin, archivist of the Brutus Collection, will discuss completion of the expanded Dennis Brutus Collection at WSC, and the achievements of Dennis Brutus and Merrill Goldwyn.

Amnesty International’s Struggle for Human Rights
Date: Wednesday, November 19, Time: 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Venue: Student Center, Blue Lounge
Josh Rubenstein of Amnesty International, Dennis Brutus, and other
panelists will discuss Amnesty International (AI)and their work with
political prisoners between 11:30am and 12:20pm. After a short break, at
12:30pm, the WSC Amnesty International student group will present on
AI events past, present and future.

Faith Zeady Memorial Dialogues on Globalization and Human Rights
presents Global Poverty and Inequality as a
Human Rights Issue
Date: Thursday, November 20,
Time: 2:15 to 4 p.m.
Venue: Ghosh Science Center - Room 102

Panel that includes Dennis Brutus and representatives from organizations
including Grassroots International and faculty from Harvard University,
Clark University, and others will discuss how governments and financial
institutions such as the World Bank violate human rights through their
policies whose stated intention is economic development but effects have
been otherwise.

Art and the Struggle for Social Justice
Date: Thursday, November 20,
Time: 6 to 9 p.m.
Venue: Ghosh Science Center, Room 102

WSC Literature professor Ken Gibbs will moderate an evening of poetry.
Dennis Brutus, Marjorie Agosín, Gertrude Halstead, and other prominent
poets will read on various topics relating to human rights and social
justice broadly conceived. Students from the Consortium will also share
their poetry.There will be live music in the lobby and visual art to
complete the experience. In addition, before the reading the College
will honor Dennis Brutus and Merrill Goldwyn.
Hors d’oeuvres and light refreshments will be provided

Sponsored by The Center for the Study of Human Rights, the Department of
Languages and Literature, the Office of Academic Affairs, The Faith
Zeady Foundation, the Office of Diversity, the Department of Sociology,
the Department for Urban Studies, the Honors Program and the Center for
Global Studies.

Contact: Lea Ann Erickson
Assistant Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing Phone: 508-929-8018

Orlean Naidoo at the AWID Forum, Cape Town, 14 -17 November 2008

Speaker: Orlean Naidoo
Seminar: The struggle for housing in South Africa and Canada: Documenting resistance.
Date: Saturday, November 15 2008
Time: 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM.
Venue: Cape Town International Convention Center,Room 2.44-5

Introduction
From November 14-17, 2008, at the Cape Town International Convention Center, up to 1,500 women's rights leaders and activists from around the world will converge on Cape Town, South Africa at the 11th AWID International Forum to discuss the power of movements.

What is AWID?
The Association for Women's Rights in Development is an international membership organisation that works to strengthen the voice, impact and influence of women's rights advocates, organizations and movements internationally to effectively advance the rights of women.

What is the Forum?
The International Forum on Women's Rights and Development is both a conference and a call to action. The largest recurring event of its kind, the AWID Forum brings together women's rights leaders and activists from around the world every three years to strategize, network, celebrate, and learn in a highly charged atmosphere that fosters deep discussions and sustained personal and professional growth.

Delegates to the Forum participate in four days of plenary speeches, interactive sessions, workshops, debates, and creative sessions geared to powerful thinking on gender equality and women's human rights. Delegates also participate in informal caucuses, gala events, cultural activities, and social and political events geared to global and regional networking and alliance-building.

Delegates who participate fully in the Forum not only empower themselves with new tools and resources, but they also, collectively, re-politicize the gender and development community, strengthen alliances between women, and engage in work and thinking that is truly transformative rather than simply palliative.

Who can participate?
Participation in the AWID Forum is open to anyone who works or has an interest in women's rights, international development, and social justice. AWID particularly welcomes women and men from the Global South, young women, and marginalized groups that have had difficulty getting their agenda heard on a global stage.

What can I expect from the Forum?
You can expect to be enlightened, provoked and inspired by an exceptional group of thoughtful, forward-looking and fiercely committed women and men. You can expect to move beyond simply talking to getting involved in global action plans and campaigns that will emerge out of the Forum, but will last well beyond it. You can expect to work hard and gain an abundance of new skills, new knowledge, new colleagues, and new ideas for the long road ahead. You can expect to be welcomed, nurtured, fortified and challenged by a group of like-minded activists, academics and practitioners. And finally, you can expect to have more fun than you thought was possible at a conference!
http://www.awid.org/forum08/pre_forum_documents.htm

Patrick Bond at the Osisa Financial Crisis Policy Seminar 14-15 November 2008

Emerging African resistance to economic crisis, global finance, free trade and corporate profit-taking…
and why Barack Obama’s advisors could hurt Africa (again)
By Patrick Bond
For discussion at the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa Global Financial Crisis Policy Seminar

The global economic crisis: Capitalist roots and financial shoots
Slideshow from Patrick's Paper

Programme for the Global Financial Crisis Policy Seminar

Date: 14th -15th November 2008
Venue: Attic Room, Sunnyside Park Hotel, Prince of Wales Terrace,
Parktown, Johannesburg (Tel: +27-11-640 0400)

08:00 - 08:30 Registration:

08:30 Welcome Remarks: Sisonke Msimang, Executive Director, Open
Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
Outline of the Objectives of the Seminar: Deprose Muchena, Program
Manager, Economic Justice Programme, OSISA

09:00 – 11:00 Session One: Global Financial Crisis: Origins, Context, Nature and Impact: Perspectives from Policy makers

With the onset of the global financial crisis, diplomatic shuttling
within Europe and America has dominated the news. World leaders and
finance ministers, central bank governors and investors have all come
together in a rather dramatic fashion. The desire to save capitalism
from collapse, the coordination and cooperation, the huge sums of money
mobilized in a very short period of time and the overall narrative that
has been deployed is one that has put the crisis at the front and center
for the global development debate, of development itself and of
globalization. This session will seek to promote an understanding of the
global financial crisis, its origins, nature, effect and impact on
global economic development. What actually happened? How has Europe and
America responded? What is the overall context of globalization that has
triggered this global crisis? Are we seeing a final agreement emerging
that “market fundamentalism” is necessary but evidently insufficient for
the resolution of global economic problems?

Chair – Prof. Dipac Jaiantilal, Instituto de Investigacão para o
Desenvolvimento José Negrão

Evolution of the crisis and lessons for African economies and policy
makers: Daniel Munene, Academic Development Coordination Unit,
University of Cape Town

Regional Economic Outlook for SADC: Are Southern African economies
positioned to tackle the impact of the global financial crisis?

The South African experience: Ashraf Kariem, Policy Coordination and
Advisory Services (Economic Sector Unit), the Presidency (South Africa)

The Zambian experience: Patrick Nshindano, Zambia Economics Association

11:00 – 11:15 Tea Break: 15 minutes

11:15 – 13:15 Session Three: The financial crisis and the global poverty, humanitarian, trade and development impact:

A great deal of money has been poured into the global financial markets
to either inject much needed liquidity in the financial markets, to
restore confidence in the banking and financial markets or to stop an
inevitable recession in eh globalized economies of the north. The speed
of action, the level of resources injected into the markets and resolve
and conviction by the global leaders, is simply put, unprecedented.
Upwards of Two Trillion British pounds has been made available in a very
short period of time. That commitment is unmatched. Global targets on
poverty, of development, access to water sanitation, child mortality and
the MDGs have not been accompanied by similar commitments and leaders
and consequently issues of global poverty and humanitarian crisis across
the globe in general and in Africa in particular are still with us, seem
to be with us long after the financial crisis has been resolved. What
are the incentives that under guide different attitudinal approaches to
these crisis? What are the likely impacts of this crisis, on poverty,
inequality and underdevelopment in general? What is the response of
civil society? This session will provide some perspectives in answering
these questions.

Chair: Raenette Taljaard, Helen Suzman Foundation

Understanding the impact of the global financial crisis on poverty,
social justice and human development in (Southern) Africa: Neville
Gabrielle, Southern Africa Trust

Mozambique's budget framework and dependence on donor aid, Prof. Dipac
Jaiantilal

13:15 Lunch Break

14:15-16:15 Session Four: Emerging African resistance to global financial regimes, free trade and social development:

Some analysts have pointed out the failure of a model of development;
the crisis of the neoliberal paradigm of development under its faltering
Washington Consensus has the root cause of the crisis. They have called
for new, radical forms of reorganization the global economy, the much
needed reforms of the global financial institutions, the IMF, World Bank
and its cousins, including a resistance movement by the global south.
Recently European leaders have also stated questioning the theory of the
“invisible hand”, the supremacy of the markets and the urgent need for
regulation, redeploying the state as a protector and regulator of
markets. Is this the time to show evidence of proof that the anti
globalization movement, the Social Forum Platform and those who called
for reforms of the World Bank and IMF have ALWAYS been right! This
session will navigate these analytical issues.

The limits of singular commodity driven boom: Is the Angolan oil boom
sustainable? – Manuel Jose Alves Rocha

The Multilateral Financial Institutions and the Development of Africa:
Are they still relevant?: Michelle Pressend, Institute for Global Dialogue

Global financial domination, corporate profiteering and free trade: An
analytical perspective: Prof. Patrick Bond, Centre for Civil Society

16:15 Tea Break

16:30 Special Presentation: Global perspectives on the crisis: Triggers,
context and impact on global development Prof. Daniel Bradlow, American
University, Washington College of Law (via video conference)
Saturday, 15 November

09:00-10:30 Session Five: Global and African Media coverage of the Financial Crisis:

An analysis of the dominant discourse in international and South African
media: Prof. Fackson Banda, School of Journalism & Media Studies, Rhodes
University

Creating capacity for African journalists to cover economic developments
– lessons from the media coverage of the crisis: Reg Rumney, Centre for
Economics Journalism in Africa (CEJA)

10:30-11:00 Tea Break

11:00 Session Six: In search of alternative development paradigm:
Continuity or change? Working class struggles, the biting food, energy
and financial crises: Some options and alternatives to capital and
neoliberal development approaches-

The financial crisis currently obtaining is in many ways the
manifestation of the crisis of global capitalism. A number of scholars,
civil society formations and trade union bodies have been vindicated.
Calls for a totally new paradigm of development have been made and
proposals have been made right from the days of the African governments
backed Lagos Plan of Action to the new trade union and civil society
backed Alternatives to Neoliberalism In Africa ( ANSA). Social
mobilization is currently being sustained on understanding alternative
frameworks, mobilization that is likely gain momentum now. Could it be
the time to renew the vigour of “alternatives?” Are the alternatives
coherent, robust and sustainable enough to replace the dominant model?
This session will deliver some answers.

Chair: Davie Malungisa, IDAZIM Executive Director
Herbert Jauch, Labour Resource and Research Institute of Namibia
Dr. Godfrey Kanyenze, Executive Director, Labour and Economic
Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ)
Bongani Masuku, Congress of South African Trades Union (COSATU)

12:30 Closing Session: Presentation of draft proposals on research and
advocacy agenda by Task Team
Summing up and closing: Deprose Muchena, OSISA

More

EARTHNOTES ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL, 10 -14 November 2008

The University of KwaZulu Natal Centre for Civil Society in collaboration with DLIST information sharing community, bring you:

EARTHNOTES ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL

A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil, Source, A World Without Water, Paradise Under Pressure, Crude Impact

Monday, November 10 – Source
Martin Marecék 2005 Czech Republic 75min

Baku in Azerbaijan, the site of the world's first oil well, is once again becoming a focus for foreign investors eager to exploit the country's vast oil riches. Source traces the pipeline from our commuter highways back to this surreal and sinister landscape on which our way of life depends, where cows graze on polluted land and children play in toxic gunge. With three quarters of the population living under the poverty line, the country's post-Soviet government is promising oil will turn Azerbaijan into a “real country”, a prosperous and flourishing “New Kuwait”. But between large oil companies and the corrupt government lining their pockets, what does this mean for the ordinary people of Azerbaijan? Is this “liquid gold” more of a curse than a blessing for this troubled country? Source is a documentary film about the social and environmental implications of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Azerbaijan. Source has won the MDR Award for excellent Eastern European documentary film at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, the Golden Award for Best Documentary Film at the Catalonia Environmental Film Festival and many others.

Tuesday, November 11 - A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil
Giovanni Vaz Del Bello 2006 Brazil 52min

Informative, inspirational documentary aimed at sharing ideas to provoke environment-friendly and cost-effective changes in cities worldwide. The documentary focuses on innovations in transportation, recycling, social benefits including affordable housing, seasonal parks, and the processes that transformed Curitiba into one of the most livable cities in the world. Cities should be a solution not a problem for human beings. The city of Curitiba has demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems into cost-effective solutions that can be applied in most cities around the world. Winner of the Bronze Remi Award, Worldfest in Houston.

Wednesday, November 12 - Paradise Under Pressure
Nick Chevalier 1996 South Africa 52 min

Paradise under Pressure takes us to Maputaland, the region between Lake St Lucia in South Africa and Mozambique. The documentary explores the fascinating interplay between the local communities and their incredibly diverse environment. It reveals how the people in Maputaland still follow traditional methods of natural resource use, and highlights the region’s fragility in face of existing pressures from agriculture, deforestation, mining and tourism.

Thursday, November 13 - A World Without Water
Brian Woods 2006 UK/Bolivia/Tanzania/India/USA 75min

BAFTA award-winning film-maker Brian Woods investigates the future of the world’s water and paints a disturbing picture of a planet running out of the most basic of life essentials. A World Without Water tells the intimate and revealing story of the dramatic impact of the battle for water ownership on the lives of four disparate groups of people across the developing world and in the heart of the planet’s richest nation: families in Bolivia, India, Tanzania and the USA. Beyond the individual human cost of access to water, the film looks at the present and future battle for its ownership and how those living in water-rich countries hold the survival of the planet in their (currently) well-washed hands. Winner of the Special Prince Rainier III Prize in Monte Carlo and nominated for the Prix Italia, the Grierson Documentary Awards, and the Televisual Bulldog Awards.

Friday, November 14 - Crude impact
James Jandak Wood 2006 USA 98min

Crude Impact is a powerful and timely story that deftly explores the interconnection between human domination of the planet and the discovery and use of oil. This documentary film exposes our deep rooted dependency on the availability of fossil fuel energy and examines the future implications of peak oil – the point in time when the amount of petroleum worldwide begins a steady, inexorable decline. Journeying from the West African delta region to the heart of the Amazon rainforest, from Washington to Shanghai, from early man to the unknown future, Crude Impact chronicles the collision of our insatiable appetite for oil with the rights and livelihoods of indigenous cultures, other species and the planet itself. The objective of the film is to promote positive, hopeful change in the way we source and use energy.

For further information, and details of the programme, contact Oliver Meth at the Centre for Civil Society on 031 260 3577 or 076 473 6555

Patrick Bond, Dennis Brutus and Molefi Ndlovu lecture to Focus on the Global South 10 & 18 November 2008

International Course on Globalization and Social Transformation Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, Thailand

Course description
The course seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the theoretical approaches to, and the main empirical issues related to economic
globalisation and social transformation. It will highlight the relationship between globalisation’s winners and losers, its enforcers and the many forms of resistances against its current form. It will explore the many forms of collective action that endeavour to create an alternative globalisation.

Course Objectives
1. Deepen understanding of the characteristics of the current neoliberal
globalisation, and its impacts to developing countries, the resulting
macroeconomic and social policy options for governments and their
implications to people’s lives and livelihood;
2. Deepen understanding of democracy and social transformation
3. Explore the spaces and opportunities for civil society advocacy for
global and national economic justice in relation to issues concerning
trade, finance, environment, gender equality and human security;
4. Explore and assess the actors, forces and processes that lead to
political and social change;
5. Share and formulate strategies for collective action.

Requirements from participants:
1. Read course literatures and participate in the discussions;
2. Present an oral report/summary (at least once) of own understanding
about the assigned readings for a particular session;
3. Make a short, informal presentation about an economic or political
policy problem that is connected to any of the topic/s covered in Part I
or 2 of the course;
4. After the course, write an essay (between 1,250 - 5000 words) that
relates to the topics covered in the course to your own work using
rigorous theory from the discussions, empirical evidence and concrete
advocacy experiences to back up your arguments. This can be featured in
Focus’ online newsletter or public media in your own country.

Course Coordinators: Ms. Dorothy Guerrero Dr. Richard Westra (Pukyong
National University)

Invited Lecturers/Facilitators:Mr. Christophe Aguitton (ATTAC France)
Dr. Chris Baker (freelance writer, researcher, editor)
Dr. Patrick Bond (University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA)
Prof. Dennis Brutus (University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA)
Ms. Nicola Bullard (Focus on the Global South)
Mr. Jacques-chai Chomthongdi (Focus on the Global South)
Ms. Dorothy Guerrero (Focus on the Global South)
Mr. Molefi Ndlovu (University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA)
Dr. Richard Westra (Pukyong National University)
Dr. Surichai Wun’Gaeo, (Chulalongkorn University)

Course Outline
November 2 Arrival of Participants to the Pinnacle Hotel
Pinnacle Lumpini Hotel and Spa
17 Soi Ngam Dupli Rama 4 Road
Sathorn district, Bangkok 10120
Phone: (+66-2) 287 0111-31

November 3 Orientation Day
Morning CUSRI Conference Room
4th floor of CUSRI Bldg
Wisit Prachuabmoh Bldg. Chulalongkorn University
Henry Dunant Road, Bangkok

10:00 – 11:00 Introduction by course participants and Focus Staff

11:00 – 13:00 The Current Situation in Thailand
Mr. Chris Baker Freelance writer, researcher and editor

13:00 – 14:00 Welcome Reception

Afternoon Course Opening
14:00 – 15:30 Welcome RemarksDr. Surichai Wun’Gaeo
Director, Chulalongkorn University Social
Research Institute

Ms. Chanida Bamford
Coordinator, Focus on the Global South

15:30 – 17:00 Course Introduction, Expectations, CourseRequirementsMs.
Dorothy Guerrero
Course Co-ordinator, Focus on the Global South

17:00 – 18:00 Chulalongkorn University Tour
Led by Ms. Tu Wenwen and Su Yutin
Focus on the Global South

Day 1 (Nov. 4) Part I: Introduction to Global Political Economy andMacroeconomic Process

Whole Day What is Capitalism? Nature, Definitions and Phases of Capitalism

To properly deal with the pressing issues of today – such as those
surrounding globalization, the prospects for development of the global
south, and the current financial and economic malaise – it is imperative
that we ground our thinking in a solid understanding of that major
economic force which has impacted human life over the past several
centuries: capitalism. Capitalism, as all other types of human society
that have existed across the sweep of human history, necessarily has at
its core key operative principles through which it is able to guarantee
the material economic reproducibility of human society. We shall look
carefully at what the particular principles of operation of capitalism
are. And we will think clearly about differences between capitalism and
other forms of human society that have existed in history. Finally, when
we have established what capitalism is, or defined it, we will examine
the way capitalism has been transformed in each of its world historic
phases or stages of development. Our discussion will conclude with
questions of the limits to capitalism in history.Dr. Richard Westra
Assistant Professor
Division of International and Area Studies
Pukyong National University, South Korea

Readings:
Karl Polanyi, The Self-regulating Market and the Fictitious Commodities:
labour, land, and money in The Global Resistance Reader, Louise Amoore
(ed) London and New York: Routledge, 2005 p48-53.
Robert Brenner, The Origins of Capitalist Development: a critique of
Neo- Smithian Marxism, in New Left Review 104, 1977 pp.25-92

Day 2 (Nov. 5)
Morning
10:00 – 13:00 Approaches to Economic Development and their Policy
Implications from the post-war period to the present

Development studies had its birth as an academic discipline in Western
academies following the Second World War. The impetus to its growth as
an academic discipline was the wholesale decolonization and unravelling
of pre-war imperialist empires and the emergence of host of “new” states
on the global stage. In this seminar we will look at the three central
paradigms of development theory: the Modernization approach, theories of
“dependency” and “world systems”, and the perspective of “global
fordism” and the new international division of labour” (NIDL). Our
discussion will focus on the way in which each of these dominant
paradigms in development studies draw empirically upon the development
experiences of particular regions of the global south: and how they
extrapolate from their analysis, varying policy implications. We will
conclude by examining the way in which Modernization theory, the
formative development paradigm, largely discredited in the 1960s and
70s, was reborn in the 1990s under the rubric of neoliberal policy. Dr.
Richard Westra

Readings:
Richard Westra, “The Capitalist Stage of Consumerism and South
KoreanDevelopment”, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 36 Issue 1
(February 2006) pp. 3-25.

Richard Westra, “Socialist Development Theory in the Era of Neoliberal
Globalization: Surmounting the Impasse”, Marxism 21, Vol.5 Issue 2,
(2008 originally published in Korean).

Afternoon
14:00 – 17:00 Neoliberalism, Globalization and Development

Dennis Brutus, Molefi Ndlovu and Patrick Bond
Centre for Civil Society, School of Development Studies
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

Readings:
Patrick Bond, The US financial meltdown: What really happened - Roots of
the economic crisis in over-accumulation, financialisation and ‘global
apartheid’, paper presented to the Centre for Civil Society Seminar
Series, 3 October 2008
David Harvey, The Neoliberal State, in A Brief history of Neoliberalism,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005

Day 3 (Nov. 6) Globalization: Consensus and Differences
Morning
10:00 – 13:00
Two major perspectives on the world historic phenomenon of globalization dominates current discussion and debate. The first is the “hyperglobalization thesis”. This perspective, in both its neo-liberal and “postmodernist”/neo-Marxist representations adverts
quite simply to the view that the multiplication and cross-cutting of
cross-border transnational production, financial and trading linkages
and networks has ushered in a new historical epoch in which the notions
of a national economy and the Westphalia nation-state system itself have
been rendered obsolete. Neo-liberal contributions, it may be noted, resurrect the core tenets of the old modernization theory; that globalization realizes world economic neo-classical “perfect” market integration as well as a convergence of market systems and, of course, manifests an inexorable telos. Radical hyperglobalist approaches, on the other hand,
emphasize the ascendancy and triumph of a “global capitalism” and the “powerlessness” of the state and its policy arsenal in the face of it.
The second perspective is the “skeptical thesis”, which strives to counter the hyperglobalist position at every turn through extensive empirical evidentialization. Skeptics, for example, hold that the realities of the world economy, far from constituting a monolithic global capitalism or perfect market integration, in fact involve extreme asymmetries. They cite the growing disparities of wealth including the absolute impoverishment and marginalizing of whole regions despite world economic interpenetration – including the waves of “liberalization” and “openings” enforced by international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. Skeptics also demonstrate that strategic patterning of transnational corporate (TNC) production, finance and trade, if remarkable in any novel way in the latter quarter of the past century reflects “regionalization” rather than globalization. That is, varying forms of capitalist investment tend to both emanate from and concentrate in a triad of capitalist blocs – North America, the European Union (EU) and Japan/North East Asia – and if there exist anysignificant extra-triad investment flow it has been into the wider area of East Asia.

The skeptical thesis interrogates hyperglobalist claims through
comparative studies of levels of internationalization of trade, foreign
direct investment (FDI) flows and internationalization of finance across
capitalist history, though particularly in comparisons of the periods of
the first quarter and last quarter of the past century, only to discover
much “hot air”. That is, in aggregate terms, so the argument goes, the
former period was significantly more ‘global’.

However, it is accepted that if there exists one component of the
hyperglobalist package that should be taken into account in
differentiating the internationalization of the current conjuncture it
is the revolutionary mechanisms of globalised finance – information
technology, novel financial instruments such as derivatives and so on.

Let us have an exciting debate over which of these perspectives on
globalization best captures its operation? Or, are both of them lacking?
And do we need another theory of globalization to better grasp what is
going on in our world today?

One hour input by Richard Westra and then “Meaning of Globalization debate”

Readings:
Peter Dicken, Questioning Globalization, in Global Shift: Mapping the
Changing Contours of the World Economy – 5th edition, New York and
London: Guilford Press, 2007
David Harvey, From Globalization to the New Imperialism, in Critical
Globalization Studies (Appelbaum and Robinsons, eds), New York and
London: Routledge, 2005 pp. 91-100
Boaventura de Souza Santos, The Process of Globalization, Eurozine, 2002
Richard Westra, “Globalization: The Retreat of Capital to the
‘Interstices’ of the World?”, in Richard Westra and Alan Zuege (eds.),
Value and the World Economy Today: Production, Finance and Globalization
(Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2003).

Afternoon
Globalization and the Global Trade Regime
14:00 – 17:00
Many multilateral institutions and agreements serve as the main
mechanisms of economic globalization by putting in the policy
architecture for trade, investment and financial deregulation and
privatization. Because of the very slow process of the Doha Round of
negotiations in the World Trade Organization due to the irreconcilable
positions of the rich and poor countries, the powerful countries are
turning to bilateral and regional agreements to push for economic dominance.

This session will discuss the framework, mandate and elements of the new
generation of free trade agreements and identify critical issues facing
peoples in the wake of increasing push for trade and investment
liberalization and the strong push for FTAs Mr. Jacques-chai Chomthongdi
Focus on the Global South

Readings:
Kamal Malhotra et. al. The Global Trade Regime in Making Global Trade
Work for People, London and Sterling: Earthscan, 2003
Kamal Malhotra et. al. Towards A Human Development-Oriented Global Trade
Regime in Making Global Trade Work for People, London and Sterling:
Earthscan, 2003
Walden Bello, The Economics of Antidevelopment in Dilemmas of
Domination: the making of the American Empire, New York: Metropolitan
Books, 2005, p. 129-153
BilateralsOrg and Grain, FTAs: The Big Picture, www.fightingftas.org
September 2007
BilateralsOrg and Grain, Today’s FTA Frenzy, www.fightingftas.org
September 2007

Evening
18:00 Film Showing
Battle in Seattle

Day 4 (Nov. 7) Part 2: The Global Crises: How did we get here?

Whole DayPart 1: Environmental Politics, Climate Change and other Discourses

It is now universally acknowledged that the climate is changing rapidly
as a result of human activity. However the policies and institutions to
reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change remains
elusive and there is overwhelming evidence that current international
climate policy is not working to reduce global emissions. This session
will look at the limits to the solutions being offered by institutions
and the market. It will also look deeply at the impacts of climate
change and the options available, especially to developing countries.

Ms. Nicola Bullard
Focus on the Global South

Readings:
Alex Evans and David Steven, Climate change: the state of the debate,
Center on International Cooperation and the London Accord 2, 2007
Walden Bello, “Will Capitalism Survive Climate Change?” Focus on Trade
#138, Focus on the Global South, 2007
Terry Barker, ªerban Scrieciu and David Taylor, “Climate Change, Social
Justice and Development” in Development Vol.51, No.3, Society for
International Development, September 2008
Larry Lohman, Carbon Trading, Climate Justice and the Production of
Ignorance: Ten Examples, in Development Vol.51, No.3, Society for
International Development, September 2008

WEEK END Saturday Visit to Moang Boran
Led by Wenwen Tu and Yutin Su

Day 5 (Nov. 10) Whole Day The Byzantine world of Private Finance and the

10:00 – 13:00 Current Financial Crisis
The dominant characteristics of economic globalization are the
unrestrained power of private financial and capital flows, the expansion
and explosion of financial markets, the increasing sophistication and
complexity of financial instruments, and the growing disconnect between
the real economy and financial markets. Understanding how finance works
is key to understanding how economic globalization works. Private
finance continues to grow more powerful with hedge funds, investment
banks and commercial banks developing many diverse, complex ties with
one another. At the same time anarchy has become an almost signature
characteristic of global finance.

This session will discuss the relationship between private finance and
corporations in controlling currency, capital flows, access to resources
and services, distribution of profits, etc and how the current financial
crisis came about.

Ms Sarinee Achavanuntakul
Freelance writer, analyst and lecturer

Readings:
Robin Blackburn, “The Subprime Crisis”, New Left Review 50, March/April
2008 p.63 – 105
Walden Bello, “A Primer on the Wall Street Meltdown”, Focus on Trade No.
143, September 2008
Dean P. Foster r and H. Peyton Young, “Hedge Fund Wizards”, Economists’
Voice, Berkeley Electronic Press, www.bepress.com/ev February, 2008
John M. Quigley, “Compensation and Incentives in the Mortgage Business”,
Economists’ Voice, Berkeley Electronic Press, www.bepress.com/ev
October, 2008
Luigi Zingales, “Plan B”, Economists’ Voice, Berkeley Electronic Press,
www.bepress.com/ev October, 2008

Day 6 (Nov. 11) Food Crisis – Global Trade, Current Mode of Production

Morningand Consumption
10:00 – 13:00
The food and the financial crises are interconnected. The soaring prices
of food dramatically affect the living conditions of more than half of
the world population. Hundreds of millions of families are facing hunger
or reducing their food consumption. These conditions are caused by
several decades of government policies, which followed the neoliberal
requirements imposed by multilateral institutions as part of the
Structural Adjustment Programmes and programme to reduce poverty.

This session will look at the connection between trade, financial and
agricultural policies and explore systemic and international solutions
that could lead to favourable outcomes for people and the environment.

Dr. Utsa Patnaik (tbc)
Economics Department
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Readings:
Walden Bello, “How to Manufacture a Global Food Crisis: Lessons from the
World Bank, IMF, and WTO” in Focus on Trade #140, May 2008
Utsa Patnaik, The Republic of Hunger paper presented for the public
lecture on the occasion of the 50th Birthday of Safdar Hashmi, organized
by SAHMAT (Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust) on April 10, 2004, New Delhi

Afternoon
Globalization, Global Security and Global Governance
14:00 – 17:00
Dr.Surat Horachaikul (to be invited)
Political Science Department
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

Day 7 (Nov. 12) The World of Work
Labour Issues and Migration of Labour

10:00 – 13:00 Dr. Giles Ungpakorn (to be invited)
Political Science Department
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

14:00 – 17:00 Women and Work
Dr. Utsa Patnaik (tbc)
Economics Department
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Day 8 (Nov. 13) Understanding China’s New Role in Global Political
Whole Day Economy

China’s increasing economic power, its actions and political influence
is producing major shifts in the regional and global dynamics and posing
a challenge to the traditional dominance of the world’s old center of
capitalist power. In the economic realm, it is now playing a central
role as engine of regional growth in Asia and definitely defining the
current global and Asian supply chain. Although its political clout is
relatively weaker than its economic influence, China’s increasingly
proactive diplomacy is becoming more and more evident.

This session will take a deeper look at today’s China, its new role in
the global political economy, and its nascent civil society. Dorothy
Guerrero
Focus on the Global South

Readings:
Dorothy Guerrero, The “China factor” in Today’s Global Political
Economy”, forthcoming publication for Spring 2009
Walden Bello, “China, the US and the Global Economy” in China’s New Role
in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective (Guerrero and
Manji eds.), Oxford and Bangkok: Fahamu and Focus on the Global South, 2008
Dale Wen, Alternative Voices and Actions From Within China,
International Forum on Globalization, 2005
Tao Fu, The position of civil society organization in China today in
China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective
(Guerrero and Manji eds.), Oxford and Bangkok: Fahamu and Focus on the
Global South, 2008

Day 9 (Nov. 14)Part 3: The Role of Collective Action in Social and Whole Day Political Change

Theory 1: Material/Structural/Instrumental Approaches
Part I - Collective Action and Resource Mobilization

Part 2: Mobilisational, Structure and Culture of Protests and Political
Process

Protest is a form of politics. These sessions will discuss how
grievances are transformed into collective mobilizations that result to
social change. It will also discuss the processes between the local and
the global and how ordinary people gain new perspectives, experiment
with new forms of actions and claim making and sometimes emerge with new
identities through collective action.
Dorothy Guerrero
Focus on the Global South

Readings:
Antonio Gramsci, State and Civil Society, in The Global Resistance
Reader, Amoore (ed) London and New York: Routledge, 2005 p28-34.
Sydney Tarrow, Collective Action and Social Movements, Introduction
Chapter of Power in Movements: Social Movements, Collective Action and
Politics) Cambridge University Press, 1994
Vince Boudreau, Northern Theory, Southern Protest: Opportunity Structure
Analysis in Cross –National Perspective, Mobilization: An International
Journal, 1996 1(2), p 175-189
Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, The Left, Elections, and the Political Party
System in the Philippines, Critical Asian Studies 37 (1), Routledge, 2005

WEEK END Field Visit

Day 10 (Nov. 17) Collective Action, the Market and Global Geopolitics:
Whole DayStrategies and Concepts in Collective Action

This session will discuss the strategic frames of collective action used
by the different generations of social movements from the beginning of
the 20th century (when states introduced economic protectionism), the
different visions of socialism, to the new wave of “new social movements”

Mr. Cristophe Aguitton
ATTAC France

Readings:
James Mittelman and Christine Chin, Conceptualizing Resistance to
Globalization, in The Global Resistance Reader, Amoore (ed) London and
New York: Routledge, 2005 p.17-27
Sydney Tarrow, Shifting the Scale of Contention, The New Transnational
Activism, Cambridge Unievrsity Press, 2005
Patrick Bond, Global Civil Society Strategy for Social Justice,
University of Kwazulu Natal Inaugural Professorial Lecture, 2007

Day 11 (Nov. 18)Alternative Strategies

Morning Current Alternatives: deglobalization, sufficiency

10:00 – 13:00 economy, feminist economics, micro-credit projects, etc

This session will discuss the various alternative strategies for
development (deglobalization, sufficiency economy, green Marxism,
feminist economics, etc.), their strengths and limitations in addressing
current problems of underdevelopment. Nicola Bullard
Dr. Richard Westra
Chanida Bamford

Readings/Documents:
Richard Westra, Green Marxism and the Institutional Structure of a
Global Socialist Future in Political Economy and Global Capitalism: The
21st Century, Present and Future (Abritton, Jessop and Westra, eds.)
London and New York: Anthem Press, 2007 p.219-235
Focus on the Global South, The Alternative: Deglobalization, in Focus
Workplan 2003-2005, Bangkok, 2003.
Chanida Chanyapate and Alec Bamford, The Rise and Fall of the
Sufficiency Economy, Focus on the Global South, 2007
The Beijing Declaration: The global economic crisis: An historic
opportunity for transformation, October 2008.

Afternoon
Strategies from Below
14:00 – 17:00
Part 1: Alternative Finance

Ms. Dorothy Guerrero
Focus on the Global South

Plus sharing on Project Specific campaigns from some participants

Day 12 (Nov. 19) Continuation of Alternatives…

Morning

10:00 – 13:00
Part 2 – Trade: WTO and FTA campaigns
“Our World is Not for Sale”

Mr. Jacques-chai Chomthongdi
Focus on the Global South

Afternoon
14:00 – 17:00
Part 3 - Movements for Climate Justice

Ms. Nicola Bullard Focus on the Global South

Day 13 (Nov. 20)

Morning
10:00 – 13:00
Part 4 – Movements for Food Sovereignty and Food Security
N.A.

Afternoon
14:00 – 17:00
Part 5 – Movements for People’s Peace and Security
N.A.

Day 14 (Nov. 21) From Transnational Movements to Global Justice and
Solidarity Movement: Alternative Globalisation from below

Morning
The World Social Forum and its Future

Nicola Bullard and Christophe Aguitton

Afternoon: Evaluation and Synthesis

Oliver Meth Photo exhibition on refugees & xenophobia, 4 - 28 November 2008

CCS COMMUNITY & MEDIA ADVISORY:
“We are still here”: The Aftermath of Xenophobic Violence in Durban

The Centre for Civil Society, based at the University of KwaZulu Natal presents a photographic exhibition detailing the challenges of a community of foreign nationals during the outbreak of xenophobia in the Durban area. The photographs depict the plight of this community during their journey of no end from the doors of the police station to the street outside the City Hall and the Albert Park refugee make-shift camps, where they remain, no longer refugees – but simply taking refuge.

The photographs were taken by CCS community scholar Oliver Meth as well as by the displaced foreign nationals themselves, with a narrative provided by visiting scholar Rebecca Hinely. The exhibition is part of a research project at the Centre for Civil Society examining the role of philanthropy and civil society in the xenophobic crisis.

The exhibition can be viewed at the Howard College Campus main library (EG Malherbe) from Tuesday, 04 November and closes November 28.

The project is funded by the C S Mott Foundation and supported by the University of KwaZulu Natal EG Malherbe Library and the School of Development Studies.

For more information contact Shauna Mottiar on 031 260 2940 mottiar@ukzn.ac.za

Booklet on the Photo Exibition

Pictures

Dennis Brutus at UKZN CAF film on the Bush Impeachment movement 30 October 2008

UCAF (UNIVERSITY COMMUNITYACTIVIST FORUM)
INVITES YOU TO SCREEN THE VIDEO
“CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: THE BUSH IMPEACHMENT” AND TO DISCUSS APARTHEID VICTIMS’ REPARATIONS AFTER 14 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY WITH PROF. DENNIS BRUTUS

DATE: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008
TIME: 12h30 TO 14h00
VENUE: SHEPSTONE 12

ALL WELCOME
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Claudia Martínez-Mullen: martinezmullen@ukzn.ac.za
084-2614983

Patrick Bond & Simphiwe Nojiyeza Conference on Urban social struggles over water 24 October 2008

African Cities in a globalized world: The challenge of poverty and the provision of water

Programme
Thursday 23 October

Registration: 9:00-9:30

Opening Session: 9:30-10:00
F. Cheru, I. Lindell: Introductory note by conveners

Session 1: 10:00-12:15
Competing perspectives: Water as Commodity, Public Good, and Human Right
M. Kothari: Obstacles to Making Water a Human Right
D.C. Tipping: Getting to water: Public Health and Climate Security in the Cities and Towns of Africa
L. Swatuk: Permanently Disconnected? Cities, States, People and Resources In Africa

Lunch: 12:30-13:30 (at NAI)

Session 2: 13:30-16:30
Water Commodification and the New Public Management Paradigm

P.A. Memon/ D. Lamba/Z. Ishani: Institutional Arrangements for Delivery of Water and Sanitation Services for the Urban Poor in Africa: Recent Water Sector Reforms in Kenya.

C. Baron/ A. Bonnassieux: Public-Private Partnerships and the Empowerment of Water User Associations: What impact on an equitable access to water? The case of Burkina Faso.

A. Bohman:The Presence of the Past: a Retrospective View of the Politics of Urban Water Management in Accra, Ghana.

J-O. Drangert: Sanitation, Water and Food Security for Urbanities in the 21st Century

Dinner: 19:00-20:45 (at NAI)

Friday 24 October

Session 3: 8.30-12:00
Beyond Privatisation: Alternative Models for Water Provisioning

P. Bond/S. Nojiyeza: Urban Social Struggles Over Water: Lessons from South Africa

A-H. Adam: Private Taps Run Dry: How Africa is Chasing a Mirage

D. Hall/E. Lobina:Sewerage in African Cities

H. Dagdeviren/ S.A Robertson: Water Supply in the Slums of the Developing World

Lunch 12:00-13:30 (at Rest. Thai Village)

Session 4: 13:30-15:45
Informal and Community Based Approaches to Water Provisioning

C. Acey/E. Keller: Globalization and the Provision of Public Goods to the Urban Poor in Africa

M. Kjellén: Water Services Privatisation and Re-Regulation in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

J. Appelblad: Water and Politics: Probing Partnerships between Local Governments and Private Operators in Small Ugandan Towns

Session 5: 16:00-17:00
Finalising Discussion

Dinner 19:00- (Gillet Brasserie & Lounge, Clarion Hotel)

Dennis Brutus at the Sao Paolo Univ anti-hegemony conference, 21-24 October 2008

Universidade de São Paulo
Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
Campus Cidade Universitária
Anfiteatro da História

Seminário Internacional do Centro de Estudos dos Direitobs da Cidadania - Cenedic

HEGEMONIA ÀS AVESSAS
Economia, Política e Cultura na Era da Servidão Financeira

21-24 de Outubro de 2008

21 de outubro
17:30: ABERTURA - Luis Werneck Vianna
19:00 - O TRABALHO APÓS O DESMANCHE
Ricardo Antunes (Unicamp)
Arne Kalleberg (Universidade da Carolina do Norte)
Luciano Vasapollo (Universidade de Roma)

22 de outubro
14:00 - DOMINAÇÃO FINANCEIRA E MERCADO DE TRABALHO NO BRASIL
José Dari Krein (Unicamp)
Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa (Cebrap)
Márcio Porchmann (IPEA-Unicamp)

19:00 - O SOCIALISMO APÓS O DESMANCHE
Álvaro Bianchi (Unicamp)
Brian Palmer (Uiversidade de Toronto)
François Chesnais/Michael Löwy/Daniel Bensaïd

23 de outubro
10:30 - A CULTURA DA SERVIDÃO FINANCEIRA
Maria Elisa Cevasco (USP)
Luiz Martins (USP)
Pedro Arantes (USP)

14:00 -PÓS-APARTHEID E PÓS-DESMANCHE: AFRICA DO SUL E BRASIL
Dennis Brutus (África do Sul)
Gay Seidman (Universidade Wisconsin Madison)
Leda Paulani (USP)
19:00 - A AMÉRICA LATINA NA ENCRUZILHADA
Emir Sader (Clacso)
Ary Minela (UFSC)
José Luis Fiori (UFRJ)

24 de outubro
14:00 - CRISE URBANA E MARGINALIDADE SOCIAL
Vera Silva Telles (USP)
Cibele Rizek (USP)
Loïc Wacquant (Universidade da Califórnia em Berkeley)

17:30 ENCERRAMENTO
HEGEMONIA ÀS AVESSAS: DECIFRA-ME... OU TE DEVORO!
Chico de Oliveira (USP)
Carlos Nelson Coutinho (UFRJ)
Paulo Arantes (USP)

Oliver Meth at the EU Commission, Civil Society Forum on Millennium Development Goals 15 October 2008

October 15th, 2008 @ Burgers Park Hotel, Pretoria

The purpose of the Forum is to engage with CSO on South Africa's progress in reaching the MDG targets and to discuss how civil society and donors like the European Commission can contribute to the achievement of the MDGs targets by 2015.

Provisional programme for European Commission – Civil Society Forum on
Millennium Development Goals

09:00 Registration
10:00 Opening, Welcome & Keynote presentations

Presentation of the EC position on, and contribution to, MDGs: Ambassador Briët.

Presentation of the SA Government policy and progress regarding MDGs:
Presentation by Mr. Alan Hirsch.

Presentation on Civil Society Views on South Africa's progress in
achieving MDGs: Sangoco representative.

11:00 Plenary Question & Answer

What is your view on the AAA (Accra Agenda for Action) and aid
effectiveness?

Do civil society organisations consider they are in a position to influence policy regarding MDGs?

Are there effective civil society mechanisms for coordination and engagement with Government?

Are there examples good partnerships between Government and civil
society in support of MDGs?

What is your view on EC cooperation with Civil Society in South Africa?

How do you see South African civil society's role and current cooperation in the region?

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Panel Discussions

Panel 1: Poverty & Development (MDGs 1 & 8)
Panel 2: Health (MDGs 4, 5 & 6)
Panel 3: Education & Gender (MDGs 2 & 3)
Panel 4: Environment (MDG 7)

EC Moderator: Presentation on EC priorities and action on the way to 2015 for relevant goals for the sector

Presentation by sector specialist on the state of MDGs in the specific sector, challenges including availability and reliability of data,
achievements and actions required.

CSO views on SAG policies and actions to reach MDGs

Role of CSOs in achieving MDGs

Role of donors can play to achieve MDGs, including improving aid effectiveness.

15:00 Coffee break

15:20 Panel Discussions continue & wrap-up

16:00 Plenary & Report back

17:15 Conclusions & Recommendations

18:30 Cocktail Reception

EC - Civil Society Forum on Millennium Development Goals
The Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to South Africa Ambassador Lodewijk Briët

Molefi Ndlovu, Faith ka Manzi and Claudia Wegener Report from the Southern African Social Forum 16 -18 October 2008

SOUTHERN AFRICAN SOCIAL FORUM NEARLY MARRED BY BAN: COSATU NOT ALLOWED TO ATTEND.
By Faith ka-Manzi – Centre for Civil Society/Independent Media
Reporting from Manzini in Swaziland 16 October 2008

“Destroy structures that give privileges to a few”, shouted Mr. Thomas
Deve during the highly charged opening of the Southern African Social
Forum (SASF) at the Bosco grounds in Manzini in the small Kingdom of
Swaziland on October 16. He appealed to delegates of the forum - dubbed
the ‘merchants of hope’ - not to be afraid to proclaim their struggles,
and that “peoples forces will not be stopped by anyone”. Deve is a
member of the Zimbabwe Social Forum.

The SASF, a gathering of social movements and broader civil society,
almost didn’t take place. Two days before the opening, the Swaziland
government decided to ban the forum. This meant only a small contingent
of Swazi delegates came to the forum. Another factor was that King
Mswati had called for a public meeting to deliberate on the election of
the country’s prime minister. Fear of intimidation was in the air. In
contrast, civil society organizations from Zimbabwe came in huge numbers.

The forum opened after a ruling by the High Court in Mbabane. But this
required the Swaziland Economic Justice Network and the Co-ordinating
Assembly of Non-governmental Organisations to file an urgent application
interdicting the government from tampering with the SASF.

These organizations were compelled to assure government that there would
be no march at the opening of the forum. The government also insisted
that the SASF would not take place as long as the Congress of South
African Trade Unions (Cosatu), did not participate.

Speaking to the Times of Swaziland, state’s attorney Sanele Khuse
unveiled government paranoia: “We have since been made aware that the
meeting has been hijacked by Cosatu and to us it is clear that the
meeting undermines national security”. Khuse added that even though they
had been aware of the meeting, the change of heart had been necessitated
by reports that Cosatu would be taking part. Dumezweni Khumalo from the
Swaziland Social Forum confirmed that from January, local activists had
been communicating with the government.

Swaziland Federation of the Trade Unions secretary general Jan Sithole
welcomed delegates from the SADC countries, but was incensed about SA
comrades’ exclusion: “We openly express our condemnation to our
government for having tampered with banning the forum and for violating
Swazi citizens’ rights - we can meet but cannot march.”

There was unanimous agreement with Deve, that it was time for civil
society to destroy all enclaves of privilege.

From South Africa, comrade Tladi observed that Pretoria had acted as a
springboard for neoliberalism in the region, and that we would have no
pleasure in Kgalema Motlanthe replacing Thabo Mbeki, as the ruling party
had simply removed a person not a policy.

Zimbabwe Social Forum chairperson Munyaradzi Gwisai argued that fighting
for democracy must extend to economic independence and that SASF must
come up with a resolution that another Africa was possible. Comrade
Kgasa from Botswana thanked the SASF for waking up civil society. He
praised his government for joining activists when they condemned both
authoritarianism in Zimbabwe and xenophobia in South Africa. But that
“does not mean that we agree with them on all things.”

Lesotho delegates said that they would be happy to host SASF2009 and
that they had recently established an Economic Justice Network to launch
the social forum next year. A major problem facing Lesotho was textile
industry pollution by irresponsible multinational corporations.

Congolose delegates living in South Africa were delayed at the border
because of visa hassles but the Swazi Social Forum’s representative,
Khumalo, assured delegates that people were there assisting them.

Several issues are on the table for discussion in the next two days,
including Environment and Global Justice; Water, Housing and Food
Security; and Alternatives to Neoliberalism. Although banned from
marching, delegate singing and toyitoying reverberated throughout the
mountainside town of Manzini.

SASF Resolutions
By Faith ka Manzi, (Centre for Civil Society) 16-18 October 2008

Governance & Human Rights:
Topical Issues
1. Closure of spaces for civil society to operate
2. Creeping in the notion of weak civil society
3. Syndrome of a powerful ruling class in Swaziland
4. Failure in the notion of separation of power (Swaziland)
5. Bastardization of elections – causing of chaos by the losing sides
6. Elitism in power sharing deals to the exclusion of civil society
7. Attempts to muzzle civil society through ngo bills
8. Weak political parties e.g. in Lesotho

Resolutions
1.SASF must heightened its ability to address human rights because there
is silence between these forums
2. SASF must scale up its ability to communicate with SADC
3. SADC should force member countries to adhere to the SADC
Declarations, guidelines and principles
4. SASF should lead the setting up the standards on critical areas e.g.
constitutionalisation, media freedom and opening up of civil society spaces

Debts & Poverty Reduction
Vast resources spent in servicing unsustainable debts yet 70% of people
in SADC live below the poverty line and the paying of odious debts due
to corrupt officials

Resolution
Legal reforms of loan contracting mechanisms (more of this from audio
reports collected by Claudia and Molefi)

Youth
• The standard of education at regional level has dropped

Resolutions
1.There is a need for the youth to get involved in governing structures
& decisonmaking
2. Foster youth and education programmes by youthful people
3. Form a Southern African body as one youth regional voice
4. Involvement of youth in local and national government

Gender: Burning Issues
1. Zambian experience was that policy on reproductive health does not
exist and no legalization of abortion
2. Too much bureaucracy around reproductive health
3. Zimbabwean experience – if you are ZANUPF and you infect a woman, you
cannot be prosecuted
4. Issues of consent are a problem – there is a lack of political will
5. Botswana experience – discriminatory policies on ARVS where
foreigners are deprived of access

Resolutions
1. Lobby and advocate for the legalization of abortion to avoid
dangerous backstreet abortions and the death of mothers
2. Need for gender ministries to be incorporated into government to have
meaningful reproductive rights

Labour
1. General issues affecting workers in the region like lack of decent
work/secured/decent wages/social security as opposed to
casualisation/contracting/recycling of employees because of policies of
privatization
2. Most governments have ratified core labour standards but all of them
fail to implement them but instead exploit them
3. Corruption around labour inspection
4. textile-exporting zone – operators are Chinese – whose employees
suffer abject working conditions e.g. corporal punishment/fall pregnant
at own risk/no respect for labour laws by not contributing to
UIF’s/undefined working hours (laws of the country must cover
textiles)/do not have corporate social responsibilities (no swing back
to the communities)
5. Bad governance has led to serious job losses/ Swaziland experience is
that out of a population of 1million people there is 40% unemployment
because of bad governance but as in the words of Jan Sithole of the
Swaziland Federation of the Trade Union “We will die fighting”
6. Common thread is that armed forces do not enjoy bargaining rights (if
S.A. can do it why can’t other countries do it) all governments should
ensure that armed forces should enjoy bargaining rights and freedom of
association
7. Commodification of labour – people no longer seen as parents/citizens
– no involvement of civil society around policy making
8. Common thread of shrinking formal sector because of neoliberal
policies and the unprotected informal sectors. SADC should regulate
social security for these workers
9. no regulated social investment/away with privitization/not allow
governments to privitize public utilities

Alternatives to Neoliberalism
1. Civil society don’t work together – too many divisions – don’t give
too mush support to each other
2. Mobilizing and conscientization of communities and to stop using jargon
3. Problems with capitalism – collapse of U.S.A. and E.U. banks proof
that capitalism does not work
4. Taking power to the people by nationalization of our natural
resources instead of allowing our resources to be gives to foreign investors
5. Activists groups which are too many are weak – mobilize education in
grassroots
6. reform labour movements .e.g. Cosatu

Then there were solidarity greetings from the Zimbabwe Crossborder Traders
•We want to claim our spaces as informal traders
•A right to lielihood
•Not to be harassed and subjected to xenophobia

Labour
Jan Sithole (secretary-general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade
Unions) condemned local electronic media for not covering the forum

Conclusions
1. Task with an obligation to unpack problems and come up with solutions
2. lack of decent work
3. jobs with social security /weak labour
4. allowing textiles to operate outside the regions labour laws
5. general denial to bargain for civil servants
6. SADC agreements which have negative effects on workers
7. shrinking formal employment and growing informal
8. all countries are multiparties but not Swaziland

Calls for the following
1. SADC to implement guidelines to which they have committed to e.g.
poverty alleviation
2. SADC to use alternatives to neoliberalism as a basis for developing
homegrown economies
3. SADC to invite civil society into policy formation
4. SADC to call upon textiles to abide by labour laws and to involve
themselves in corporate social development
5. To accord bargaining rights
6. To regulate informal trade and elevate them
7. Not to privitize national assets
8. SADC to pressure undemocratic states to become democratic like
Swaziland and Zimbabwe
9. SADC to review their relationships with outside bodies on free market
policies and agreements
10. SADC called to put mechanisms for a code of conduct
11. Workers are saying no to xenophobia

Environmental Justice
• A right to a clean environment is a human right

Burning Issues
1. Direct foreign investment is responsible for the exploitation of
natural resources which results in a lot of waste.
2. Double standards by multinationals who comply with environmental laws
where they exist but disregard environmental issues in countries where
these policies don’t exist
3. Multinationals get away with a lot of environmental crimes because
they are well connected
4. Occupational health and safety policies are appaling

Resolutions
1. The need for regulation of certain percentage by multinationals to
invest back
2. SADC to advocate for safer and cleaner mechanisms for natural
resources extraction
3. Reparations – beneficiation/value adding activities
4. SADC needs a collective voice for miners and ex-miners
5. Support for Swaziland to stop the gas production
6. Need to stop the plastic production
7. Network on environmental issues by ngos directly involved in
environmental issues
8. buck stops with all of us by not littering

Gorvenance: Challenges
1. SADC has mistrust on the credibility of civil society
2. Civil society aligned to opposition parties
3. interaction with government for civil society is difficult

Resolutions
A need for capacity building among civil society (more info from Claudia
and Molefi)

Land and Water Privitisation
In Swaziland they also have prepaid water

Resolutions

On Water
1. In South Africa – write a letter to the mayor of Johannesburg
Municipality Amos Masondo to stop the appeal on the watr case
2. Set up a global day of action on prepaid water
3. Support Swaziland to break water meters
4. “Destroy the meter and Enjoy the water”

On Land
1. This land belong to us
2. Reject completely the notion – willing buyer and willing seller
3. Farm dwellers must have their own rights
4. One farm/one family
5. 21st March global day of action

Health Issues
1. Health is not a woman issue
2. Research a personal gain rather than helping the sick
3. most of the money pumped into research
4. in Swaziland there is little research and talking about HIV is still
a taboo because of traditions and culture
5. Hardly any awareness campaigns in Swaziland
6. prescriptions always in English
7. herbalists putting ARVS in their concotions
8. Need for an HIV policy

Resolutions
1. By 2010 all people tested
2. universal documents – research not to be done on Blacks
3. change the ARVS that come to Africa because they have major adverse
effects
4. change of behaviour due to cultural customs
5. discourage food parcels
6. govt to revisit the distribution of ARVS
7. mechanism of information dissemination to grassroots which is user
friendly
8. stop the use of women as tools for demonstrations

Debts and Poverty
Extractive industry and how it affects us expecially looking at the
Ogonis in the Niger Delta

Demands
1. local people to extract local resources for their own benefits
2. ensure that the governments are controlled from below (wealth for
human benefits not for a few)
3. No to AID that has condition and has no benefit to local people
4. Careful that we are not recolonized by China through their rejects
productsinformation on government and Chinese agreements to be
disseminated to the people on the ground –Stop buying Chinese products
5. Social movements should strengthen EPAS campaign
6. State should prioritise the right to work/lets also look at domestic
debts
7. strengthen regional intergration

Informal Traders: Issues
• corruption at border posts and municipalities
• absence of policy for small scale traders

Recommendations
1. Right to trade
2. Need to build a lobbying platform e.g. Swaziland
3. As SADC – we should use these forums to discuss our issues

Closure of the Forum
Representing the visiting countries, Comrade Munyaradzi Gwisa
chairperson of the Zimbabwe Social Forum said that many important
resolutions have been passed and that we have the responsibility to
ensure that days of action adopted take place and to ensure that we
organise regionally because dictatorships knows no boundaries “Seize
that which belong to us”.

Comrade Comfort Mabuza from Cango and the organising team spoke on
behalf of Swaziland “We were told that your coming we will see anarchy
and that there will be bombs. We have been blacklisted for going. We
have cleared you that you are not terrorists – what you hate is
dictatorship. This region has a problem with leadership, we are
recycling leaders. No vision as we bring back people who were
oppressors. There are oppressive regimes and some of these people come
from us. Assist people of Swaziland to refuse dictatorship. We want to
appeal for assistance so that we can come up with a critical mass who
will question why R9 million was spent on Thursday on the Inkundla
meeting when the King was appointing a Prime Minister. “We are sick and
tired of it”

Pictures

Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond at Venezuela political economy/culture conference, 13-19 October 2008

(Poem immediately following the conference, in The Hotel Alba overlooking Caracas mountains, 5:50am on 18 October)
Saffron dawn glimmers
beyond the mountain's blue bulk
my shoulder's reflection infringes
on the window's dim report
So let some impact from you my words echo resonance
lend impulse to the bright looming dawn

(Poem delivered at the closing session of the Network of Intellectuals
and Artists in Defense of Humanity and the World Forum for Alternatives
VIIIth meeting)
There will come a time
There will come a time we believe
When the shape of the planet
and the divisions of the land
Will be less important;
We will be caught in a glow of friendship
a red star of hope
will illuninate our lives
A star of hope
A star of joy
A star of freedom

In thanks to President Hugo Chavez and the people of Venezuela
Dennis Brutus October 17, Caracas

Background to Volatile Global Capitalism: Political and Economic Aspects since the 1970s
Paper Presented by Patrick Bond

Slide Show from the paper presented by Patrick Bond

Langa Zita (ANC MP), Patrick Bond (CCS), Mazibuko Jara (Amandla),
Michael Lebowitz (CIM), Yash Tandon (South Centre), Dennis Brutus (CCS),
Mark Weisbrot (CEPR)

VIII Encuentro Mundial de la Red Intelectuales y Artistas en defensa de
la Humanidad

Asamblea del Consejo Ampliado del Forum Mundial de Alternativas

Transiciones hacia el Socialismo: aspectos políticos, económicos, sociales y culturales

Caracas, 13 al 18 de octubre de 2008

PROGRAMA

Lunes 13 de octubre
9:00 -10:30 hs Acto Inaugural
10:30 – 12:30 Reunión metodológica. Designación de los moderadores y
relatores de mesa, y nombramiento de la Comisión redactora de la
Declaratoria Final.
12:30 – 14:00 Almuerzo
14:00 – 16:00 Reunión de trabajo de los Grupos 1, 2, 3 y 4
16:30 – 18:00 Reunión de trabajo por Subgrupos
18:30 – 20:00 Seminario Público: Transiciones hacia el Socialismo en
América Latina y el Caribe
20:30 Cena

Martes 14 de octubre
9:00 -12:30 hs Reunión de trabajo por Subgrupos
12:30 – 14:00 Almuerzo
14:00 – 16:00 Reunión de trabajo por Subgrupos
16:30 – 18:00 Reunión de trabajo de los Grupos 1, 2, 3 y 4
18:30 – 20:00 Seminario Público: Transiciones hacia el Socialismo en
Europa y Estados Unidos
(En paralelo para los invitados) Conferencia: Aspectos socio-económicos
de la revolución bolivariana.
20:30 Cena

Miércoles 15 de octubre
9:00 -11:00 hs Reunión Plenaria
11:00 – 12:30 Reunión de trabajo de los Grupos 1, 2, 3 y 4
12:30 – 14:00 Almuerzo
14:00 – 16:00 Reunión de trabajo de los Grupos 5, 6, 7 y 8
16:30 – 18:00 Reunión de trabajo por Subgrupos
18:30 – 20:00 Conferencia: Aspectos socio-políticos de la revolución
bolivariana
20:30 Cena

Jueves 16 de octubre
9:00 -12:30 hs Reunión de trabajo por Subgrupos
12:30 – 14:00 Almuerzo
14:00 – 16:00 Reunión de trabajo por Subgrupos
16:30 – 18:00 Reunión de trabajo de los Grupos 5, 6, 7 y 8
18:30 – 20:00 Seminario Público: Transiciones hacia el Socialismo en Asia
(En paralelo para los invitados) Conferencia: Aspectos socio-culturales
de la revolución bolivariana
20:30 Cena

Viernes 17 de octubre
9:00 -11:00 hs Reunión Plenaria
11:00 – 12:30 Reunión de trabajo de los Grupos 5, 6, 7 y 8
12:30 – 14:00 Almuerzo
14:00 – 17:00 Plenaria Final y Conclusiones
18:30 Acto de Clausura
20:30 Cena

Sábado 18 de octubre
9:00 – 16:00 hs Encuentro con las comunidades y visita a algunas
Misiones y centros de desarrollo endógeno
16:00 – 17:30 Seminario Público: Transiciones hacia el Socialismo en el
Africa Sub-sahariana
18:00 – 19:30 Seminario Público: Transiciones hacia el Socialismo en el
mundo árabe

Presentation
The Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity is a
movement of thought and action against all forms of domination. This
project responds to the need of carrying out the Plenary Assemblyìs
mandate of the World Encounter of Intellectuals and Artists held in
Caracas on December 6th, 2004, which gathered guests from fifty-two
countries and diverse cultures from around the world.

“The need of building a front to resist the world domination that is
intended to be imposed, was stated” in that Assembly, and take up an
offensive through concrete actions of struggle: creating a networkìs net
of information, a cultural and artistic action, coordinating and
mobilizing intellectuals and artists to participate in Social Forums and
popular battles and guaranteeing the continuity of those efforts and
their articulation towards an international movement — in defense of
Humanity.

Background
The Networkìs Net In Defense of Humanity arises from the initiative of
renowned Mexican intellectuals who called for an Encounter of
Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity on October 24th and
25th (2003) in Mexico City , in order to fight against Afghanistan and
Iraqìs invasions, the military threats against Iran, and other
countries, and the ongoing hostility against Cuba and Venezuela, as well
as the media, economical and financial war undertaken by the government
of the Unites States with its aim to the domination of the World.

Three months later, Venezuelan and Cuban writers gathered together,
united by Bolivar and Martiìs ideas, in the city of Caracas on January
26th, 27th and 28th, 2004. They came up to the conclusion of the need of
mobilizing and integrating Latin American intellectuals and people from
all walks of life who will to expand the frontiers of solidarity against
the overwhelming imperial expansion.

As a response to that need, they agreed to celebrate a continental
encounter of intellectuals in Caracas, inspired by democratic doctrines
that led emancipating struggles in our region, to foster the defense of
our causes, establish a permanent tribune of ideas and confirm our
conviction of a better World.

Likewise, from April 26th to the 30th, 2004, men and women, from Europe,
Latin America and the Middle East, committed to the defense of
democracy, Human Rights and social justice, linked to the Academy,
media, cultural institutions and social movements, gathered in the
cities of Oviedo, Gijón and Avilés in the First International Seminar
toward the progress of the World, Humanity against Imperialism. So, in
that way, the call of the International Encounter in Defense of Humanity
held in Mexico in October was taken into account.

Venezuela: the consolidation of a project
The movement reinforces with the World Encounter of Intellectuals and
Artists In Defense of Humanity, held in Caracas from December 1st to
the 5th, 2004, in which intellectuals and artists from fifty-two
countries decided to build a front to resist the world domination we are
facing. Therefore, an offensive is taken up through concrete actions of
struggle: creating a networkìs net of information, a cultural and
artistic action, coordinating and mobilizing intellectuals and artists
to participate in Social Forums and popular battles and guaranteeing the
continuity of those efforts and their articulation towards an
international movement — in defense of Humanity.

Besides the defense of freedom, justice, food, medical assistance,
electrical energy, housing, pure water, education, as well as the
sustainability of natural resources, the Encounter that took place in
Caracas expressed solidarity with the battles people from Iraq,
Palestine, Afghanistan and others wage to resist the imperialist
domination and also condemned terrorism and rejected the misuse of that
term regarding the struggles to resist.

Who is in the Network?
The Network is integrated by writers, artists, scholars, professionals
from all areas, students, religious people, social movements,
alternative media and all those who feel committed to humanity.

From the very beginning, the movement had the support of Nobel laureate
Gabriel García Márquez, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchú, Nadine
Gordimer, José Saramago as well as intellectuals and artists of renowned
Noam Chomsky, Ernesto Cardenal, Eduardo Galeano, Theotonio Dos Santos,
Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Ahmed ben Bella, Ignacio Ramonet, Richard
Gott, Pablo González Casanova, Ramsey Clark, Samir Amin, Tarik Ali,
Amina Baraka, James Petras, Atilio Borón, Luis Britto García, Ramón
Palomares, Gustavo Pereira, among others.

The Networkìs Net In Defense of Humanity opposes imperialism and its
neoliberal policies, war and terrorism, projects of socio-cultural
uniformity and the monopoly of knowledge. It supports the struggles of
the peoples of the world, gives a hand to the processes of social
change, sustains cultural diversity and its Rights, promotes solidarity
campaigns and transmits calls and denunciations among its members in
order to have a broader support to these causes.

Nowadays, there are chapters of the network in countries such as Mexico,
Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Canada, the United States, Spain,
Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and Italy.

The Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity in Venezuela
Nowadays, not only we need to declare ourselves against injustice, but
also accept agreements, commitments and concrete actions to get
involved, in a humble and active way, with the collectives and existing
social organizations in order to learn and accompany the struggles of
peoples who have been under invasions, workers, peasants, the
unemployed, the exploited, the excluded, the indigenous and native
people, afro-descendants, the Arabs, immigrants, homosexuals, abandoned
kids, the disabled, old people, victims of sex trade, those who claim
for food and dignity, those are the main actors of the social battle in
defense of humanity.

The Venezuelan chapter In Defense of Humanity has the mission to create,
strengthen and keep a national and international system of information
and interactive communication among intellectuals and artists, workers,
social movements, organized communities, public and private
institutions, civil organizations and any other workgroup or association
aware of the active and global defense of life, cultural diversity,
peace, liberty, equality and sovereignty of the peoples. We work, as
well, for that collective ideal of the possibility of a better world in
order to reach humanity at its best.

Actions taken by the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of
Humanity in Venezuela

1. The Network coordinates the call for the Liberator Prize to the
Critical Thought (Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico), created by
the Venezuelan government through the Ministry of the Popular Power for
Culture (Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Cultura) in order to
acknowledge those works that analyze critically the reality of the
contemporary world, in any field of the social activity, from the
perspective of a stance committed to the defense of humanity and the
thought that a better world is possible.

2. Organizes and maintains a space for discussion, where social and
intellectual leaders from around the world bring up the most urgent and
actual problems. Examples of those spaces for debate and discussion are:
the International Forum of Philosophy and the World Encounter of
Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity.

3. Coordinates the program Words at the Door (Palabras en Puerta), which
monthly organizes meetings for intellectuals, artists, workers,
organized communities, social movements, civil organizations and any
other workgroup or national and international associations concerned
about the active defense of life, cultural diversity, freedom and
sovereignty of the peoples.

4. Works with the media in order to fight against the hegemony imposed
by the imperial power through media headquarters. It transmits
emancipating ideas through all the possible means: radio, T.V.,
internet, alternative press media, community media, etc. The Network has
a web page and a bulletin issued every three months that constitutes an
effective tool in the media battle and an approach towards communities.

5. Establishes links with other chapters of the Network in Defense of
Humanity in the world through an alternative media that permits the
broadcasting of information related to the center themes of the Network.

6. Supports and contributes to achieve the agreements settled in the
encounter held in Caracas in December, 2004:

In defense of Our Planet.

In defense of the Integration of our peoples.

In defense of an Emancipating Economy.

In defense of the Sovereignty and International Legality.

In defense of Unity in Diversity and Cultures.

In defense of Popular Participation.

In defense of Truth and Plurality of information.

In defense of Knowledge.

In defense of Peace.

In defense of Memory.

EVENTS HELD IN THE YEAR 2008

ARMED WITH IDEAS: INTELLECTUALS AND ARTISTS FOR LATIN AMERICAN PEACE AND SOVEREIGNTY
(April 12th and 13th)

Declaration in Caracas:

The participants of the meeting “armed with ideas” , intellectuals and
artists for Latin American and Caribbean peace and sovereignty, met in
Caracas, Venezuela on April 12th and 13th, 2008, commemorating
Venezuelan heroic deed to defend the Bolivarian Revolution and against
the fascist assault that took place on April 11, 2002,

Manifest the following:
Our strongest solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and
its people in the revolutionary process lived by this country in total
demand of its legitimate rights towards self determination. We support
the president Hugo Chávez Frías and the popular procedures that each day
strengthens the path to a socialism which is built with imagination,
humanism and creativity.

In the same way we support the government of the president Evo Morales
Ayma, his politics of change and the constituent sovereign process of
the Bolivian people. We condemn the interference of The United States
government in the internal affairs and denounce the divisionist and
discriminative actions of oligarch groups of that country against the
original people and the exercise of their self rules. We do not support
the autonomous statute of Santa Cruz for being unconstitutional and for
being against the unity of the country and its multiethnic groups.

We express our solidarity with a position of dignity to defend the
Ecuadorian government sovereignty of Rafael Correa because of the
violation of his territory committed by the Colombian government with
the support of arms, logistic and intelligence service of The United
States as part of an imperialist control strategy in the region.

We express our anger for the massacres of Ecuadorian, Colombian and
Mexican citizens and oppose to any kind of operation that could go
against our people.

We express our deep concern for Colombian historical crisis and express
our firm solidarity towards the valuable resistance of its people who
look for a real democracy in which it could be possible to find respect
for the human rights, a humanitarian agreement execution and the search
of negotiated political solutions that could put an end to the ongoing
war that has left hundreds of thousands dead, wounded, displaced and
missing people.

We require urgent attention to all the governments that conform the so
called MINUSTAH and particularly of Latin American governments so that
they urgently withdraw their troops and contribute in the
reestablishment of the democracy with total respect of the self
determination of Haitian people.

We condemn with full energy the continue aggressions of The United
States Government towards our people behind the pretext of fighting
against terrorism and traffic in drugs. We demand the extradition of the
confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela for the case of
classified homicide of 73 persons on board a passenger plane.

We demand the immediate release of the five innocent Cubans imprisoned
in the United States of America for fighting against terrorism of the
state directed towards Cuban people.

We oppose the indirect adoption of the Colombian plan on behave of
Mexican government, the advance of the proposal Merida in that country
and the union for prosperity and security of North America as a
mechanism to expand a military intervention of the United States in
Latin America.

We consider inadmissible that Felipe Calderon Government has not
condemned the massacre occurred in Ecuadorian territory in which for
students of the National Autonomous University of Mexico lost their
lives helping in the criminalization of the victims and survivors of
those murders, while the government protested because of the legitimate
nationalization of Venezuelan government and CEMEX company. This company is supported by Mexican investment.

We pronounce for the end of colonialist and neocolonialist domination in
our America and demand the interdependence of Puerto Rico and the rest
of the Caribbean colonies.

We convoke a mobilization so as to propose the close down and withdrawn
of foreign military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We rebuke the ecological manipulation that transforms our territory in a
provider of agro energy with the aim of maintaining United States
energetic sufficiency.

We denounce the robbery of ancestral knowledge of American indigenous
and its commercialization through medical capitalist corporations as
though the robbery perpetrated by U. S museums and collectors who
exhibit and have in their possession hundreds of thousands of pieces
that belong to our historical and cultural heritage.

The participants in this meeting are committed to continue, extend and
deepen the contribution of intellectuals and artists implicated in the
struggle of people of our America, recognizing the deep experiences that
we are living in the construction of popular power from below, taking
into consideration the citizens, the resistance of our indigenous
people. As it was said by the president Chavez “only the people save the
people.”
Caracas, Venezuela
Signatures

4th INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF VENEZUELA
(July 8th to 16th)

Final Declaration of the 4th International Forum of Venezuela

During a week, philosophers and intellectuals from diverse disciplines
and from different places of the world met and lived up the thought of
emancipation, examining both the consequences of alienation and
mechanisms de-alienation.

This encounter, placed within the process of social transformations in
Venezuela and other Latin American countries, permitted the exchange of
critical thought, sharing, confronting and producing it in search of
another way of thinking.

Gathered in the 4th International Forum of Philosophy in the city of
Maracaibo and 23 other states of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,
at the end of our general meeting and debates held in workgroups, we
declare:

1. Philosophy must not limit only to interpret the world, but to transform it as well.

2. The interpretation has the power to transform if it arises within
revolutionary and emancipating processes as those ongoing ones in the
American continent. Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are the
representatives of those processes as well as other rebellions present
in other parts of the world. This interpretation must include the
diversity of knowledge and epistemological perspectives committed to the
human being and to life.

3. This is an urgent task at times when capitalism, in its imperialist
stage, has failed as the world order, and as a system as well,
destroying forests, lakes, rivers, threatening humanity. Therefore, a
resistance has taken over consciences and wills.

4. The overwhelming and cannibal capitalism denies access to new forms
of social organizations through military violence that has invaded
Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine as well as a counter-insurgence
offensive toward Latin America (the 4th Battle Fleet, Plan Colombia,
paramilitarism and new military bases). Besides, a media and symbolic
war that reproduce the domination of social classes and a cultural,
modern-colonial alienation: racism, homophobia, machismo, exclusion and
authoritarism.

5. It is mandatory to elaborate a socialist theory of consumption that
adjusts the needs to material limits of the planet, establishing a
reciprocity between humanity and nature and assures the arousal of new
political, ethical, erotic, pedagogical and aesthetic subjects capable
of generating and keeping a social, just and human order. Therefore, it
is convenient to refer to inspiring experiences of the socialist Cuba
and the nativesìmovements of resistance.

6. It is urgent, as well, to elaborate a socialist theory of
communication that articulates knowledge, visions and emancipating
projects within a communicative structure controlled by communities,
workers and people struggling, apart from conciliating an aesthetic
quality, content, creativity and commitment.

7. It is necessary that the philosophical activity rejects being elitist
and ethnic-centered in order to enrich methodologies of emancipation
that would reveal its effectiveness and need in the collective political
action.

8. We strongly reject the criminalization of human mobility in the
European geography and in the United States. The policy of returning
illegal immigrants and other anti-immigrant initiatives impose an
authentic « State of Exception » against people with the right of free
mobility. The radicalization of the control of illegal immigration
highlights the intolerance and xenophobia in the core of the European Union.

9. We strongly support the people of the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela in their intention of becoming main actors of their own
history as well as their socialist project of political
self-determination, economical sovereignty and participatory democracy.

10. Finally, through this Forum we point out the need of an
international support to the electoral process due in November in
Venezuela in order to back up the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas (ALBA), the creation of UNASUR and demonstrate the meaningful
relation Cuba-Venezuela in the region.

Unwire territories and thoughts. Philosophy is made from and with the
people who struggle.

We can not be the people of leaves who live floating in the air, with
the vase full of flowers, buzzing around, just as the whim of light
caresses them, rather break open storms: trees are to be in rows for not
allowing the giant come! It is the time to come together, to start
marching together, all tight up as the silver in the roots of The Andes.

Against media hegemony, let us broadcast the Truth of the peoples.
Caracas, Venezuela
Signatures

3rd Edition of the Liberator Prize to the Critical Thought, 2007
(August 7th)

Final Act of the Liberator Prize to the Critical Thought (2007)

In the city of Caracas, on June twenty-third, 2008, the Jury for the
Liberator Prize to the Critical Thought (2007) took place, formed by
Fernando Báez, Stella Calloni, Bolívar Echeverría, Roberto Fernández
Retamar and Daniel Hernández, and after reading 82 works, following a
deep debate, agreed, by voting, to give the Prize to Renán Vega Cantor
for his “Un mundo incierto, un mundo para aprender y enseñar” (“An
uncertain world, a world to learn and teach”) from Universidad
Pedagógica Nacional de Bogotá (2007).

The Jury acknowledged the quality of all given works, which proofs the
vitality of the critical thought and explained the hard task they
underwent to select. The awarded work is an extraordinary one where the
investigator tackles the actual world theme firmly in a research that
goes beyond the current trends and posits the hegemonic power in order
to, later, tear down its arguments; he does that in a very descriptive
way. As the author says in his introduction, and in these two well
documented volumes, some categories of universal critical thoughts are
recovered in order to makes us approach to the complex reality of our
modern times. Besides, he takes back the category of “totality” against
the postmodern pretension that rejects that category to claim the
fragmentation and dispersion in times when capitalism has become more
totalitarian than ever.

It is an academy work that is accessible to all publics, not only for
his pedagogical presentation, but also for his style, without losing
academic rigorousness; he uses a clear and precise language. Vega Cantor
attaches important texts from other authors, not only cited in the
bibliography, but he includes them.

Unanimously agreed on the following mentions (cited in alphabetical order):

Daniel Pereyra, Los mercenarios (The Mercenaries), El viejo Topo, Barcelona, 2007

Enrique Dussel, Política de la liberación (Politics of Liberation),
Trotta, Madrid, 2007.

Luís Britto García, América Nuestra, integración y revolución (Our
America, Integration and Revolution) (Casa José Martí, Caracas, 2007)

Susan George, El pensamiento secuestrado (Thought in chains), Icaria,
Barcelona, 2007

Theotonio Dos Santos, Del terror a la esperanza (From terror to hope), Monte Ávila, Caracas, 2007

Publications of the year 2008
Aware of the importance of the written testimony of the activities that
promoted the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense or
Humanity, diverse issues collect ideologies, dissertations and proposals
of the creators. It is also taken into account the participation of the
people and organized communities that actively attended the encounters.

The publications were:

Boletín Humanidad en Red (Bulletin: Humanity in Network) (March, 2008)
Number of copies printed: 30000

Memorias del III Foro Internacional de Filosofía de Venezuela 2007 (Memoirs of the 3rd International Forum of Philosophy) (July, 2008)
Number of copies printed: 3500

Memorias del Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Critico I y II (Memoirs
of the Liberator Prize to the Critical Thought) (August, 2008)
Number of copies printed: 3500

Boletín Humanidad en Red (Bulletin Humanity in Network) (July, 2008. Armed with ideas)
Number of copies printed: 20000

Boletín Humanidad en Red (Bulletin in Network)(July, 2008. Special Edition about the International Forum of Philosophy)
Number of copies printed: 20000

ACTIONS

Program “Palabras en Puerta” (Words at the Door)

From its creation in May, 2005, the Networkìs Office has been
developing means to create, strengthen and keep a national and
international system of information and interactive communication among
intellectuals and artists, workers, social movements, organized
communities, public and private institutions, civil organizations and
any other workgroup or association aware of the active and global
defense of life, cultural diversity, peace, liberty, equality and
sovereignty of the peoples. We work, as well, for that collective ideal
of the possibility of a better world in order to reach humanity at its
best.

Carrying out this mission and assuming the need to speed up this process
of transition toward a socialist society, the Network starts a new
program: Palabras en Puerta (Words at the Door), destined to promote and
strengthen the organization of communal power, as well as to build
bridges in order to exchange ongoing social processes from other places
in the world and, therefore, keep people together.

Web Page.- www.humanidadenred.org

Bulletin Humanity in Network (March, 2008)

Bulletin Humanity in Network (July, 2008. Armed with Ideas)

Bulletin Humanity in Network (July, 2008. Special Edition about the International Forum of Philosophy, 2008)

Published Books

Memoirs of the 3rd International Forum of Philosophy, Venezuela 2007. (July, 2008)

Memoirs of the Liberator Prize to the Critical Thought I and II (August, 2008)

Notes on the evening with Chavez
By Patrick Bond 16 October 2008

(In a central Caracas hotel, Chavez arrived 45 minutes late, not bad,
and the speech was 1.5 hours long, with q&a until nearly midnight – a
total of five hours with about 150 visitors. Chavez started by showing
off the books he’d brought: Fidel, Bolivar, some other Latin American
works, and Meszaros's Beyond Capital. There were lots of prelims on the
need for a transition to socialism. Here are some rough notes on what he
said - some nearly verbatim, with lower quality transcription over the
hours, so this is not to be taken as ‘on record’ at all.)

Already a century ago, Mariátegui ago insisted on socialism as a heroic
creation. Earlier, too early for socialism, Bolivar in 1819, riding on
horseback, gave speeches, generated ideas, convened congresses, always
studying; a pre-socialist thinker, an anti-imperialist, a promoter of
equality and freedom.

Simon Rodriguez was called by Bolivar the 'Socrates of Venezuela'. We
are recovering the Rodriguez documents from the obscurity that
dicatators placed him in. We are waging a war to recover our culture.
South America cannot copy models. Forms of governments must be
original. An economic revolution must follow a political revolution,
which demands an economic revolution. In his 1830 book, Rodriquez
develops a series of ideas which are truly remarkable, as he tackles the
economic and political issues of the time.

A few days ago we recalled Che Guevara, and his heroism, self-sacrifice
and ideas. And the book 100 Hours with Fidel (interviews by Ramonet) is
a monument to the effort of a people. One of our greatest mistakes, said
Fidel, was to believe that someone actually knew how to build socialism.

Today we do have a clear idea of how to build socialism. In Chile,
Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Caribbean - there were different experiences.
The only one that survived the battle against imperialism was the Cuban
revolution.

In 1992, Fidel recalled the international scenario: the collapse of the
Sandinista revolution; and the collapse of the Soviet Union. A few weeks
ago during a trip to Havana, he asked me questions. He is devoted 100%
to analysis, thinking and writing. You get an intense cross-examination.
How are things in Russia, China.

We have been called tyrants, dictators - but the movement of the
Venezuelan army was revolutionary from its outset. We had the example of
Cuba. And at that time, we saw the international scenario and had to ask
- should we proceed with the revolution? It was necessary to do so,
because a strong popular movement had begun, barely three years earlier,
in 1989.

One night as president in 2001, I was invited to a talk with scholars
and young writers, and Ramone

Dennis Brutus at the 50th Anniversary of the Non-Racial Sports Movement 10 -11 October 2008

National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre (NAHECS) where liberation history, heritage and culture meet scholarship
Tel: 040 602 2277; Cell 082 494 9055; Fax: 086 628 2701;
e-mail: njaza@ufh.ac.za

As this year October marks the 50th anniversary of the formally constituted non-racial sports movement in South Africa, NAHECS will celebrate the work of the movement with a one-day seminar on “non-racialism in sport and society: the way forward”, and to this will be added the launch of the Sport and Liberation Materials Collection, the opening of the Reginald Anthony Feldman Accession for research, and a dinner. The event will take place in the East London Health Resource Centre on Saturday the 11th of October.

Sports activist poet supports anti-Bok lobby
By Vuyolwethu Sngotsha (Daily Dispatch) 14 October 2008

A CALL to scrap the Springbok emblem from the jersey of the national
rugby team intensified over the weekend, with a former high-profile
anti-apartheid activist calling it a good idea.

During an interview at a function to celebrate 50 years of the
Non-racial Sport Movement hosted by Fort Hare University, Professor
Dennis Brutus said the emblem should be dropped because of its
connotations.

Because of the connection of the Springbok and apartheid and old
racially-based sport, I think it's a good idea to remove that emblem,
Brutus said. His call comes after sports portfolio committee chairperson
Butana Komphela told delegates at a National Sports Indaba in Durban
last week, the Springbok emblem was dividing the country. The ANC
however, came out strongly in support of the Springbok emblem. The ANC
would like to state categorically that it would not like to see any
replacement or change of the Springbok emblem until sufficient debate
and consultation of all stakeholders, including rugby supporters, have
taken place, party spokesperson Jessie Duarte said.

But Brutus, who's also an honorary professor at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal, said the Springbok emblem had clear political and racial
connotations. The Springbok has always been seen as the emblem for
white South Africans. Some people want to preserve it for racial
reasons, Brutus said.

There are people who say 'if you are to introduce a new national emblem
for all South Africans the emphasis of the racial divisions of the past
should be removed' and I agree with that, he said.

But I can see that for some they actually would like to preserve those
racial divisions, Brutus said.

He said debate around the issue was legitimate - but ultimately it would
be resolved by removing the emblem.

Brutus added, though, that he was not sure the Protea, as a symbol,
would be the best choice to replace the Springbok. So another
alternative may be chosen. I think we should allow for other
possibilities, he said.

To change the emblem would cost money, said Brutus, but costs, even if
it was expensive should not be allowed to be a barrier when the country
was dealing with issues of national unity. The South African Rugby
Union had welcomed the statement by the ANC saying that the emblem
should stay, adding that more debate needed to take place. South African
Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins said he believed that the
Springbok emblem is actually a force for unity in this country.

Anyone who saw the tens of thousands of South Africans of all races
flock to welcome back the World-Cup winning Springboks last October
couldn't help but conclude that the public had voted loud and clear on
just what they thought of the Springbok emblem.

Programme

Coffee 09.45-10.15

Opening and first session 10.15-12.30

1. UFH VC Dr Mvuyo Tom – Opening of CELEBRATING 50 YEARS …;
2. Joe Slingers, A Tribute to SASSSA stalwart NR Rathnisamy, and a moment of silence…
3. Cornelius Thomas, A Tribute to GK Rangasamy, and a moment of silence…
4. Minister of Sport Makhenkesi Stofile – Address on “The State of Sport in the Nation” (confirmation awaited);
5. Dennis Brutus – Keynote Address;
6. Dennis Brutus, Ashwin Desai, Cornelius Thomas – plenary session on “The Role of Sport in Building Democracy and Citizenship”.

Lunch 12.30-14.00

Second Session 14.00-17.00

7. Dr Mvuyo Tom (UFH) and Barry Barron (duly authorized representative of Feldman; family) – Signing of Deposit Agreement for the Sport and Liberation Materials Collection – Reginald Anthony Feldman Accession;
8. Dr Mvuyo Tom (UFH) and Cecilia Veotte sign the Cecilia Veotte Softball Accession;
9. Launch of the Sport and Liberation Materials Collection – Director NAHECS
10. Dr Basil Brown, President of the New Unity Movement, introduces, contextualizes Reginald Anthony Feldman;
11. Delphine Feldman opens the Reginald Anthony Feldman Accession for research
12. Cecilia Veotte opens the Cecilia Veotte Softball Accession for research;

Snack break – 3.15-3.30

13. Q & A addressing issues raised in the speeches and plenary, and inputs on the way forward for sport in South Africa

14. Music, stills show, drinks and socializing

Dinner 6.00

PHOTO EXHIBITION

SPORTS BOOKS ON SALE

SOME FREE LITERATURE

Patrick Bond on Zimbabwe & the World Bank 10 October 2008

Zimbabwe’s New Democracy and Civil Society: Can the Bretton Woods Institutions reverse the Economic Crisis?

By Patrick Bond
Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, Durban

Presented to the Georgetown University Center for Democracy and Civil
Society
10 October 2008, 3600 N St, NW

(A version of this paper was originally published by www.amandla.org.za;
for more background, see Bond, P. 2005. Zimbabwe’s Hide and Seek with
the IMF: Imperialism, Nationalism and the South African Proxy, Review of
African Political Economy, 106 - available from the author at pbond@mail.ngo.za)

“The international community will need to act together and institutions
such as the IMF will need to step in to restructure debt and provide
essential financial mechanisms to underpin the failing economy. However,
past concessions made by President Mugabe for the IMF's Economic
Structural Adjustment Programme created economic and political hardships
so the new government will need support to make the case for foreign
intervention.” - Adam Smith Institute, 2007. 100 days: An agenda for
Government and Donors in a New Zimbabwe. London.

With the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund underway in Washington and huge expectations arising from political
parties involved in the September 2008 power-sharing deal, it is time
for a closer examination of the Bretton Woods Institutions’ historic and
current role in Zimbabwe. Along with the UN Development Programme and
donor governments, the Bank and Fund are exploring economic relief for
an economy suffering a nine year long depression and the world’s
worst-ever recorded inflation (officially at 221 million percent in
mid-October but probably over a billion percent). The power-sharing deal
is fragile, and on 9 October a dispute was declared bringing
negotiations over cabinet positions (especially finance and home
affairs) to a halt. Civil society - especially those involved in the
historic February 2008 Peoples Charter - have been asking whether Robert
Mugabe’s foreign debt should be repaid; do orthodox “Washington
Consensus” strategies work and should new grants and loans be
conditional upon neoliberal policies; and how might social forces be
reorganised to ensure a deeper democratic transition and socio-economic
justice?

What is at stake, following the establishment of power-sharing and a
route to democracy, is who will win the new economic chimurenga
(liberation war) being waged in Zimbabwe. The choices are diverse: a
parasitical elite of several thousand bureaucrats and crony business
operators around Robert Mugabe; the productive bourgeoisie (what’s left
of it) around Morgan Tsvangirai; the domestic and international
financiers hoping for austerity; the global corporations devoted to
resource extraction; the aid industry; or the povo (masses).

Representing the interests of the latter, progressive civil society has
made a variety of demands for a genuinely new Zimbabwe, best expressed
in the February 2008 “National People’s Convention Charter”.[1] In
addition to political democratization and human rights, the People’s
Charter spoke of “the national economy and social welfare” in a unified,
unifying way: “Because the colonial and post colonial periods resulted
in massive growth in social inequality and marginalisation of women,
youths, peasants, informal traders, workers, the disabled, professionals
and the ordinary people in general, we hereby make it known that our
national economy belongs to the people of Zimbabwe and must serve as a
mechanism through which everyone shall be equally guaranteed the rights
to dignity, economic and social justice.”

To this end, the People’s Charter called for “People-centered economic
planning and budgets at national and local government levels that
guarantee social and economic rights”, including “public programmes to
build schools, hospitals, houses, dams and roads and create jobs” and
“equitable access to and distribution of national resources for the
benefit of all people of Zimbabwe.” This includes the most controversial
issue of all: “equitable, open and fair redistribution of land from the
few to the many.”

When it comes to concrete struggles with enemies opposed to these values
in coming months, the People’s Convention demanded “the right of the
people of Zimbabwe to refuse repayment of any odious debt accrued by a
dictatorial government.” As for the threat of transnational corporations
– especially mining houses based in South Africa, Britain and the EU,
the US, Australia, China, Malaysia and Russia - entering Zimbabwe in the
wake of the political deal, the Convention insisted upon “Protection of
our environment from exploitation and misuse, whether by individuals or
companies.”

Other demands that link economy and welfare include: “Free and quality
public health care including free drugs, treatment, care and support for
those living with HIV and AIDS; a living pension and social security
allowances…; decent work, employment and the right to earn a living;
affordable, quality and decent public funded transport; food security
and the availability of basic commodities at affordable prices, where
necessary, to ensure universal access; free and quality public education
from crèche to college and university levels; decent and affordable
public funded housing; fair labour standards…; and removal of all
obstacles on the right of small traders, small scale producers and
vendors to trade and earn a living.”

These are worthy demands from representatives of a society so brutally
oppressed that they face not only ongoing torture in direct ways, but
also indirectly, through economic deprivation, especially debasement of
the currency on a scale unprecedented in human history. Worse, to cut
inflation (estimated at over one billion percent by late 2008) in the
manner being discussed by elites, would mean denying most if not all the
demands made above.

Who will be pressured to make these cuts? Had the September 15 elite
deal been implemented (and it still may well be), the Movement for
Democratic Change economic team anticipated to take cabinet positions
under prime minister Tsvangirai included businessman Eddie Cross. The
eloquent, courageous Cross is especially influential as MDC head of
policy, and in mid-August he confided in an email letter that the elite
deal under discussion had, first and foremost, to serve the interests of
imperialism (sometimes termed “the international community”): “There is
no purpose in negotiating an agreement just to have the outcome
repudiated by the international community who in the end are going to be
asked to pick up the tab for Mugabe’s delinquency.”

It is hard to have confidence that Zimbabwean politicians – even Mugabe
himself - can hold firm against the International Monetary Fund, World
Bank, UN Development Programme and donor governments, especially South
Africa. But the drive to beg/borrow from the West appears unstoppable.

“Zim deserves assistance,” declared a Herald newspaper editorial in late
September, reflecting official Zanu(PF) myopia: “It is encouraging that
there have already been positive indications from the IMF, showing its
willingness to open discussions with Zimbabwean leaders on the
possibility of arranging a financial rescue package for the country… We
believe that the support of multilateral institutions is needed now for
Zimbabwe to achieve economic stability, which should see low inflation
and interest rates.”[2]

But notwithstanding August 2007 reports that the IMF “fishmongers plan”
would offer non-conditional financial/donor aid of $3 billion over five
years, it is much more realistic to anticipate extreme pressure by the
IMF and Western donors along predictable lines:

Mass civil service firings and parastatal privatization.

Dramatic cuts in social spending.

US dollarisation/randisation of basic commodities, so that those earning Z$ must do black market currency exchange.

Increased capital flight on the one hand, and denationalisation of national assets through foreign investment on the other hand.

Repayment of Mugabe’s $5+ bn in odious debt to the Bretton Woods Institutions and other creditors.

The legitimation/strengthening/expansion of patronage processes that built up the bank accounts of thousands of Mugabe cronies.

Restructuring of agricultural power relations against the interests of rural people; and

Liberalisation of a variety of state regulations.

If Zimbabweans legitimately demand a rapid and relatively painless
economic turnaround, they will need to forcefully mobilize against both
the Mugabite parasitical bourgeoisie and the Tsvangirai-supporting
neoliberals who will describe People’s Convention demands as
“unrealistic expectations”. Mobilisation will not be easy. Popular
defense mechanisms have been weakened, especially by the retreat of key
opposition cadres into exile, or their killing, disappearance,
victimisation and intimidation. Huge strategic differences opened up
within the generally pro-MDC camp of grassroots civil society activists.

What activists might be able to unite around, however, is a programme to
contest orthodox ideas such as freeing up of markets (which ones?), an
appropriate exchange rate (would this mean an end to exchange
controls?), liberalised trade (which will further demolish local
production), fiscal probity (should not much more be spent on the povo
and much less on parasites and foreign debt payments?), and reform of
parastatals (does that mean, as is generally the case, commercialization
and privatization of services in a way that adversely affects povo
interests?).

In short, if Zimbabweans are told that “recovery requires less
government intervention, not more”, as economist Rob Davies suggests in
a recent article for South Africa’s Amandla magazine, they will have to
tear up the People’s Convention document to comply. But the civil
society groups may instead demand a good government, which would be much
bigger in order to undo the enormous social and economic damage done at
the behest first of the IMF and World Bank during the 1990s – when his
regime’s imposition of neoliberalism was dubbed ‘highly satisfactory’ by
the Bank – and from the late 1990s by Mugabe and his cronies as a
desperate gambit to hold onto power, no matter that it resulted in what
Davies calls an “almost pure rentier economy.”

Two questions arise: can the economy’s weaknesses be turned into
potential strengths, and how to pay for the People’s Charter?

The second question requires an appropriate answer to the first, and
indeed one was provided in 1999 by, surprisingly, the UN Development
Programme’s Zimbabwe Human Development Report (mainly authored by Yash
Tandon, now director of the South Centre in Geneva), copublished by the
Zimbabwe Institute for Development Studies and Poverty Reduction Forum:
“Zimbabwe has a way out as it moves into the third decade of its
Independence. It has a rich dual heritage. One, ironically, is the
heritage left by the UDI regime that built itself up on a largely
internally-oriented economy with minimal dependence on the outside
world. Its illegitimacy was the cause of its demise. The second legacy
is that of chimurenga (liberation war). That spirit is still present and
often not properly channelled. The people of Zimbabwe can, once again,
assert their primacy and with sober and deliberate intervention in
national matters bring back the state and economy to serving first and
foremost the interests of the people based on people’s efforts and
resources, and not one based on foreign dependence.”

But reflecting how unreliable the UN is as an ally of the povo, in
mid-September, the UNDP became the main force to articulate the
neoliberal agenda in Zimbabwe, issuing a 250-page report, Comprehensive
Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe, with major inputs by Mark Simpson (an LSE
trained economist) and Tony Hawkins (Financial Times correspondent).
Amongst the suggestions from the UNDP were:

Carry out fiscal consolidation and exercise monetary restraint.

Establish independent and orthodox central bank.

Remove interest rate controls and exchange-rate controls.

Remove capital controls on private individuals.

Reach agreement to clear outstanding arrears with Bretton Woods Institutions and Paris Club.

Review capital controls on corporates.

Ensure compliance with the tariff structure in line with commitments to the World Trade Organisation.

Remove restrictions to participation of foreign banks.

Design strategies for privatization/restructuring.

Design cost-recovery and maintenance strategies for public
infrastructure and services ministries.

Review (ongoing) tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade.

Enact legislation for public enterprise restructuring.

Design an Interim- Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.

Implement civil service restructuring.

Restructure the Investment Centre in consultation with the private sector.

Train key staff in relevant ministries in the microeconomic foundations of economic policy and foreign trade issues.

Design and implement international competitiveness strategy.

Aside from the UNDP and Bretton Woods Institutions, the most dangerous
of the external advisors is the Cato Institute. Remarkably, this
libertarian Washington thinktank seemed to have won the confidence of
Cross and by extension Tsvangirai by mid-2007, providing comments on MDC
economic policy six months before civil society even had a chance to
look at it. Cato also hosted research by Tsvangirai’s former colleague
David Coltart (subsequently with the Arthur Mutambara faction), who
called for “limiting government’s interference in the economy”.[3]

In that spirit, one Cato senior researcher, Steven Hanke - a Johns
Hopkins University professor who authored regular a Fortune magazine
column and whose work was discredited in Argentina when the currency
board crashed in 2001-02 - recommends Zimbabwe take medicine that “can
rapidly slash the inflation rate and restore stability and growth to the
economy”. The medicine is, simply, to remove monetary sovereignty from
Harare, and give it to the printers of US dollars (the Federal Reserve)
or perhaps the SA rand (the Reserve Bank). That would mean little or no
subsequent ability on the part of a future democratic government in
Harare to set interest rates, control financial inflows/outflows, or
direct credit to reindustrialisation strategies.

Hanke’s case rests in part upon a fib: “Prior to the introduction of
central banking, the country had a rich monetary experience in which a
free banking system and a currency board system performed well.” It
didn’t. There is a well-documented history of financial crises,
inflation and foreign domination that Southern Rhodesian small
capitalists and farmers/workers suffered under the system Hanke
recommends. [4] Hanke’s “free banking” and “currency board” were
unsatisfactory, and required replacement by a central bank more than
half a century ago.

Another unsatisfactory strategy by neoliberals is to emphasise capital
inflows as the solution to the investment problem. For Davies, “It would
be foolish to argue that Zimbabwe does not need capital inflows.” And
yet the most striking information available on capital outflows is that
Zimbabwe is Africa’s third worst case of capital flight in relative
terms, suffering $24 billion in (inflation-adjusted) capital flight from
1978 to 2004, according to University of Massachusetts economists Leonce
Ndikumana and James Boyce. That figure is more than five times
Zimbabwe’s external debt, and in Africa is only exceeded by Nigeria and
Angola.

Will matters improve in the short run? Probably not, for as the London
Times reported after discussions with diplomats, “Mr Mugabe believed he
could flout the [September 15] agreement with impunity because the world
was distracted: the West was facing economic meltdown, Washington had a
presidential election looming, Gordon Brown was fighting for survival
and Thabo Mbeki, the former South African President who brokered the
deal, had been ousted.”

Yet if Mbeki’s ousting by Jacob Zuma gives many poor South Africans hope
(however much in vain), Zimbabweans should be aware that in spite of an
occasional vague public comment, Zuma renewed the SADC mandate: “Mbeki
must indeed continue with his work. He’s done well. He understands
what’s going on. No question.”

Leading Zimbabwean analyst Brian Raftopoulos concludes that Mugabe’s
team “lost their patronage capacity and it will be very difficult for
them to pull out of the deal without becoming totally isolated within
Africa and internationally.”

Yet without civil society pressure, men like Zuma will drift towards
Mbeki-style nurturing of Mugabe. Zuma’s ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini‑Zuma
once said, “We will never criticize Zimbabwe”, and she retains her post
in the Motlanthe administration.

A few weeks prior to the faltering elite deal, the Congress of SA Trade
Unions announced “a week-long trade boycott and refusal to handle goods
from and to Zimbabwe”, and is awaiting word from the Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions about carrying out the threat. A few months earlier, in
April 2008, the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union refused to handle
three million bullets being shipped via Durban to Zimbabwe. The
resulting rise in solidarity movement awareness was formidable, although
Zimbabwe civil society never fully agreed upon sanctions or other
external pressure points.

The time to have those debates within regional civil society may be
near, as Zimbabwe once again lurches towards a political crisis of an
illegitimate and brutal regime, against democrats aiming either for a
change in government (as was anticipated in the March election) or at
minimum, power sharing – but not Mugabe’s power-snaring.

Or, more likely, if the political crisis associated with an exhausted
hypernationalism is bandaided over again by Mbeki in coming weeks, and
if the Bretton Woods Institutions join the UNDP, the Cato Institute, the
Adam Smith Institute, and South Africa’s Brenthurst Foundation (all of
which have issued documents about Zimbabwe after Mugabe), the more
profound crisis looming is neoliberalism, for which the People’s Charter
appears to be the main antidote.

NOTES

[1]. See appendix. Signatories include community, labour, church, youth,
women’s, political, human rights and other groups, for example, the
Combined Harare Residents’ Association, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition,
International Socialist Organisation, Media Institute of Southern
Africa, National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations, National
Constitutional Assembly, Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, Women
of Zimbabwe Arise, Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Zimbabwe
National Students Union and the Zimbabwe Social Forum.

[2]. At the end of August, the latest data available showed Zimbabwe’s
IMF loans outstanding to be 74 million Special Drawing Rights (SDRs –
the IMF’s internal measure of a basket of currencies), or roughly $130
million, with an additional 14 million SDRs in penalty charges and
interest due. That leaves roughly 80% of Zimbabwe’s potential borrowing
from the IMF now untapped. The last standby loan approval from the IMF
was nine years ago, for 141 million SDRs, of which 25 million SDRs were
disbursed before Mugabe failed to meet sufficient conditions to avoid
Zimbabwe’s blacklisting. Mugabe then repaid more than $200 million in
overdue debt in 2005-06, but to no avail.

[3]. Coltart’s report is at: www.cato.org

Other Cato titles include:
New Hope for Zimbabwe
Peace Won’t Come to Zimbabwe
Free Banking for Zimbabwe
How the Loss of Property Rights Caused Zimbabwe’s Collapse
The Collapse of Zimbabwe in the Wake of the 2000 Land Reforms
A Four-Step Recovery Plan for Zimbabwe
Africa’s Zimbabwe Problem

[4]. That documentation includes a PhD I filed in the very department
Hanke teaches in. It was subsequently published as Bond, P. (1998),
Uneven Zimbabwe: A Study of Finance, Development and Underdevelopment,
Trenton, Africa World Press.

APPENDIX:

THE ZIMBABWE PEOPLES’ CHARTER

Adopted at the Peoples’ Convention, Harare, on the 9th of February 2008

We, the People of Zimbabwe,

After deliberations amongst ourselves and with the full knowledge of the
work done by civic society organizations and social movements;

With an understanding that our struggle for emancipation has been
drawn-out and is in need of a people-driven solution;

Hereby declare for all to know that: -

1. Political Environment

In the knowledge that our political environment since colonialism and
after our national independence in 1980 has remained characterised by:

a) A lack of respect for the rule of law;

b) Political violence, most notably that which occurred in the early to
late 1980s in the provinces of Midlands and Matabeleland, and that which
occurred in the years from 1997 to present day, where lives were lost as
a result of government actions undertaken with impunity;

c) A lack of fundamental rights and freedoms, including freedom of
expression and information, association and assembly, all characterised
by the militarization of arms of the state and government.

The People shall have a political environment in which: -

· All people in Zimbabwe, including children, are guaranteed without
discrimination the rights to freedom of expression and information,
association and assembly, and all other fundamental rights and freedoms
as provided under international law to which the state has bound itself
voluntarily.

· All people in Zimbabwe live in a society characterised by tolerance of
divergent views, cultures or religions, honesty, integrity and common
concern for the welfare of all.

· All people in Zimbabwe are guaranteed safety and security, and a
lawful environment free from human rights violations and impunity.

· All national institutions including the judiciary, law enforcement
agencies, state security agencies, electoral, media and human rights
commissions, are independent and impartial and serve all the people of
Zimbabwe without fear or favour.

· There exists a free and vibrant media, which places emphasis on
freedom of expression and information and a government, which guarantees
independent public media as well as a vibrant and independent private
media.

· All people in Zimbabwe live in a society, which is the embodiment of
transparency, with an efficient public service and a belief in a
legitimate, people-centred state.

And hereby further declare that never again shall we let lives be lost,
maimed, tortured or traumatised by the dehumanising experiences of
political intolerance, violence and lack of democratic government.

2. Elections

Fully believing that all elections in Zimbabwe remain illegitimate and
without merit until undertaken under a new democratic and people-driven
constitution, The People shall have all elections under a new
people-driven constitutional dispensation characterised by: -

· Equal access to the media.

· One independent, impartial, accountable and well-resourced electoral
management body.

· A process of delimitation, which is free from political control, which
is accurate, fair, transparent and undertaken with full public
participation.

· A continually updated and accurate voters’ roll, which is open and
accessible to all.

· Transparent and neutral location of polling stations, agreed to
through a national consultative process devoid of undue ruling or
opposition party and government influence, which are accessible to all
including those with special needs.

· Voter education with the full participation of civic society that is
both expansive and well-timed in order to allow citizens to exercise
their democratic right to choose leaders of their choice to the full.

· International, Regional and Local Observers and Monitors being
permitted access to everyone involved in the electoral process.

· An Electoral Court, which is independent and impartial, well-staffed
and wellresourced to address all issues relating to electoral processes,
conduct, conflicts and results in a timely manner.

3. Constitutional Reform

Holding in relation to constitutional reform that a new constitution of
Zimbabwe must be produced by a people-driven, participatory process and
must in it guarantee: -

a) That the Republic of Zimbabwe shall be a democracy, with separation
of powers, a justiciable Bill of Rights that recognises civil,
political, social, economic, cultural and environmental rights;

b) Devolution of government authority to provinces and to local
government level;

c) A multi-party system of democratic government based on universal
suffrage and regular free and fair elections and the right to recall
public officials;

d) The right to citizenship for any person born in Zimbabwe. Birth
certificates, national identity documents and passports shall be easily
available for all citizens;

e) A credible and fair election management body and process;

f) An independent, impartial and competent judiciary;

g) The protection of labour rights and the right to informal trade;

h) The protection and promotion of the rights of people living with
disabilities;

i) Independent and impartial commissions which deal with gender
equality, land, elections, human rights and social justice;

j) An impartial state security apparatus;

The People shall have a constitutional reform process, which is
characterised by the following: -

· Comprehensive consultation with the people of Zimbabwe wherein they
are guaranteed freedom of expression and information, association and
assembly.

· The collection of the views of the people and their compilation into a
draft constitution that shall be undertaken by an All-Stakeholders’
Commission composed of representatives of government, parliament,
political parties, civil society, labour, business and the church with a
gender and minority balance.

· A transparent process of the appointment of the All-Stakeholders’
Commission members as well as their terms of reference.

· The holding of a national referendum on any draft constitution.

4. National Economy and Social Welfare

Holding in relation to the national economy and social welfare that
because the colonial and post colonial periods resulted in massive
growth in social inequality and marginalisation of women, youths,
peasants, informal traders, workers, the disabled, professionals and the
ordinary people in general, we hereby make it known that our national
economy belongs to the people of Zimbabwe and must serve as a mechanism
through which everyone shall be equally guaranteed the rights to
dignity, economic and social justice which shall be guided by the
following principles:

· People-centered economic planning and budgets at national and local
government levels that guarantee social and economic rights

· The obligation on the state, provincial and local authorities to
initiate public programmes to build schools, hospitals, houses, dams and
roads and create jobs.

· Equitable access to and distribution of national resources for the
benefit of all people of Zimbabwe.

· A transparent process of ownership and equitable, open and fair
redistribution of land from the few to the many.

· The right of the people of Zimbabwe to refuse repayment of any odious
debt accrued by a dictatorial government.

· Protection of our environment from exploitation and misuse, whether by
individuals or companies.

· Social and Economic justice as a fundamental principle that guides a
new people driven constitution and in particular the specification of
the people’s social-economic rights in the Bill of Rights.

And in particular, we hold that the national economy shall ensure:

· Free and quality public health care including free drugs, treatment,
care and support for those living with HIV and AIDS.

· A living pension and social security allowances for all retirees,
elderly, disabled, orphans, unemployed and ex-combatants and ex-detainees.

· Decent work, employment and the right to earn a living.

· Affordable, quality and decent public funded transport.

· Food security and the availability of basic commodities at affordable
prices, where necessary, to ensure universal access.

· Free and quality public education from crèche to college and
university levels.

· Decent and affordable public funded housing.

· Fair labour standards including:

o A tax-free minimum wage linked to inflation and the poverty datum line
and pay equity for women, youth and casual workers.

o Safe working places and adequate state and employer funded
compensation for injury or death from accidents at work.

o Protection from unfair dismissal.

o Measures to ensure gender equity in the workplace, including equal pay
for work of equal worth, full and paid maternity and paternity leave.

· Access to trade within and without the national borders and removal of
all obstacles on the right of small traders, small scale producers and
vendors to trade and earn a living.

5. National Value System

Believing that we must commit ourselves to a national value system that
recognises the humanity of every single individual in our society which
we shall call ubuntu, hunhu,

The People shall commit to: -

· Provide solidarity wherever needed to those that are less privileged
in our society as individuals or in any other capacity.

· Equally respect people of all ages.

· Challenging intolerance by learning and respecting all languages and
cultures.

· An inclusive national process of truth, justice, reconciliation and
healing.

· Recognising all people involved in the liberation struggle.

And that this be done with an emphasis that ubuntu/hunhu is passed on
from one generation to the next at national and community level.

6. Gender

Holding in relation to gender that all human beings are created equal,
must live and be respected equally with equitable access to all
resources that our society offers regardless of their gender, and that
gender equality is the responsibility of women and men equally, we
recognise the role that our mothers and sisters played in the liberation
of our country from colonialism and their subsequent leading role in all
struggles for democracy and social justice.

The People state that these fundamental

Patrick Bond at the International Forum on Globalization 6-8 October 2008

Global capitalist crisis and African resistance: Analysis, evidence, practice
Paper presented at International Forum on Globalization by Patrick Bond

www.ifg.org

Patrick Bond at Southern Africa Resource Watch workshop, Johannesburg, 30 September 2008

Patrick Bond on South Africa Country Situation: The Economic, Environmental and Socio-Political Situation Landscape - Implications for
Southern Africa Resource Watch

Workshop Programme: RESOURCE GOVERNANCE: SOUTH AFRICAN MINING AND GAS COMPANIES IN SADC
29 September - 1 October 2008

DAY 1: 29 September

11:00 Welcome & opening Claude, Dirk
11:30 Introduction to the project Claude
12:00 Introduction to gender, gender analysis Carla Ackerman
12:45 Lunch break
14:00 Overview of the South African Investment in SADC + Discussion
David Fig/Claude
15:00 Tea break
15:20 Intro to country situations:

Botswana, DRC, Zimbabwe + Discussion

16:30 End of day 1

DAY 2: 30 September

09:00 Recapture from day 1 Claude
09:30 Intro to country situations:
„« Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia + Discussion
10.30 Intro to country situation and banking sector: South Africa +
Discussion Patrick Bond
11.00 Tea Break
11.30 Research methodology for the study

Introduction to methodology and fieldwork: Introduction to the research project, background, research questions

Doing ¡§fieldwork¡¨, research methods,

Quantitative and qualitative methods David Fig/Claude

12.30 Lunch Break
13.30 Early session continues
14.30 Tea Break
15.00 Introduction to Gender sensitive research methodology and Gender
analysis as part of the research methodology for the study + Discussion
Carla Ackerman
16.45 End of day 2

DAY 3 1 October 2008

09:00 Recapture from day 2 NN
10.00 Tea break
10.20 Joint work session: in view of the past two
days, how then will the study unfold* Open discussion
13.00 Lunch break
14.00 Result from the work sessions Claude
14.30 Country reports:

Content and organization of country reports

Timetable for fieldwork and submission of reports Claude and open discussion

15.00 Tea break
15.15 Final remarks and clarification Claude
15.30 Summary of workshop proceedings & way forward Moratuoa
16.00 End of workshop

Sufian Bukurura speaks at the 22nd Student Development Conference 29 September-2 October 2008

29 September-2 October: on the Theme: Identity, Culture, Heritage and Knowledge: Building Campus communities in Southern African Colleges and Universities to be held in Durban.

SH Bukurura will speak on Human Rights, Globalisation and Cultural Transformation.

Dennis Brutus on Apartheid Reparations 26 September 2008

September 26,
Time: 1:30 pm
Venue: TransAfrica Forum 1629 K Street, NW Suite 1100 Washington DC
Brownbag Discussion (Please Bring Your Own Lunch)

Join Jubilee USA Network, Africa Action, & TransAfrica Forum in
welcoming Dennis Brutus, renowned South African poet, educator, and
activist, to discuss the legal struggle for apartheid-era reparations
from multinational corporations in South Africa. This lunch comes the
day after court hearings in the New York Southern District Court where
he is a leading plaintiff among thousands of South Africans fighting for
economic justice. Dennis' long history and current work will provide a
thought-provoking lunch as we discuss opportunities for further
solidarity. Also invited is MP Giyose, Chair of Jubilee South Africa.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to hayley@jubileeusa.org or call at
202-783-3566 x100. Thanks!

The Case
In 2002, the Khulumani Support Group, representing South African victims
of human rights abuses, filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court against
two dozen banks and corporations that had conducted business in
apartheid-era South Africa. The plaintiffs contend that the
corporations' dealings in the country furthered the apartheid system,
making these businesses complicit in the human rights abuses of the
regime. The legal precedent in the case refers the 1789 Alien Tort
Claims Act, which was designed to limit piracy by allowing foreigners to
sue in U.S. courts for international law violations. The case's history
is framed by a number of challenges; both the US and South African
administrations oppose it, stating that it would hurt investment and
South Africa's policy goals. The legal process has been long and
difficult. A hearing will take place on September 25th in the New York
Southern District Court.
www.jubileeusa.org

Dennis Brutus (1924 - ) was born in what is now Zimbabwe to South
African parents and was educated in South Africa. His outspoken activism
against racism and apartheid during the 1950s and 1960s resulted in the
banning of South Africa from the Olympics and his subsequent arrest. He
was sentenced to prison on Robben Island, serving time with Nelson
Mandela, and then banned from his studies, his politics, and his
teachings. Dennis left South Africa in 1966 for England, followed by the
United States where he taught around the country. His poetry was banned
in SA for years, though he himself was allowed to revisit the country
beginning in 1990. In 1987, he was the first non-African American to
receive the Langston Hughes Award. He has long been involved in the
Jubilee movement and speaks around the world on the current injustices
of the international financial institutions and their policies in the
Global South.

Dennis Brutus plays Marx in Soweto at Brecht Forum 23 September 2008

Tuesday, September 23 7:30 pm

In the tradition of Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho, Dennis Brutus presents Marx in the light of the contradictions in post-Apartheid South Africa. This performance will act as a corrective to South Africa's Prime Minister's Thabo Mbeki's talk at the United Nations General Assembly.

Dennis Brutus was an activist against the apartheid government of South Africa in the 1960s. He worked to get South Africa suspended from the Olympics; this eventually led to the country's expulsion from the games in 1970. He joined the Anti-Coloured Affairs Department organisation (Anti-CAD), a group that organized against the Coloured Affairs Department which was an attempt by the government to institutionalise divisions between blacks and coloureds. He was arrested in 1963 and jailed for 18 months on Robben Island.

In exile, he was professor of Africana studies at Northwestern and Pittsburgh, and an internationally-renowned speaker on social justice issues. He is also probably the most read and cited poet from Africa, and author of Poetry and Protest (Haymarket Books, 2006) and many other works of poetry. In 2005 he joined the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society as an honorary professor.
http://brechtforum.org/node/2033

Patrick Bond at the Business and Local Governance Conference 19 September 2008

Workshop on September 19, 2008 at the GSB, University of Cape Town
Research Centre 700 “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood” (SFB 700), Freie Universität Berlin
& Graduate School of Business (GSB), University of Cape Town

Slide Show from the Paper Presented by Patrick Bond

9:00 Welcome by SFB Team and GSB

9:15 – 11:15 Business and Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood

Thomas Risse, Institute of International Relations, Freie Universität Berlin
How to adapt the concept of governance to research in areas of limited statehood

Ralph Hamann, Environmental Evaluation Unit, UCT
How effective and accountable are different types of collaborative governance initiatives? Ten comparative case studies from South Africa

Discussant: Thomas Koelble, Graduate School of Business, UCT

Coffee Break

11:30 – 13:00 Business in Local Governance - Working Groups

Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:30 Working Groups continued
Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:30 Comparative Discussion and Conclusions

Reporting back from working groups & discussion

Dicussants: Tanja Börzel, SFB 700/FU Berlin, Ceri Oliver-Evans, Centre for Leadership and Public Values, GSB

GSB hosts joint workshop with Freie Universitaet Berlin

The UCT Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB) last month partnered with the Freie Universität Berlin to host a special workshop on “Business in Local Governance – Potentials and Pitfalls”.

The event drew a number of senior international academics and business leaders to the School to discuss the engagement and influence of multinational companies in emerging economies and countries in transition.

The workshop gave these experts and practitioners in the field an opportunity to exchange with research findings and practical experiences, and further develop an understanding of business' potential roles in governance, the conditions of a positive contribution of companies to collective outcomes, but also the pitfalls involved in it.

In the morning, the state of research on “Business and (Local) Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood” was discussed with leading experts in the field. Working groups were then formed on three different fields in which business engages in local governance: one working group set out to illuminate the role of private actors for the development of HIV/AIDS policies in South Africa; the second discussed the potential for business contributions to managing the trade-offs between the three pillars of sustainable development, and in particular to the integration of environmental concerns with economic growth and social issues; and a third group looked at the role of companies in local security governance, which has increasingly been addressed as part of the business and human rights debate.

According to Professor Thomas Koelble of the GSB, a co-ordinator of the workshop at the School and a discussant during the session on Business and Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood, the workshop was hugely successful.

“What emerged from the workshop was that there is a great deal of variation across the business world in terms of why and how they contribute to governance in areas of limited statehood. In some cases such as security issues, they have little choice but to get involved since the state is not capable of providing the levels of security required to conduct production. This then necessitates involvement with communities and that in turn may have both positive and negative consequences,” he said.

Professor Koelble said cases such as South Africa, the Congo and Nigeria were compared in the discussions and it was shown that the business community, while being supportive of community efforts to police, were also, at least in some cases, instrumental in creating their own set of issues and problems.

“In terms of the HIV crisis, the representatives from Bosch, Woolworths, BMW and Ford presented their company programmes. It emerged that these programmes were both extensive and well-intentioned, but that they also contributed to a sense that government was no longer as central to the fight against disease as citizens would want it to be. Again, there is, of course, variation in terms of state capacity as a state such as South Africa is capable of providing a program whereas the capacity in the Congo may be far less developed.

“So, some researchers expressed a concern that increasing public-private efforts provided states with an easy option out of their ‘responsibilities’. And, in cases where the state was to regulate, the concern was raised that the limited nature of state capacity meant that while good legislation may be on the books in terms of laws, the inability to enforce such legislation undermined the good intentions,” said Professor Koelble.

A great deal of scepticism emerged in the sessions on the role of business and sustainable development, he added.

“In these sessions, much of the efforts by business to foster sustainable practices were seen as window-dressing and not as a strategy to actually develop market niches.

“The workshop raised hugely important questions for the business community and government in emerging markets to contemplate. What can business do to assist in better governance and should it even get involved? If it does, what are the consequences and are they beneficial to society and not just the business?”

Other GSB faculty and staff involved in the workshop were Ceri Oliver-Evans, Director of the Southern Africa-United States Centre for Leadership and Public Values, and visiting Senior Lecturer Jonathon Hanks. Glenda Weber, of the GSB Director’s office, co-ordinated the event with Koelble.

Six of the delegates were from the Freie Universität Berlin – Professors Thomas Risse and Tanya Boerzel and their PhD candidates Jana Hoenke and Nicole Kranz (also Freie Universität Berlin) and Christian Thauer and Anna Mueller-Debus (PhD candidates at the European University at Florence, Italy). These six individuals are the core of a research group doing work on corporate responsibility in regions and states where the capacities of the state are considered ‘limited’. Their work focuses on a comparison of business activities in the Republic of the Congo and Southern Africa.

The rest of the speakers came from South Africa: Ralph Hamann (UCT), Thomas Herbstein (UCT), Nicholas Kimani (UCT), Moliehli Shale, Suzall Timm (UCT), Liz Thomas (Wits Medical School), and Patrick Bond (Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KZN Durban).

Corporates were represented by Johanna K. Mpye (Bosch), Natalie Mamet (BMW), B. Hlabano (Ford) and Jenny Abernethy (Woolworths). Consultancies were represented by Abiola Okpechi (Centre for Business and Human Rights), Sabelo Gumede (Institute for Security Studies), Jean Losango (African Institute for Corporate Citizenship), Pancho Ndebele (Emvelo), Paul Kapelus (Synergy Consulting), Carin Bosman (Sustainable Solutions).

Patrick Bond at OilWatch/groundWork strategy conference 10 September 2008

Political economy, oil and social resistance in Africa
Slideshow from Patrick Bonds presentation at the conference.

Patrick Bond at the SA Energy Caucus meeting 10 September 2009

9th -10th September 2008: The Long-Term Mitigation Scenario and Carbon Trading

The state of the global carbon trade debate.
By Patrick Bond
Paper presented to the Energy Caucus conference, 9-10 September 2008

Introduction:
The Government has recently promoted the Long-Term Mitigation Scenario (LTMS) as South Africa’s path to a low-carbon economy and the country’s contribution to climate change mitigation. Is it? Will the LTMS solve climate change? This meeting of the Energy Caucus will unpack the LTMS and debate its merits. This is an important exercise as the LTMS will chart South Africa’s long-term energy and macro-economic course.

Additionally, there is great controversy within civil society about the use of flexible mechanisms (for example, carbon trading) to deal with climate change. This controversy needs to be debated within the Energy Caucus, as flexible mechanism are part of current climate change responses; do they work? The Energy Caucus will also examine the issues of gender and energy (and often overlooked dimension of the energy debate), financing of renewable energy, and tariffs and free basic electricity for all. The Government is moving ahead in the energy sector; it is up to civil society to catch up.

Venue: Booysen’s Hotel
Date & Times:9th of Sept. 2008, 08:30h to 16:30h
10th of Sept. 2008, 08:30h to 16:00h

Agenda—Day 1 Time Subject Speakers
8:30-9:00 Registration
9:00-9:30 Welcome, Housekeeping, Election of Chair Lerato Maregale (Earthlife Africa)
9:30-11:00 Presentation of the LTMS Victor Munnik & David Hallows
(Earthlife Africa)
11:00-11:15 Tea & Networking
11:15-12:30 Panel Debate on the LTMS Victor Munnik, David Hallows, Peter Lukey (DEAT), Rod Crompton (NERSA)
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Open/Further Discussion on LTMS All
14:30-15:15 Gender and Energy Energia
15:15-15:30 Tea
15:30-16:30 Energy and Waste GroundWork
18:30 onwards Launch of Renewable Energy Briefing (Venue: Wits
University) Jason Schaffler, Nano Energy Agenda

Day 2 Time Subject Speakers
8:30-9:00 Welcome
9:00-9:30 Review of Day One Makoma Lekalakala (Earthlife Africa)
9:30-10:15 Presentation #1 on Flexible Mechanisms Richard Worthington
(WWF-SA & SACAN)
10:15-11:00 Presentation #2 On Flexible Mechanisms Patrick Bond (Centre
for Civil Society)
11:00-11:15 Tea
11:15-12:30 Panel Debate on the Flexible Mechanism Mark Wells (Twig),
Richard Worthington, Patrick Bond, Trusha Reddy (ISS).
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Open/Further Discussion on Flexible Mechanisms All
14:30-15:15 Tariffs and Free Basic Electricity for All Centre for Civil
Society
15:15-15:30 Tea
15:30-16:00 Conclusion

Patrick Bond School of Psychology Colloquium Seminar 3 September 2008

Seminar: Is the 'Shock Doctrine' Sound Political Economy?
Speaker: Patrick Bond
Venue: Psychology Seminar Room (Pmb)
Date: 3 September 2008
Time: 12.00

Abstract: The bottom line is that, for economic shock therapy to be
applied without restraint, some sort of additional collective trauma has
always been required. - Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein's 2007 bestseller The Shock Doctrine is partially based upon
the idea that deep-seated economic power shifts (towards capital, away
from labour/society/environment) need an initial psycho-social
catastrophe to reach sufficiently deep into the society. Is there, in
this analysis, a parallel to the SA race-class debate, in which some
Marxists argued that the 'necessary' (not contingent) aspects of capital
accumulation in Southern Africa required institutionalised racism?
Should we thus address Klein's thesis in a manner that ties us down to a
broad marriage of psychological theory and radical politics? Or are
other versions of 'shock therapy' - such as Schumpeter's 'creative
destruction' or Harvey's 'devalorisation of overaccumulated capital' -
more appropriate to the determination of necessity versus contingency,
and the alliance-building politics that would follow? This paper argues
for a selective use of Klein's thesis, within the framework of 'combined
and uneven development'. This framework offers just as strong and
broad-based a politics of resistance as does Klein's ambitious and
admirable linkage of moments within 'disaster capitalism'.

Debating Ronald Suresh Roberts about Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine

By Patrick Bond (PB), responding to:
Beware Electocrats: Naomi Klein on South Africa
by Ronald Suresh Roberts (RSR)
Radical Philosophy commentaries, July-August 2008

RSR: … In her discussion of non-African countries, Klein confronts the
articulated logic of decision makers. But when she turns her attention
to post-apartheid South Africa Klein is content to recycle the
impressions of a small and like-minded clique of analysts such as
fellow-Canadian activist Patrick Bond,

PB: The first of RSR’s untruths. I lived in Toronto for a few months in
2003-04, but was never accused of being Canadian.

RSR: described as someone “who worked as an economic advisor in
Mandela’s office during the first years of ANC rule.” Actually Bond is
best known as an anti-government fund-raising maestro within global
“social movements” circles.

PB: For good reason, no one else has ever accused me of being a
fund-raising maestro.

RSR: His Centre for Civil Society has at times accepted money from USAID
and the Ford Foundation and has had links at Board level with Ford,
Kellogg and other such foundations.

PB: This is a strange manipulation. US AID defunded CCS in 2003 after
the then-director, Adam Habib, opposed the war on Iraq – and was later
branded a “terrorist” and banned from entry into the US. Ford has not
extended new funding to CCS since the time I arrived in late 2004. CCS
has an advisory board that meets once a year, and initially it included
a couple of people from foundations, but not since 2004 - and I
personally have never met anyone associated with Kellogg. As the words
above were being published, University of KwaZulu-Natal authorities were
in the process of announcing the closure of CCS, on grounds of
insufficient permanent funding (http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za). Anything
written about CCS by Steven Gowans (RSR’s Canadian source) must be taken
with a very large grain of salt, as his accounts are as error-ridden as
RSR’s.

RSR: Klein decries neocon “transitionologists” as a “hypermobile class”
that intellectually dominates “inherently inward-looking” native
governments, softening them up for neoliberal restructuring. Yet she and
some of her informants participate in the same condescension and
hypermobility.

PB: Most of us reading these words are hypermobile, especially RSR (as
so many in South Africa dearly hope). Condescension from the left is
really only directed towards those who too rapidly followed Washington’s
advice, without thinking about or acting on behalf of their own
citizens’ interests.

RSR: To avoid duplicating the imperialism they supposedly resist, the
‘social movements’ elite may need to become a little more ‘electocratic’
than at present.

PB: That is, simply, too great a challenge, at least while the African
National Congress lock on voting prevents a genuine contestation in that
sphere, i.e., until the trade unions split from the ruling party and
start their own. My suspicion is that, with a few exceptions (Operation
Khanyisa Movement in Johannesburg), it is only after labour splits from
the nationalists that most social/community movements will consider
moving forcefully into the electoral realm.

RSR: ... Klein uncritically recycles the Mbeki-bashing views of William
Mervyn Gumede, a self-described Oppenheimer Scholar at St Anthony’s
College, Oxford, and a former employee of the London Economist’s
Intelligence Unit.

PB: Gumede needed funding to live, and won a competitive fellowship and
writing job, but you won’t find in his work any bias towards imperial
capital. RSR’s smeary attack-by-association not only doesn’t work, but
instead recalls his own personal sponsorship – and corresponding
pro-Mbeki hackery - from the SA president’s office via a major
Afrikaner-dominated banking group.

RSR: ... by the time [John] Pilger published this essay in 2006 (based
on a 1998 documentary), the electorate had given an even larger
percentage of its vote to the ANC in 1999 (66 per cent) and then a
larger still share in 2004 (70 per cent). If Pilger was correct, South
Africa’s black voters were not merely misled, but chronically
misleadable. Pilger doesn’t explain why that might be. Ah, the boundless
stupidity of those millions.

PB: There is a simple reason, one parallel to US workers’ votes for the
Democratic or Republican Party, or British workers’ votes: there is not
yet a viable alternative party on the left. Where such have emerged, in
Latin America where social movements and trade unions are more
independent of the former ruling parties, such mass leftist parties have
no problem gaining votes. It is only a matter of time before this occurs
in South Africa, given so much seething socio-economic dissatisfaction.
RSR does not reveal that the larger vote share came on a dramatically
diminished proportion of the population willing to go to the polls time
after time, given the deterioration in their socio-economic conditions
since 1994.

RSR: ... The suggestion that millions of newly enfranchised blacks have
been so quickly and so easily reduced to a quasi-comatose passivity is a
proposition that must be expressed with great delicacy, to say the least.

PB: Given that South Africa has more social protests per person than
probably any country in the world, the words put into Klein's mouth –
“quasi-comatose passivity”?! - are absurd. Given that Klein actively
supports these protests against economic injustice, in solidarity when
called upon by grassroots activists, makes her condescending critique
of South African neoliberalism far more serious than RSR's occasional
critique of the SA bourgeoisie.

RSR: Klein excels in this. Her favoured strategy is to find a black
native informant who mentions the unmentionable, rendering it printable…

PB: First it’s the “Canadian” Bond, now the “black native informant”.
RSR seems to need a moving target to insult. Why not address the
critique head on?

RSR: And yet when it comes to plain factual matters Klein herself is
frequently caught napping. At page 203 of her chapter on ‘South Africa’s
constricted freedom’ Klein lists the apparent nets that descended upon
the unwary natives and their political leadership. For instance she
cites the Constitution’s property clause, which explicitly contemplates
and allows for land reform, as though it absolutely bars land reform.

PB: This is a contentious issue, and a great many agricultural analysts
and rural movements have noted the state's refusal to carry out the
needed large-scale land expropriation. This point the ANC elite conceded
themselves, in August 2008, by removing from consideration a proposed
parliamentary bill with that intent.

RSR: Likewise, an ANC government that successfully litigated against
intellectual property rights that had stymied cheap generic
antiretrovirals gets faulted by Klein for upholding the very constraints
they successfully fought down!

PB: This is nonsense, for although in 1997-99, the Mandela government's
health ministry promoted antiretroviral medicines and passed a law
providing for compulsory licensing so that intellectual property rights
would not apply, by 2000 the Mbeki government was explicitly opposed to
use of that law, to the medicines themselves, and to the civil society
organisation (Treatment Action Campaign) most active in advocating
access to the life-saving drugs.

RSR: Again, she emphasizes the interest bill on pre-democracy loans as
though debt repudiation would have enhanced the democratic government’s
cash flows for social spending,

PB: Klein is correct; servicing the apartheid-era debt was the
second-highest budgetary item under Mandela, at more than 20%, just
below education spending. Mandela himself has said the same, as she
quotes from a Jubilee South Africa documentary film.

RSR: without addressing the cash crunch that debt repudiation would
entail as retaliating banks shut down credit lines.

PB: Prescribed assets would easily have dealt with this problem, as it
had during the apartheid regime's mid-1980s credit crunch. Access to
international finance was not much of an issue, as reflected in the very
small rise in foreign debt in the first decade of democracy.

RSR: She suggests that the World Bank succeeded in ‘making
private-sector partnerships the service norm’. As strategy and policy
adviser to the ANC minister who piloted the 1998 water law reforms, I
personally insisted upon precisely the opposite bias, which is why
section 19 of the 1997 Water Services Act establishes an explicit onus
against public–private partnerships, of which there have been next to
none. Moreover, section 3 of the 1998 Water Act effectively nationalizes
water resources.

PB: This is sophism (and I also worked for the water minister, as a
budget advisor, at exactly the same time as RSR). Even though too many
municipalities were badly run and impoverished, hence distasteful to
Paris and London water companies, a $1 billion apparatus (the Municipal
Infrastructure Investment Unit) was established at the Development Bank
of Southern Africa, with World Bank and US AID support, to make PPPs the
norm (and the unit was readily embraced by the water ministry:
http://www.dwaf.gov.za/DIR_ws/content/pds/AlternativeDeliveryMechanism/PDF%5CD4747%20Toolbox%20(4).pdf).
The spirit of commodification was most explicitly introduced by that
same water minister in his 1994 White Paper, which explicitly rejected
subsidies to cover operating/maintenance costs even for poor rural
recipients of new water systems - leading to most of those new systems'
bankruptcy. The following year, the World Bank's main water staffer in
the region insisted that the same minister not introduce the free
lifeline water that was promised in the Reconstruction and Development
Programme, and he complied, and by 1999 the Bank openly declared victory
in its Country Assistance Strategy. RSR may have thought he put a damper
on PPPs but he apparently was not paying attention. As for
'nationalising' water, yes, the current system is an improvement over
Riparian Rights in which water was owned by whomever owned the land
above it. But the real question to ask is whether the system set up by
Roberts and his minister has delivered adequate decommodified water to
the masses, and it is undeniable that thousands of social protests have
occurred because the answer to the question is no.

RSR: Klein convinces herself that ‘currency controls’ needed to be
imposed in 1994. Actually these were already thick on the ground, a
result of the apartheid regime’s earlier battles with capital flight.

PB: Coming late to the scene, RSR doesn't understand that the SA Finance
Ministry and Reserve Bank were rife with corruption prior to 1994 (one
Bank employee was convicted of US$1 billion in forex fraud), or that the
meagre 1985-95 finrand exchange controls merely put a premium on
exporting money. Much more intense capital controls should have been
applied so as to prevent the rich white people and companies that
benefited from apartheid, from removing the loot so easily.

RSR: Klein repeatedly mentions an $850 million IMF deal ‘signed,
conveniently enough, right before the elections’ of 1994; this deal then
supposedly constrained the incoming government.

PB: Supposedly? Of course it constrained the ANC government. Here is the
leading financial journalist's opinion: The ANC wants to create an
almost utopian society, described in the Reconstruction and Development
Programme. But it has to build that society while keeping its promises
to the IMF and its own commitment to ‘macroeconomic balance’ (Greta
Steyn in Business Day, 30 May 1994). The IMF agreement included wage
restraint and shrinkage of the fiscal debt, and informally compelled
Mandela to reappoint the apartheid-era finance minister and central bank
governor.

RSR: But she neglects to mention that the IMF has been begging the ANC,
with zero success in fifteen years, to take its money.

PB: Nonsense, the IMF did not beg SA to do anything by way of taking
credit, because SA kept such strong relations with foreign creditors
that it did not need to. The IMF did not beg SA to make any change in
economic policy, because it did not need to: Mbeki’s team was imposing
IMF policies on the populace from May 1994 in any event. The World Bank
did make loans, and the Bank's International Finance Corporation also
made major investments. The Bretton Woods Institutions were quite
satisfied with SA, so much so that they allowed SA finance minister
Trevor Manuel to chair their board of governors in 2000.

RSR: She even believes the minimum wage was not raised. It was. Repeatedly.

PB: This is the sophist in RSR again. What Klein actually writes, in the
context of the IMF loan, is: Raise the minimum wage to close the
apartheid income gap? Nope. The IMF deal promises 'wage restraint.' And
indeed it did, so that the wage bill in the state budget shrunk, and
only much later were the first minimum wages applied (after enormous
lobbying by trade unions). Yet wages were and are so very low, that
instead of the apartheid income gap shrinking, it actually widened
steadily since 1994, to amongst the highest levels in the world. Klein
is correct, RSR is wrong even when twisting her words.

RSR: Additionally, Klein implies that the ANC implemented a massive
privatization plan. This is a major theme in Shock Doctrine;
privatization is to political economy what sensory deprivation is to
clinical psychology. In fact the ANC successfully resisted massive
international pressure on privatization, and Mbeki took the steps that
were required to allow such resistance to prevail. The ANC has
privatized nothing strategic other than the telephone company.

PB: Successfully resisted? More like: tried hard and failed at every
single attempt. Thanks to telecommunications privatisation, the cost of
local calls skyrocketed as cross-subsidisation from long-distance
(especially international) calls was phased out. As a result, out of 2.6
million new lines installed, at least 2.1 million disconnections
occurred, due to unaffordability. More than 20,000 Telkom workers were
fired, leading to ongoing labour strife. Telkom’s 2003 Initial Public
Offering on the New York Stock Exchange raised only $500 million, with
an estimated $5 billion of Pretoria’s own funding of Telkom’s late 1990s
capital expansion lost in the process. In the field of transport, in
addition to the vast increase in commercialised toll roads, private
‘kombi-taxi’ minivans remain extremely dangerous - and ungovernable -
due to profitability pressures, and the ANC failed to build up public
transport. Air transport privatisation included a) the collapse of the
first regional state-owned airline following privatisation, b) South
African Airways’ disastrous corporatisation mismanagement by a chief
executive imported from the US and subsequent renationalisation of the
30% share owned by (bankrupted) SwissAir, and c) major security glitches
and labour unrest at the privatised airports company. Constant strife
with the ANC-aligned trade union threw ports privatisation into
question. And the increasingly corporatised rail service shut down many
feeder routes that, although unprofitable, were crucial to rural
economies. The electricity sector commercialised rapidly, with
Johannesburg’s power supply sold to the notorious US firm AES, and 30%
of national generation capacity up for sale now. The commercialisation
of Eskom left 30,000 unemployed during the 1990s, pushing up tariffs for
residential customers as cross-subsidies came under attack, as well as
slowing the rural electricity grid’s expansion, and disconnecting
millions of people who fell into arrears on inflated bills. And as noted
already, virtually all local governments adopted a 100% cost recovery
policy for water during the late 1990s, at the urging of central
government and the World Bank.

RSR: While Patrick Bond at least quotes Mbeki’s many and varied assaults
upon the Washington Consensus before caricaturing them as lip service
(as in his book Talking Left, Walking Right),

PB: Ahem, that’s Talk Left Walk Right.

RSR: Klein proceeds as though Mbeki’s vigorous and long-standing
critiques, such as his speech at the ILO Conference in June 2003, simply
do not exist.

PB: Thankfully, she doesn’t cite all that nonsensical anti-imperialist
rhetoric, because it’s merely a distraction, part of the shock treatment.

RSR: When Klein turns her attention to the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC), which investigated the apartheid past, she suggests
that the ANC played a role in limiting its political effects. She
suggests that the ANC wanted a narrow torture-focused process that
neglected apartheid’s systemic aspects. Again I was a direct participant
in the formative debates surrounding the Truth Commission, and at the
time I co-authored a book with Professor Kader Asmal, the human rights
lawyer and ANC minister who had first floated the idea in a 1992
lecture. We explicitly advocated a systematic focus and rejected
precisely the narrow torture-based approach that Klein criticizes.

PB: If so, RSR lost, and should have the humility to admit that only
murder/torture “counted” in the TRC, and hence a larger group of victims
had to go to the US courts – using the Alien Tort Claims Act – in search
of justice. Because thanks to Mbeki, such justice would not be available
in SA. (Mbeki took the side of Bush, Brown, Merkel and the corporations
in the reparations debate, a point RSR somehow neglects.)

RSR: We emphasized the role of business, which Klein claims the ANC
tried to play down…

PB: Simply put, RSR lost again. Making profits from apartheid and then
lying about it to the TRC was big business' ANC-approved practice, as
periodically codified at the tycoons' funerals, dutifully attended by
ANC leaders. The refusal to support apartheid victims in the New York
court was not due to Alex Boraine, it was Mbeki’s explicit choice in
mid-2003, although a letter from US Secretary of State Colin Powell
seemed to clinch it.

RSR: The plain truth is that Klein’s account of South Africa is clogged
with propaganda. This is all the more poignant because of her
undoubtedly progressive intentions. Many of the guiding assumptions of
Shock Doctrine do not fit the South African situation, but rather than
revise her theory Klein prefers to misrepresent the ‘case’. In fact, the
last thing sought by the colonial status quo in South Africa is ‘shock’
of any kind.

PB: My own view, on the contrary, is that the colonial status quo needed
three kinds of shock consistent, with Klein’s thesis. First was the
murder or maiming or torture of tens of thousands of black South
Africans by the state and ‘Third Force’ in the decade prior to
democracy, so as to soften up the liberation forces; second being the
shock of happiness that apartheid ended, mixed with a euphoric trust
that the party they voted into power would reduce poverty, unemployment,
inequality, homelessness and illness (followed by an aftershock - that
the reverse happened); and a third being the repeated pounding the SA
currency took from international financial speculators (1996, 1998,
2001, 2006, 2008). Once those psycho-social shocks set in, weariness of
fighting combined with a political honeymoon. That allowed the small
group of neoliberal state managers to impose policies such as the 1994
White Papers dealing with water and housing, the 1995 infrastructure
plan, the 1996 Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy
(especially in the wake of the 1996 currency crisis) and myriad other
policies. In these ways, the guiding assumptions of Shock Doctrine work
very well when applied to SA.

RSR: Instead, for obvious reasons, they seek a kind of continuity that
was vividly described by one Anglo-American official in the 1980s as
‘permanent transition’. He meant the continuation of state
powerlessness: the powerlessness of the apartheid state, buffeted by
sanctions and pariah status before 1994 ought to give way to a new
powerlessness of the democratic state, which must be weakened by
factionalism and delegitimized (not least by reckless internal talk of
‘betrayal’) so that private and international interests can continue to
dominate the field as the only entities capable of collective action.

PB: The apartheid state was not powerless, by any means - but the
crucial missing link here is that ‘private and international interests’
were conjoined with the rise of the betrayal-oriented ANC elite, both
within the state and out, ably led by Mbeki. RSR’s failure to grapple
properly with this factor is revealing.

RSR: This is why the choice of Klein’s chief source in this chapter,
William Gumede, is so profoundly problematic. Klein thoroughly buys
Gumede’s anti-Mbeki line. In January 2005 the Economist had the
following peculiar sentence in a hostile profile of Mbeki, based on
Gumede’s book: “Mr Mbeki and a team of friends [sic] – Trevor Manual as
finance minister, Tito Mboweni at the central bank – pushed through a
set of tough economic reforms known as GEAR (the Growth, Employment and
Redistribution Plan) to cut the deficit, lower inflation, cut tariffs
and bureaucracy and privatize some state firms. These reforms left
opponents reeling. Those who wanted to see a state-dominated economy
were barged aside.”

PB: That particular shock to the left, which I witnessed when I was
chief drafter of the ill-fated National Growth and Development Strategy
working in Mandela’s office, began building in February 1996, when the
currency crashed by a third following a (false) rumour Mandela was ill.
Those left reeling included our Reconstruction and Development Programme
office (shut down within days of the currency crash), and the trade
unions, whose leader Mbhazima Shilowa uttered the famous words about
GEAR in July 1996: “Something has gone terribly wrong”.

RSR: But since when has the Economist taken up cudgels on behalf of
labour unions that were allegedly ‘barged aside’ by market measures?
Klein’s book itself demonstrates what everybody knows: the Economist
traditionally proselytizes in favour of the sort of economic reforms
embraced by Augusto Pinochet and other neoliberal ‘modernisers’…

PB: Yes, they were obviously celebrating in that sentence, above, as
they always have regarding ANC neoliberalism - only now they are a bit
more aware of how little legitimacy these policies have within the ANC
mass base.

RSR: On AIDS policy, in particular, Mbeki has steadfastly resisted the
Big Pharma disaster capitalist logic, peddled by Jeffrey Sachs himself,
who advocates a medical form of shock therapy in the form of massive
drug-buying binges – a strategy criticized by William Easterley [sic] in
The White Man’s Burden.

PB: Citing World Banker Easterly so favourably may be satisfying to AIDS
denialists who don't like anti-retroviral medicines, including Mbeki,
but won’t change the reality that tens of thousands of treatment
activists handed Mbeki, Clinton/Gore and Big Pharma a massive defeat, by
decommodifying and deglobalising the production of generic AIDS
medicines which will save millions of lives. RSR could not come to grips
with this in his praise-book for Mbeki, and somehow still believes that
the successful campaign to bring generic anti-retrovirals to Africa was
supported by Big Pharma, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

RSR: And yet, despite her generally unremitting criticisms of Sachs,
Klein gives Mbeki no credit here, scared away as she is by the
propaganda that has caricatured his position as an ill-defined ‘AIDS
denialism’.

PB: No, Mbeki deserves blame for what is often termed “genocide”, namely
denying millions of his subjects the medicines for so long, as is well
documented.

RSR: The rise of factionalism inside the ANC is not now and never was
about the country’s location on a policy spectrum between right-wing
‘shock doctors’ and left-wing progressives.

PB: Most people here believe differently.

RSR: Since the defenestration of Mbeki at the ANC conference last
December, the new leadership has reiterated the old economic policy
commitments…

PB: This is a point, finally, that I agree with. But the trade unionists
and communists do not agree and intend fighting within the Zuma camp for
post-neoliberal policies, and given their social weight, the future is
indeed hard to predict.

RSR: Klein herself is, of course, a powerful part of the global media,
with her well-meaning and yet stubbornly Orientalist representations of
African politics, complete with a ‘culture-shocked’ Mandela and a
chronically paralysed native electorate, falsely unconscious of its
authentic best interests.

PB: It’s this sort of language that made RSR infamous as a political
hack in his SA days, labeled by one of the main newspapers “The
unlikeable Mr Roberts”. (A lawsuit for defamation, and appeal, both
failed, suggesting how little RSR’s spin gets traction now in South
Africa.) It’s this systematic distortion of reality that runs rife
through his own book about Mbeki, Fit to Govern (which Percy Ngonyama and I debated with him and reviewed here - http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,40,3,1255). It’s his ongoing defense of Mbekism that requires such fibbing for the likes of Radical Philosophy, but which really amounts to wasting readers' time and energy. Instead, have a look at Klein's excellent writing about South Africa, which she generously posted free for us all:
http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?3,28,10,2916

Democracy Born In Chains: South Africa’s Constricted Freedom.
Klein, Naomi (2007)

Chapter 10 of The Shock Doctrine, pp.194-217.

Reconciliation means that those who have been on the underside of
history must see that there is a qualitative difference between
repression and freedom. And for them, freedom translates into having a
supply of clean water, having electricity on tap; being able to live in
a decent home and have a good job; to be able to send your children to
school and to have accessible health care. I mean, what’s the point of
having made this transition if the quality of life of these people is
not enhanced and improved? If not, the vote is useless. Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, 2001 1

Before transferring power, the Nationalist Party wants to emasculate it.
It is trying to negotiate a kind of swap where it will give up the right
to run the country its way in exchange for the right to stop blacks from
running it their own way. Allister Sparks, South African journalist2

In January 1990, Nelson Mandela, age seventy-one, sat down in his prison
compound to write a note to his supporters outside. It was meant to
settle a debate over whether twenty-seven years behind bars, most of it
spent on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town, had weakened the
leader’s commitment to the economic transformation of South Africa’s
apartheid state.

The note was only two sentences long, and it decisively put the matter
to rest: “The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly
industries is the policy of the ANC, and the change or modification of
our views in this regard is inconceivable. Black economic empowerment is
a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state
control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable.”3 History, it
turned out, was not over just yet, as Fukuyama had claimed. In South
Africa, the largest economy on the African continent, it seemed that
some people still believed that freedom included the right to reclaim
and redistribute their oppressors’ ill-gotten gains.

That belief had formed the basis of the policy of the African National
Congress for thirty-five years, ever since it was spelled out in its
statement of core principles, the Freedom Charter. The story of the
charter’s drafting is the stuff of folklore in South Africa, and for
good reason. The process began in 1955, when the party dispatched fifty
thousand volunteers into the townships and countryside. The task of the
volunteers was to collect “freedom demands” from the people---their
vision of a postapartheid world in which all South Africans had equal
rights. The demands were handwritten on scraps of paper: “Land to be
given to all landless people,” “Living wages and shorter hours of work,”
“Free and compulsory education, irrespective of color, race or
nationality,” “The right to reside and move about freely” and many
more.4 When the demands came back, leaders of the African National
Congress synthesized them into a final document, which was officially
adopted on June 26, 1955, at the Congress of the People, held in
Kliptown, a “buffer zone” township built to protect the white residents
of Johannesburg from the teeming masses of Soweto. Roughly three
thousand delegates---black, Indian, “colored” and a few white---sat
together in an empty field to vote on the contents of the document.
According to Nelson Mandela’s account of the historic Kliptown
gathering, “the charter was read aloud, section by section, to the
people in English, Sesotho and Xhosa. After each section, the crowd
shouted its approval with cries of ‘Afrika!’ and ‘Mayibuye!’ “5 The
first defiant demand of the Freedom Charter read

Photographs by Oliver Meth, from the exhibition 'Breathing Spaces, 1 August 3 September 2008

Breathing Spaces exhibition can be viewed at UKZN Centre for Civil Society from 1 August - 3 September 2008.

About the Photographer
Oliver grew up and lives in Wentworth, Durban. From 2003 to 2005, he was a youth photographer for the Durban South Photography Project (DSPP), taking place in community photographic workshops and exhibitions held in Wentworth, Merebank and Lamontville. The DSPP culminated in the exhibition in the Durban Art Gallery, Breathing Spaces: Environmental Portraits of Durban's Industrial South, in 2007. Breathing Spaces will also tour to Cape Town in 2008.

About the Durban South Photography Project
The photographs formed part of the exhibition Breathing Spaces: Environmental Portraits of Durban's Industrial South, at the Durban Art Gallery in 2007, and which will open in Cape Town in February 2008.

Breathing Spaces exhibition can be viewed at UKZN Centre for Civil Society from 01 August - 03 September 2008.

It is a photographic exploration of three Durban neighborhoods – Wentworth, Merebank and Lamontville. The exhibition consists of photography by Oliver Meth from the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, taken from a larger collection of the Durban South Photography Project.

Durban's urban geography reflects race and class inequities that persist beyond apartheid. Wentworth, Merebank and Lamontville (formerly categorised under apartheid as 'coloured', Indian' and 'African') are located in the immediate vicinity of refineries and other industry. The area has been the centre of much controversy and activism about the levels of industrial pollution experienced by residents. The exhibition inquires into what it means to live in an environment still strongly structured by the geographies of apartheid city planning, by poverty and industrial pollution.

This is a photographic representation of lives in Durban's residential-industrial hinterland, a part of the city with rich local cultures and histories that have remained excluded from Durban's visual identity as a city. The exhibition explores how environmental injustice translates into day-to-day living and how people have made lives for themselves, also asking questions about gender and identity, and the experience of people from different generations.

Contact: Oliver Meth via e-mail metho@ukzn.ac.za

Sufian Bukurura on Community Service 27-30 August 2008

Professor Sufian H Bukurura will speak on Community Service Orders as an Alternative to Imprisonment at the Safety and Security Conference organised by the Namibian Prison Service in Windhoek, Namibia, to be held 27-30 August 2008.

The text of the presentation will be circulated in the next few days.

Dennis Brutus at the Jubilee South Africa National Conference 21-24 August 2009

PowerPoint Presentation by Patrick Bond

JUBILEE SOUTH AFRICA CONFERENCE 2008
CONFERENCE CONCEPT PAPER

VENUE: STAY CITY, BEREA JOHANNESBURG
DATE: 21-24 August 2008

Jubilee South Africa is holding its National Conference in Johannesburg
from the 21st to the 24th of August 2008. Consecutively, this is the
next Jubilee Conference following the inaugural Conference of 1998 and
the National Conference of March 2001. This therefore is the third
National Conference of Jubilee South Africa

PURPOSE OF NATIONAL CONFERENCE
Every national Conference has the following general objectives:

It assesses the global and national political context within which the organisation is operating.

It reviews the History and the progress made by the organisation in the Inter-Conference period.

It examines the emerging character of the organisation.

It analyses and determines a policy regime, which will characterise the organisation in the succeeding period.

It determines the campaigns and other social actions that will impinge on the work of the organisation.

It will conclude constitutional processes, which have now become appropriate.

It will elect office bearers, and pronounce on such statutory arrangements related to this matter as may be apposite.

THE NATURE OF JUBILEE SOUTH AFRICA
When Jubilee 2000 was launched in Cape Town in 1998, it was in all respects a broad campaign, which was specifically directed at the problem of the Apartheid Debt, facing South Africa after 1994. Of necessity, this campaign was a regional Southern African affaire because the political interconnections of the Apartheid Debts could not be confined within the borders of this country. The wider ramifications of the Apartheid Debt question included the problem of Apartheid-caused debt. Further, it was impossible at this formative date already to extricate the question of debt from those of the basic organisation of the South African economy, the issue of reparations and the related problems of human and social rights. The logic of these broad imperatives lying behind the campaign immediately dictated a broad alliance of forces that would be able to develop policy and generate social action. At this early time already, it was clear that a coordinating and organising instrument had to be concretised so that efficiency will be imparted to both the thinking functions and the social action features of subsequent work. The matter was not at that time problematised of the type of political organisation, which would be implicit in the delivery of the project. The early work of the campaign, which relied heavily on the political interventions of the Patrons of Jubilee South Africa led by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, soon led to the development of an early theory on reparations. From here, the path was wide open into the building of a mobilising and organising feature, which led from the National Executive Committee to the growth of provincial structures. It was imperative that the coalition should fine-tune all its operating features and result in the delivery of a specific mobilising and
organising feature, which will result in the arrival of Provincial Committees. The organisation was therefore fast entering a transition from a general campaign carried by a coalition of forces towards a tighter Movement linking up coalition partnerships with provincial memberships and committees. The organisation was developing into a movement.

POST 2001
This was the analysis reached by the conference in 2001. It concluded
that Jubilee South Africa, whilst retaining the duality of a network,
was fast evolving into a National Movement. As such, it was rapidly
learning to take its place among the social movements, which had come to
be born in South Africa. These were the terms in which the organisation
participated in the social mobilisation accompanying the Durban Social
Forum in the course of the UN Conference on Racism and the even wider
social mobilisation in the Social Movements United expressing the
position of the masses in the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(WSSD). As such, Jubilee South Africa became a founding member of the
Social Movements Indaba (SMI).

The giant strides taken by the organisation had been set on a sound
theoretical foundation. Seminal works had been published by the
Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) on Apartheid Debt,
Questions and Answers, and Reparations. These were published under the
names of Jeff Rudin and Dot Keet. Two other large works were also
published by ESSET under the name of Michael Samson. In the middle of
all this, the economic researches undertaken by Mascha Madorin and
Gottfried Welmer on Apartheid-caused debt were published. These studies
quantified the essence of Apartheid Debt and suggested the political
trajectory of the debt campaigns in southern Africa for the subsequent
period. They also clarified the connection between Debt and Finance and
Debt and the social super structure in South Africa especially after
1996. The debate on the social movement implied by these studies had begun.

In addition to the projection on the new debts arena, foreshadowed by
the proposed World Bank Health loan of this time and the new debts being
incurred in the arms deal, the Reparations Campaign became focused on
the prospects for a lawsuit involving any parties our researches might
suggest. The road was now wide open to a broad strategy involving large
sections of the working classes and the faith movements broken up into
several Task Team areas. It was at this time that the Apartheid Debt and
Reparations (ADR) Task Team came to take the ascendancy. This also meant
the rise of Khulumani Support Group as a leading organ in the work of
the ADR campaign. Further sharpening of functions and roles occurred
within that campaign inside South Africa and on the International arena.
The Khulumani vs Barclays et al Lawsuit has now entered a critical phase
at the Southern District court of the USA. In this regard, it is
necessary to say that it is obligatory for this lawsuit to arrive at an
even closer modus operandi with the sister lawsuits led by the Lungisile
Ntsebeza et al group.

DEBT AND FINANCIALISATION
The ‘debt cancellation’ schemes that have been paraded by the G8 leaders
ever since the HIPC and PRSP frauds have been followed by a multilateral
debt reductions strategy which has been at large on the continent ever
since 2005. These have been followed or become concurrent with the
Norwegian Government Project, the Nigerian Government Agreement with the
Paris Club and the debt legislation led by Maxine Waters in the USA.
These features that intertwine debt with finance and trade have only
been put into sharper relief by the sub-prime crisis embroiling the
banks and the Real Estate Economy in the USA and the western world.

Nearer home, the older question of ecological debt that originally
developed in Latin America has engulfed the political economy of mining
finance throughout the economies of Southern Countries. In South Africa,
the fury of the mining companies has taken its vengeance in the sector
of gold mining and spent renewed vigour in the sector of platinum mining
as well as coal mining. However, the question has to be posed. Why has
mining finance developed such an exclusively predatory character at the
present time?

Finally, in the realm of Debt and Finance, further researches need to be
undertaken today designating all the areas of debt in globalised
capitalism which integrates National Debt and Social Debt with streams
of Private and Personal Debt. The factor of Finance in Debt will build
Jubilee South Africa into a Mass Movement uniting larger and larger
forces among the dominated classes. Whereas all other social movements
existing presently tend to be single-issue and/or sectoral in their
struggle against capitalism (resolving themselves into struggles against
capital in particular), debt integrates into a position that stridently
strikes out against capital in general

AREAS OF WORK
Conference 2008 will have the task of developing a mandate as regards
the programmatic areas of work the organisation will undertake for the
period until the next conference. As outlined above, there has been a
progressive expansion of our programmatic work from Apartheid debt to
reparations to ecological debt. This has of necessity resulted in
engagement in the clearly related areas of macroeconomic policy and the
national budget, as well as policy at the regional/continental level,
notably NEPAD. As argued above, there is also a strong need to address
the largely neglected area of debt and finance, including the ways in
which these impinge on working people, for example in the matters of
personal debt and pensions. The work on ecological debt is persistently
raising the need to develop a clear approach to the land question. The
international context of rising commodity prices highlights the need to
link this question to food security. The debt, finance and broader
economic context of poverty and unemployment underpinning the recent
wave of xenophobia also demand attention. All of these are burning
matters for the people of this country and its neighbours. Yet, as
Jubilee, we ourselves have limited access to finances and limited
organisational capacity. How do we resolve the enormous needs with this
limited capacity? Should we prioritise certain areas of work? If so,
which matters should receive our primary attention?

ORGANISATIONAL QUESTIONS
Following the near-fatal attack on the integrity of Jubilee South Africa
by a particularly venal group of former stall members, it will be the
duty of conference 2008 to accomplish the final restoration of the
organisational integrity of Jubilee South Africa on a national scale.
The current intensification of mobilisation of Jubilee forces in all
provinces has brought about a re-examination of the following factors:

What are the lessons to be learnt from the crisis in the organisation
we are still emerging from? How do we strengthen our organisation to
better protect ourselves from such-like and other attacks?

Are the provincial boundaries set by the South African parliament
conducive to organisational work through out large provinces in
circumstances where our financial resources are so meagre? Or, is a
regional reconfiguration of our nationally designed provinces not more
appropriate in an organisation such as ours?

In the historical development of the Jubilee coalition, JSA has
spotted a number of partner organisations. Some of these are NGOs, some
Unions, some faith- based, and yet others social movements and
community-based organisations. Is it wise to lump all organisations into
a single category of ‘partner organisations’? Or rather is it not wiser
to divide these partners into 2:Institution-based organisations, taking
the designation of ‘associates’ and more fluidly organised structures
into ‘affiliates’? If this differentiation is accepted, what are the
emerging rights and responsibilities of an associate and similarly those
of an affiliate?

Clearly, JSA is embarked on a cause in movement building, which will
increasingly convert it to a mass movement. What are the emerging
features of the mass movement in general and the special attributes of
an individual member of Jubilee South Africa? In the same way as above,
what understanding do we put to the questions of individual membership
as must be distinguished from the two types of group memberships given
above, i.e., ‘Associates and ‘Affiliates’?

Are we still correct when we keep a large and unwieldy body of patrons
and not rather sharpen their functional powers by equating this cadre to
the existing number of programmes and campaigns as will be decreed by
conference?

How should we organise the programmatic work of the organisation? Is
the task team method appropriate? Are the words task team appropriate to
the political nature of our work, or should we be looking towards words
such as action committee to describe these structures?

How do we use our limited finances to best organise, mobilise and
carry out our programmatic and campaign activities?

How should the conference deal with the constitutional implications of
these issues?

The provincial process in preparation for the conference has to engage
with all these problems, and no less will the agenda of the conference
be determined by imperatives arising from all the above.

MP Giyose/Jubilee NEC
Johannnesburg 25th June 2008

JUBILEE SOUTH AFRICA NATIONAL CONFERENCE DRAFT PROGRAMME

21st August 2008

2:00 – 3.00 REGISTRATION OF DELEGATES AND VERIFICATION OF CREDENTIALS

4:00 – 6:00 OPENING SESSION
General Procedures and Standing Rules of Conference

Welcome and Opening Remarks: Dennis Brutus

Chairpersons Address: General Review and Perspectives: MP Giyose (Chariperson)

Discussion on Chairperson’s Address

6.00 – 7.00 Supper

7.00 – 10.00 POLITICO-CULTURAL PROGRAMME

22nd August 2008

8.00 – 10.15 ORGANISATIONAL AND FINANCIAL REPORTS
Organisational Report: George Dor (General Secretary)

Discussion on General Secretary’s report

10.15 – 10.45 Tea

10.45 – 12.30 Organisational Report and Discussion … continued

Financial Report and Presentation of Audited Accounts: Brand Nthako (NEC member)

Discussion of Financial Report

12.30 – 1.30 Lunch

1.30 – 2.00 PROGRAMMATIC WORK
Introduction to Commissions

2.00 – 3.45 Commission 1: Apartheid Debt and Reparations

Proposed Panel: Marjorie Jobson/Shirley Gunn, Yasmin Sooka, Charles Abrahams/Michael Hausfeld, Barbara/Mascha Madorin

Commission 2: Ecological Debt

Proposed Panel: George Dor, Richard Spoor, Zanele Twala, Mariette Liefferink

Commission 3: Debt and Finance

Proposed Panel: Ismael Lesufi, Patrick Bond, David Fig, Mascha Madorin

Commission 4: Personal Debt and Pensions

Proposed Panel: Jeff Rudin, Maria van Driel, Aubrey Bezuidenhout, Petrus Charley

Commission 5: Land, Food, Services, Unemployment and Xenophobia

Lucas Mekgwe, Mercia Andrews, Mondli Hlatshwayo

Commission 6: Debt in the International, Continental and Regional Context

Lidy Nacpil, Njoko Njehu, Nerisha Baldevu, Brian Ashley

3.45 – 4.15 Tea

4.15 – 6.00 Commissions … continued

6.00 – 7.00 Supper

7.00 – 10.00 VIDEO SCREENING

23rd August 2008

8.00 – 10.15 Report-backs from Commissions

10.15 – 10.45 Tea

onsolidation of Report-backs

12.00 – 12.30 ORGANISATIONAL QUESTIONS
Introduction to Commissions

12.30 – 1.30 Lunch

1.30 – 3.45 Commission 1: Lessons from the Crisis

Facilitators: Oupa Lehulere and Dolo

Commission 2: Provincial and Regional Organisation

Facilitators: George Dor and Dick Soga

Commission 3: Partners, Associates, Affiliates

Facilitators: MP Giyose, Shaps

Commission 4: Individual Membership

Facilitators: Brand Nthako, Thabo

Commission 5: Educational Work

Facilitators: Mondli Hlatshwayo

Commission 6: Financial Requirements

Facilitators: Anne Mayher, Maria van Driel

3.45 – 4.15 Tea

4:15 – 6.00 Report-backs from Commissions

24th August 2008

8.00 – 10.15 CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

10:15- 10.45 Tea

10.45 – 11.45 CONFERENCE STATEMENT

11:45 – 12.45 ELECTIONS

12.45 – 1.00 CLOSURE
Closing Remarks: Newly-elected Chairperson

Dennis Brutus poetry at Annual Diakonia Lecture 14 August 2008

Diakonia Council of Churches cordially invites you to the
Annual Diakonia Lecture

Who is my neighbour?: Reconciliation: A Right or Responsibility?

Guest speaker: Fr Michael Lapsley SSM
Professor Dennis Brutus will be reciting poetry

Thursday 14 August at 5.30 for 6pm, until 8pm.
Denis Hurley Hall, Diakonia Centre
20 Diakonia Avenue, Durban
Dress: Smart casual/Traditional
Kindly RSVP before 8 August 2008
Call: (031) 310-3500 or
Email: ravp@diakonia.org.za

Limited secure and off-street parking is available

Fr Michael Lapsley SSM

Alternatives to Neoliberalism in Southern Africa workshop 10 16 August 2008

Durban 10 -16 August 2008

ANSA Book available for free download:

ANSA: Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism in Southern Africa

Towards a people-driven development agenda

In the past years resistance against neo-liberal globalisation and its devastating effects on the common people has grown and gained strength all over the world. Civil society has responded by stating that Another world is possible, it is high time we no longer remain defensive and reactive, but to shape and push for a true and radical alternative of sustainable, human development!

The Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) initiative of the labour movement of the region has taken up the challenge. This book [PDF] provides the building blocks for a common perspective on alternative policies and strategies in Southern Africa, which can bring about people driven, sustainable, human development. It is both visionary and practical and aims at stimulating the growth of a mass movement which can successfully advocate for a radical alternative for (Southern) Africa.

Ideas are a powerful force once they are seized by vast numbers of people. The transformation of any society, let alone a whole region containing more than 200 million people, is not a one-day wonder. Hence it is part of the objective and process of the ANSA-strategy to broaden the ownership of the project and turn it into nothing short of a mass movement over a period of sustained research, education, consultation, debate, action and re.ection.

Another Africa is not only possible, it is already in the making!

The ANSA alternative is based on 10 principles:

1. It is led by the people

2.Autocentric development, based on domestic, human needs and the use of local resources

3. Regional integration, led from the grassroots

4. Selective delinking and negotiated relinking

5. Alternative science and technology

6. National, regional and global, progressive alliances

7. Redistribution to empower the non-formal sectors

8. Gender rights as the basis for development

9. Education for sustainable human development

10. A dynamic, participatory and radical democracy

While ANSA is an initiative of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), it is a programme of the Southern African Trade Union Co-ordination Council (SATUCC) in conjunction with the African Labour Research Network (ALRN). ANSA is not an organisation, it merely provides a stimulus, a direction for the countless localised centres of resistance and initiatives for alternatives to join forces and pressurise for change from a common perspective.
www.gpn.org/research/ansa

Fatima Meer's 80th Birthday August 10 2008

13h00 at the Lotus Primary School, Westcliff, Chatsworth, Unit 3.

On Sunday, August 10, the Centre for Civil Society joins the Westcliff & Bayview Flat Residents Associations to celebrate Prof Fatima Meer and her role in ‘Chatsworth: 10 Years of Struggle’.

We will be honouring the work of Professor Fatima Meer and contributing to her 80th Birthday Celebration, and applauding the roles of many other women (and men) in organising for social justice in the Chatsworth community.

The program includes a live band and traditional dance groups, and an awards ceremony. The event begins at 13h00 at the Lotus Primary School, Westcliff, Chatsworth, Unit 3.

Please join us!

Fatima Meer opinion on ...

Where the ANC vote is going to:
The ANC in the past 14 years made a great contribution to our country, but it is a party that is fractured with dissension, and a party that has lost the capacity for leadership that it had during the liberation phase. Consequently, the people in general, not just Indians and coloureds, have become disillusioned. So my observation is that the ANC will still win the next election because there is no other party to replace it, but it will win the election by a reduced vote.

Women in SA today:
They are doing invaluable work, adding to their own self-respect and becoming worthy to their families and community in which they live and work. They're giving back to the community and it's wonderful the different things women are doing to help develop the country and its people. We must help, support and encourage them.

Whether the youth of today take their freedom and opportunities for for granted:
Every age group has its space and they do the best they can in that space. Young people are the same. They are also finding ways and means of improving society, and there are many youth doing great work. But there are many young people who don't have opportunities or they have been misled into wrong ways. One has to understand that those youth are in need of help.

Whether what you fought for during the liberation struggle has been achieved:
No, it hasn't. I aspired and still aspire to have a society where all South Africans will be equal to each other. We have a big task ahead of us to eliminate poverty because that is a major cause of inequality. We have too much disease, and lack of opportunities. Many people are miserable in our democracy and so we must strive not just to have a democracy, but to have a happy democracy, and remove misery.

Whether you are tired of talking politics:
No. I just don't like to be asked about my feelings on personalities.

What people do not know about you:
That I love to paint and I'm actually good at it. I tried to paint the other day, though, but it doesn't work so well when you can only use one hand.
www.dailynews.co.za

More about Fatima Meer

Fatima's bio on sahistory.org

SEMINAR ON SOUTH AFRICAN FOREIGN POLICY 26 27 July 2008

CCS report on Foreign Policy Bottom Up presented to the SEMINAR ON THE EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT AND CHALLENGES OF SOUTH AFRICAN FOREIGN POLICY IN THE LAST 14 YEARS INCLUDING SOUTH AFRICAÆS EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

DATE: 26-27 JULY 2008, UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL, COUNCIL CHAMBERS (WESTVILLE CAMPUS), DURBAN

DAY ONE, 26 JULY 2008

08:00: ARRIVALS AND REGISTRATION
09:00: Opening Remarks
Hon Mr Dumisani J. Sithole, Chairperson, Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

09:30: Keynote Address: South AfricaÆs Foreign Policy Options Implementation and Milestones: An Overview
Mr Aziz Pahad, Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)

SESSION ONE: CONSOLIDATION OF THE AFRICAN AGENDA
Session Chair: Hon Seremane, Member of Parliament (MP)

10:00: Perspectives on South Africa's Contribution to the Evolving Africa's Peace and Security Architecture
Mr Saki Mpanyane, Institute for Security Studies (ISS)

10:20: Perspectives on South Africa's Peace-making and Peacebuilding Roles in Africa: Some Cases Studies
Mr Vasu Gounden, African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)

10:40: Perspectives on South Africa's Contribution to Africa's Socio-Economic Development in the context of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs)
Prof Chris Landsberg, University of Johannesburg

11:00: Perspective on South Africa's Strategic Bilateral Relations in Africa
Dr Adekeye Adebajo, Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR)

11:20: Tea Break

11:35: Discussions, Questions and Answers

12:45: LUNCH

SESSION TWO: SOUTH-SOUTH CO-OPERATION
Session Chair: Hon Dr. M. Pheko, MP

14:00:Perspectives on Existing Strategic Bilateral and Other Relations (including IBSA) with countries of the South
Dr Michele Ruiters, Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD)

14:20: Discussions, Questions and Answers

15:00: Tea Break

SESSION THREE: NORTH-SOUTH DIALOGUE
Session Chair: Hon Mr Siboza, MP

15:15: Perspectives on the Evolution of Relations between South Africa, Africa and the European Union (EU)
Dr Ufo Uzodike, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)

15:35: Perspectives on the Nature of the North-South Dialogue and South Africa's Role and Contribution to the on-going Engagement between the G-8 and Africa
Prof Dennis Brutus, UKZN

15:55: Discussions, Questions and Answers

17:00 END OF DAY ONE

DAY TWO, 27 JULY 2008

SESSION FOUR: GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: SOCIO-ECONOMIC & POLITICAL AND SECURITY ISSUES
Session Chair: Hon Dr. B. Skosana, MP

09:00: Perspectives on South Africa's Approach and Contribution to Global Governance Reform with a particular focus on the International Financial Institutions (IFIs)
Dr Patrick Bond, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)

09:30: Perspectives on South Africa Contribution to the Reform of the United Nations System (UNS) and the country's Role in the UN Security Council (UNSC): Achievements, Challenges and Lessons Learned
Mr Anton Van Nieuwkerk, Wits University

10:00: Tea Break

10:15: Discussions, Questions and Answers

SESSION FIVE: DOMESTIC AND OPERATIONS ISSUES
Session Chair: Hon. Gen. B. Holomisa, MP

11:15: Perspectives on DFA's Operational and Structural Evolution and Challenges in the Last 14 Years
Mr Tom Wheeler, South African Institute of International Affairs, (SAIIA)

11:35: Perspectives on the Engagement and Communicating of South AfricaÆs Foreign Policy to the South African Public
Mr Kwezi Mngqibisa, ACCORD

11:55: Xenophobia: Structural Causes and Impacts on South Africa's Foreign Policy
Dr Ashwin. Desai, UKZN

12:15: Discussions, Questions and Answers

13:00: LUNCH

SESSION SIX (CLOSED SESSION): COMMITTEE REFLECTIONS
Session Chair: Hon Dr A. Luthuli, MP
Lead Discussant: Hon Ms F. Hajaig, MP

14:00: Reflections and Way-Forward

15:00: Closing Remarks
Hon Mr Dumisani J. Sithole, Chairperson, Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

Pictures

Patrick Bond on Zimbabwe to SACP provincial council, 25 July 2008

SACP in KwaZulu Natal to hold a Provincial Council

The SACP in Kwazulu Natal will be holding its Provincial Council this weekend starting on Friday, 25th July 2008 at 14h00 ending on Sunday, 27th July 2008 at 14h00. Three hundred delegated from the branches all over the province are expected to attend. There will also representative from ANC,
COSATU, SANCO, COSAS, SASCO and ANC leagues.

At 16h30 on Friday, 25th July 2008 Patrick Bond will present the Situation in Zimbabwe and lessons for the South African working class. The
Provincial Secretary, Themba Mthembu will deliver a Provincial Political Overview and Assessment Report on Saturday, 26th July 2008 at 9h00, and will be followed by the National Deputy Secretary of the South African Communist Party, Cde Jeremy Cronin who will give a keynote address to the council at 11h30.

The council will also be address by the ANC, COSATU and SANCO.

After the Council the SACP will hold a press conference at the following venue and time:

Venue: General Bulding, Sixth Floor, Office no 602
Date: 28TH July 2008
Time: 10H00

For more information please contact Themba Mthembu @ 083 303 6988 or
Mthokozisi Khuboni at 073 354 7943

The National Dialogue- African Cultural Practices and Human Rights Conference 17th – 18th July 2008

The National Heritage Council will host a dialogue to debate the current apparent tensions between the African Cultural Practices and Human Rights to seek ways of informing policies of protecting and preserving heritage in South Africa. The dialogue will draw opinion makers from commissions established by government, academic and research institutes. The resolutions will help in crafting heritage transformation policies and legislation amendment proposals.

African Cultural Practices, Democracy and Human Rights in South Africa
17th – 18th July 2008

PROGRAMME

Day 1: 17 July 2008

8:30 –9:00 Registrations

9:00 – 10:45 Chairperson: Prof Muxe Nkondo
Welcome and Opening (Strategic Overview):
Adv Sonwabile Mancotywa
Key Note: Dr Z Pallo Jordan

Overarching Themes and Speakers:
9:30 – 10:00 Gender Relations and Human Rights in the African Context Dr Nomboniso Gasa
10:00 – 10:30 Gender Relations and Human Rights in the African Context Prof Thandabantu Nhlapo
Vote of Thanks: Mr Maqubela – Chairperson of NHC

10:30 – 11:00 Tea Break

Sub-themes and Speakers
11:00- 13:00 Chairperson: Dr Pearl Mpilo Sithole
Rituals and Law : Constructing Cultural and Political Identities
Ms Grace Masuku
Rituals and Law : Constructing Cultural and Political Identities
Dr Guma
A Legal Perspective: African Cultural Perspectives and Human Rights
Mr Ndamane
Chairperson: Prof Teffo

11:40 – 12:00 Cultural Practices and Governance: Negotiating Modernity
Dr Pearl Sithole
12:00 – 12:20
12:20 – 12:40 Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Knowledge Economy
Prof Yonah Seleti
12:40 – 13:00 Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Knowledge Economy
Ms Priscilla de Wet

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Time

14:00 – 15:30 Chairperson: Prof Yonah Seleti

14:00 -14:30 Cultural Practices and Governance: Negotiating Modernity
Ms Thembeka Ngcebetsha

14:30 – 15:00 Gender Relations and Human Rights in the African Context
Prof Nomfundo Luswazi
15:00- 15:30 Ubuntu as Public Policy in South Africa: Conceptual and Strategic Considerations
Prof Teffo

15:30 – 16:00 Tea Break

16:00 – 17:00 Discussions and Deliberations
Announcements

Gala Dinner: Evening of 17 July 2008 18:00 – 21:00
MC Ms. Florence Masebe

18:00 – 18:15 Welcome
Adv. Sonwabile Mancotywa

18:15 – 18:30 Music by Paseka and group

18:30 – 18:40 Poem Cultural Practices V/S Human Rights

18:40 – 18:50 Introduction of guest speaker

18:50 – 19:20 Keynote: Ms Angie Motshekga

19:20 – 20:00 Music by Paseka and buffet opens

20:00 – 20:05 Vote of Thanks: Mr Maqubela – Chairperson NHC

20:05 – 20:30 Music continues /Networking

20:30 - 21:00 More music and Closure

Day 2: 18 July 2008

08:30 – 10:00 Chairperson: Prof Luswazi

8:30 – 9:15 Property Ownership: From Traditional Conceptions to Human Rights
Prof Lungisile Ntsebeza

9:15 – 10:00 Neo- Liberalism in South Africa
Prof Brutus

10:00 – 10:30 Tea Break

10:30 – 11:30 4 Breakaway Sessions and Commissions:

1. Ubuntu as Public Policy
Chaired by Prof Teffo

2. Indigenous Skills and Techniques as Knowledge
Chaired by Prof Seleti

3. Tradition and the Negotiation of Modernity
Chaired by Dr Pearl Sithole

4. Human Rights and Restorative Justice
Chaired by Prof Nhlapo

11:30 – 12:30 Report Back and Discussion

12:30 - 12:50 Summary: Prof Nkondo

12:50 – 13:00 Vote of Thanks: Chairperson of NHC

13:00 Lunch Time

End

More Details

Xenophobia discussion at Workers College 16 July 2008

Oliver Meth, Orlean Naidoo, and Baruti Amisi facilitate a Xenophobia discussion at Workers College Diploma Course, held at the Tropicana Hotel, 16 July 2008 between 19h00 - 21h00

www.workerscollege.org.za

Patrick Bond at International Society of Business Economics and Ethics Congress 15 July 2008

Social Movements and Corporate Social Responsibility in South Africa
by Patrick Bond

Professor of Development Studies and Director of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban

Presented to the International Society of Business, Economics and Ethics

Fourth World Congress: Global Fairness – Local integrity 15 July 2008, Cape Town*

Abstract:
If Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often reduced to greenwashing for naïve middle-class consumers, is there a more durable force to address excessive profit-taking and consequent underdevelopment? While the post-apartheid era in South Africa has been celebrated, with little foresight, for an economic boom that restored relative corporate profitability to levels last witnessed during apartheid's heyday, the same period saw world-class social opposition to corporate power. Three areas are illustrative: the Treatment Action Campaign's street pressure and legal strategy to acquire anti-retroviral drugs for HIV-positive people; Sowetans whose street protests helped drive Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux out of Johannesburg and whose constitutional case over the right to water attacked its commercialisation policies; and climate activists who oppose carbon trading. Meanwhile, activists also demanded reparations from apartheid-tainted transnational corporations in the US courts through the Alien Tort Claims Act, while a “Corpse Awards” was launched by activists in part to mitigate against CSR efforts. The critiques of corporations – and CSR – and the motivation for social activism are informed by strategic principles of “decommodification” and “deglobalisation of capital”; the first cannot work without the second.

DENNIS BRUTUS, on Steal This Radio, 15 July 2008

Tune in on your computer Tuesday, at 11 a.m., to hear South African
poet and freedom fighter Dennis Brutus, in a wide-ranging discussion
with host Mitchel Cohen, on this week's Steal This Radio.

Date and Time: Tuesday, July 15th, at 6 pm.
How: Go to TribecaRadio.net and click on Listen Live.

After that, the show will be archived (podcast) at
http://tribecaradio.net/wpradioblog/podcasts/stealthisradio/

Nelson Mandela hid out in his house while the apartheid army searched
for him. Then he served hard time in jail with Mandela and other
heros of the anti-apartheid freedom struggle, and was a member of the
African National Congress.

Today, some of those same South African radicals are opposing a
lawsuit that he -- * Dennis Brutus * -- and others have brought in
U.S. Federal Court in New York, which seeks to hold multi-billion
dollar corporations accountable for their collaboration with
apartheid and profiteering off of slave labor.

Dennis Brutus: Life and Activism
For almost half a century Dennis Brutus was at the forefront of the
campaign to bring down the apartheid system in South Africa, the place
where he was born and which gave him the awareness of racism, poverty
and injustice that has informed his work ever since. In 1963 Brutus was
shot by the police in South Africa and later imprisoned for 18 months
alongside Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. After being exiled from his
homeland, Brutus became a prominent political organizer, who in 1970 led
the successful campaign to expel apartheid South Africa from the Olympic
Games. While working as a university lecturer in the US, he also became
a pioneering advocate of postcolonial studies within academia, helping
to introduce African literature as a category within the curriculum.

Review of Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader
By Ronald Paul

Lee Sustar and Aisha Karim, eds., Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus
Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006).

You have to decide which side you are on: there is always a side.
Commitment does not exist in an abstraction; it exists in action.

- Dennis Brutus, Scholar
In a speech given in 1975 at the University of Texas at Austin on the
question of literature and commitment in South Africa, Dennis Brutus
said something that sounds like a personal credo: You have to decide
which side you are on: there is always a side. Commitment does not exist
in an abstraction; it exists in action (200). During a long life of
radical activism in South Africa and elsewhere - as a writer, organizer,
poet, critic and international socialist - Brutus has consistently
sought to translate this link between the personal and the political
into the reality of everyday living. This comprehensive collection of
his writings, spanning his whole career, is a fitting testimony to his
dedication to the cause.

For almost half a century Dennis Brutus was at the forefront of the
campaign to bring down the apartheid system in South Africa, the place
where he was born and which gave him the awareness of racism, poverty
and injustice that has informed his work ever since. In 1963 Brutus was
shot by the police in South Africa and later imprisoned for 18 months
alongside Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. After being exiled from his
homeland, Brutus became a prominent political organizer, who in 1970 led
the successful campaign to expel apartheid South Africa from the Olympic
Games. While working as a university lecturer in the US, he also became
a pioneering advocate of postcolonial studies within academia, helping
to introduce African literature as a category within the curriculum.

He returns powerfully to his traumatic experience of punishment and
isolation on Robben Island in the extracts from his Memoir published
here. They contain some of the most harrowing descriptions of daily
prison life, a season in hell that has left a lasting mark on Brutus
both physically and mentally. These autobiographical writings not only
provide unique documentation of the cruelties of an oppressive system;
they also help us understand Brutus's determination to convey the
lessons of he past to those who are struggling for a better future.

One of the most profound and lasting ways in which Brutus has carried
this torch of experience s through his poetry. Literature has always
been huge source of inspiration to him. It is ascinating to read
Brutus's own poetry in the ight of his many critical comments in
articles nd speeches about the function of literature and its
relationship to politics. At first this ideological connection troubled
Brutus, forcing him for a time to stop writing poetry altogether. It was
his ncounter with the early poetry of W.H. Auden that helped him bridge
the aesthetic gap between literature and politics, allowing him to
overcome the problem of allusiveness and the often obscuring compression
of traditional poetry:

While teaching W.H. Auden, a major English oet, I observed in him the
ability to merge the rivate and the public, the aesthetic and the
olitical. And I went back to poetry, because I aw a way that you could
make a political statement, imultaneously and honestly - you know, it's
not anufactured sloganeering. This is genuine poetic expression, which
merges political comment ith personal comment, including love lyrics. (154)

Without doubt, there is a certain Audenesque uality about Brutus's own
poetry, in particular in is ability to move from personal feeling to the
pirit of the collective - the shared hopes and ears of people who are
usually on the receiving nd of history. To use poetry as a means of

Fighting back against the forces of oppression and exploitation is for
Brutus not just an intellectual hoice but an existential cry from the
heart for social change to come sooner rather than later:

In the dark lanes of Soweto,
amid the mud, the slush, the squalor,
among the rusty tin shacks
the lust for freedom survives stubbornly
like a smoldering defiant flame
and the spirit of Steve Biko moves easily. (253)

Auden's poem Spain 1937 is a particular point of reference in another
poem by Brutus - Love; he Struggle. When Auden writes To-morrow he
rediscovery of romantic love ... but to-day the struggle, Brutus
paraphrases this radical ostponement with his own dialectic of personal
reedom and political necessity:

Conched, contrapuntal our concord
Day's breath wracks our peace,
Our dreams disrupt in blustery discord
Buckling to winds' capricious buffet we desert our calms
- Ah love, unshoulder now my arms! (273)

Like the early Auden, Brutus also sees his role as that of a public
poet, the world's troubadour 392) as he describes himself, one who
seeks to give a voice to those whom the system has ilenced. There is
therefore in Brutus's poetry an mplicit sense of radical dialogue with
people hose lives remain outside the focus of the stablished media. This
is where the real struggle s taking place, and it is within this context
of solidarity with the dispossessed that Brutus has always situated
himself as a writer:

An old black woman,
suffering,
tells me I have given her
new images
- a father bereaved
by radical heroism
finds consolation
in my verse.
then I know
these are those I write for
and my verse works. (255)

Poetry and Protest is a guiding beacon of a book that shines through our
dark times with the wisdom, consciousness and radical optimism that have
been gained through a lifetime of passionate engagement with the cause
of human liberation.

Originally appeared in Socialism and Democracy, New York, 21, 1, pp.
160-162.

Dennis Brutus at TIAA-CREF shareholder meeting, Denver, 15 July 2008

Speech given by Prof Dennis Brutus to TIAA-CREF annual meeting

Mr. Ferguson, we welcome you to your new and important position. Our
MakeTIAA-CREF Ethical coalition has worked both with and against your
predecessors and administrators on issues of social responsibility. We
hope to hope to work with you in a positive, cooperative way.

After years of lobbying, TIAA-CREF agreed to become a shareholder
activist on issues of social responsibility. And now it's time for you
to eitherput pressure on five industry leaders that consistently display
egregious behavior-- or divest their stock.

In 2007, resolutions were passed by the 600,000 member New York State
United Teachers and 1.4 million member American Federation of Teachers
critical of TIAA-CREF's continued investment in Nike, Coca-Cola, and
Wal-Mart,three of the five companies our coalition targets. They asked
you to hold these and other companies accountable on labor issues.

We note that you invest in companies with reprehensible records despite
claims in advertisements that TIAA-CREF provides financial services for
the greater good and is mindful of its social responsibilities. Your
Policy Statement on Corporate Governance states, and I quote, TIAA-CREF
recognizes that from the perspective of shareholder value, boards should
carefully consider the strategic impact of issues relating to the
environment and social responsibility. There is a growing body of
research examining the economic consequences of companies' efforts to
promote good environmental and social practices end of quote. At the
same time, TIAA-CREF invests in:

Nike and Wal-Mart, condemned for selling products produced by overseas
sweatshop labor;
Wal-Mart, widely criticized for its domestic labor practices, hurting
local businesses, and promoting urban sprawl;
Philip Morris/Altria, responsible for Marlboro, the leading cigarette
for youth;
Costco, which promotes police brutality in Mexico and the destruction
of its cultural heritage and the environment;
Coke, with complicity in widespread labor, human rights and
environmental abuses; exploits child labor and aggressively markets
harmful products to children.

(TIAA-CREF did divest from harmful World Bank bonds. It should pledge
nomore such investment.)

After I speak today, my Coalition co-horts will give further details
concerning these companies.

TIAA-CREF needs to use its considerable shareholder power to influence
these corporations. You have been in dialogue with Coca-Cola for over
two years, which we appreciate, but there has been no substantive
changes in Coke’s actions over that time.

TIAA-CREF lists many advocacy tools in its governance document, from
private talking to public dialogue to collective action to litigation
and regulatory reform, among others. Why publicly announnce such tactics
as at your disposal, yet keep them on the shelf when needed? Two years
of talking is enough time to wait for those suffering from Coke's
practices. It's time now to get tougher with Coke in order to move them.

The Coalition was recently told that you talked with Wal-Mart this year.
We applaud that start, but more aggressive actions will be needed with
Wal-Mart, as well.

So, Mr.. Ferguson, thanks for great strides TIAA-CREF has made on issues
of social responsibility--on many fronts. Now we ask, when will you take
on these five companies, and in the aggressive manner needed to move them?

FROM: Neil Wollman; Ph. D.; Senior Fellow, Bentley Alliance for Ethics
and Social Responsibility; Bentley College; Waltham, MA, 02452;
NWollman@Bentley.edu

CALL TO ACTION FOR THE MEETING OF CREF

Please email a personalized version of the below message to CEO Roger W.
Ferguson at RWFerguson@tiaa-cref.org and send a copy to:
mailto:trustees@tiaa-cref.org . More
importantly, leave the samemessage in a phone call (800-842-2733 or
212-490-9000 and ask for CEO Roger Ferguson).

I am concerned that TIAA-CREF is a major investor in Wal-Mart, Nike,
Coca-Cola, Costco, and Philip Morris/Altria, companies involved in
abusive human and labor rights practices, environmental degradation, and
harmful health practices . I want TIAA-CREF to put these corporations on
notice that if they don't clean up their bad practices, TIAA-CREF will
find other companies to invest in. TIAA-CREF needs to either engage
these companies to improve their practices or to divest from their stock.

Let Mr. Ferguson know if you are in the TIAA-CREF system and (if you
choose to) that you will withdraw your money from TIAA-CREF if it
doesn't address your concerns.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 9, 2008

Contact: Neil Wollman, Ph.D., Senior Fellow (for the Make TIAA-CREF
Ethical coalition): 260-568-0116; NWollman@Bentley.edu;
www.makeTIAA-CREFethical.org
https://owa.bentley.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?
AT THE CREF ANNUAL MEETING, SHAREHOLDERS WILL TELL THE PENSION GIANT: PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH ON SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

(July 15, 9:30 a.m., Colorado Convention Center, 700 14th Street, Denver,CO)

Shareholders and advocacy groups will press TIAA-CREF officers on its
investment in companies with socially irresponsible practices. After
years of pressure, TIAA-CREF agreed to become a shareholder activist on
issues of social responsibility. Now it's time for them to either put
pressure onfive industry leaders that consistently display egregious
behavior or divest their stock.

(Denver, CO)--The nation's largest pension fund will once again come
under fire from the Make TIAA- CREF Ethical coalition* at the CREF
annual shareholders' meeting on July 15. Advocacy groups will join
shareholders to demand greater accountability from TIAA-CREF, the $400
billion plus fund that primarily serves college personnel.

In 2007, resolutions were passed by the 600,000 member New York State
United Teachers and 1.4 million member American Federation of Teachers
critical of TIAA-CREF's continued investment in Nike, Coca-Cola, and
Wal-Mart,three of the five companies the TIAA-CREF coalition targets.
They asked TIAA-CREF to hold these and other companies accountable on
labor issues. Educators and those working alongside them have spent
their careers teaching students the truth about the world around them.

The truth is that TIAA-CREF continues to invest funds in these corporate
bad actors.

The Make TIAA- CREF Ethical Coalition notes that TIAA-CREF invests in
companies with reprehensible records despite claims in its
advertisements that it provides financial services for the greater
good and is mindful of its social responsibilities. Its Policy
Statement on Corporate Governance states, TIAA-CREF recognizes that
from the perspective of shareholder value, boards should carefully
consider the strategic impact of issuesrelating to the environment and
social responsibility. There is a growing body of research examining the
economic consequences of companies' efforts to promote good
environmental and social practices we believe that companies and boards
should pay careful attention to...Environment...Human
Rights...Diversity...the safety and potential impact of its products and
services...the common good of the communities in which it operates. At
the same time, TIAA-CREF invests in:

* Nike and Wal-Mart, condemned for selling products produced by overseas
sweatshop labor; * Wal-Mart, widely criticized for its domestic labor
practices, hurting local businesses, and promoting urban sprawl; *
Philip Morris/Altria, responsible for Marlboro, the leading cigarette
for youth; * Costco, which promotes police brutality in Mexico and the
destruction of its cultural heritage and the environment; * Coke, with
complicity in widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses;
exploits child labor and aggressively markets harmful productsto children.

(TIAA-CREF did divest from harmful World Bank bonds. It should pledge
no more.)

The Coalition urges that TIAA-CREF reform them or dump them. TIAA-CREF should use its considerable shareholder power to influence these corporate leaders or divest from their stock. They have been in dialogue with Coca-Cola for at least two years, with no substantive changes in Coke's actions. TIAA-CREF lists advocacy tools in its promotional
materials, from private talking to public dialogue to collective action to litigation and regulatory reform. The Coalition says, Get started on these tougher ways that will be necessary in order to move Coke. The Coalition was just told that TIAA-CREF talked with Wal-Mart this year.

We applaud that start, but more aggressive actions will be needed with
Wal-Mart, as well.

According to activist and coalition representative Jaime Lagunez, of
Frente Civico por la Defensa del Casino de la Selva, For a group
claiming leadership in governance and social responsibility, they need
to look in the mirror and recognize their own shortcomings. They need to
deal with corporations in their portfolios involved in human rights
violations and environmental degradation.

Stockholders by definition are owners of a company and with ownership
comes responsibility, says Corporate Campaign, Inc./Campaign to Stop
Killer Coke director Ray Rogers. I do not believe TIAA-CREF
participants wantto be associated with the tobacco industry or companies
like Coca-Cola that are complicit in widespread human rights abuses
including kidnapping,torture, and murder of union leaders in Colombia;
fraudulent business practices and undermining the health and well-being
of children worldwide.

According to coalition group representative Neil Wollman, a Senior
Fellowat Bentley College in Massachusetts, TIAA-CREF claims that outside
of their socially responsible fund, they cannot use non-financial
criteria in their financial decisions. Yet, Wollman asks, Would
TIAA-CREF have invested in the production of Nazi gas chambers in World
War II if it meant a healthy financial profit? It's time for TIAA-CREF
to answer that kind of question. He adds, Our coalition praises
TIAA-CREF for changes over theyears in its social responsibility
practices often spurred by participant lobbying; but now they need to
move on our companies of concern.

The Make TIAA-CREF Ethical Coalition includes: Corporate AccountabilityInternational (formerly Infact), World Bank Bonds Boycott, Press for Change, Social Choice for Social Change, Canadian Committee To Combat CrimesAgainst Humanity (CCCCH) , Citizens Coalition (Frente
Civico), Educatingfor Justice, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Campaign to StopKiller Coke/Corporate Campaign, Inc.,
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and Sprawl-Busters

SweatFree Communities Conference - Workers Rights Board Hearing in Philly July 12 2008

Carmencita Chie Abad, former sweatshop worker in U.S. territory of Saipan

Kalpona Akter, former child garment worker from Bangladesh

Dennis Brutus, human rights activist

Bishop Dwayne Royster, Pastor of the Living Water United Church of Christ, Philadelphia

and many more!

The Philadelphia Workers' Rights Board is a project of the Philadelphia
Area Jobs with Justice, a coalition of faith leaders, students, unions,
and community members who fight for living wages, top-notch benefits,
and respect on the job for people in Philadelphia. SweatFree Communities
is a national network that organizes to end sweatshop exploitation by
inspiring responsible local purchasing and fostering solidarity between
U.S. communities and workers worldwide. This event is part of the
National SweatFree Summit. Visit http://www.sweatfree.org/summit or
contact summit@sweatfree.org for more information.

CARMENCITA CHIE ABAD speaks from personal experience about the
hardships endured by millions of workers in sweatshops around the world.
Chie spent six years as a garment worker on the Pacific island of
Saipan, a U.S. territory. She endured wretched conditions, frequently
working 14-hour shifts in order to meet arbitrary production quotas for
her employer, the Sako Corporation, which made clothes for the Gap and
other retailers. When she tried to organize a union, Chie was met by
fierce resistance from management and eventually lost her job. She now
lives in the U.S., and works with Global Exchange to educate consumers
about the inhumane factory conditions occurring worldwide, including on
U.S. soil. Chie was instrumental in forcing 26 major retailers to settle
a lawsuit in September 2002 to improve conditions in Saipan. Her story
is an inspiring example of how people can win if they stand up for their
rights.

KALPONA AKTER became a child garment worker when she was 11 years old. She worked in a Bangladeshi garment factory for eight years and struggled to form a worker union in her factory. Due to her organizing efforts, she was fired and blacklisted. Now, as the Director of Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, she supports labor union organizing; helps workers strengthen their negotiating skills and make legal complaints; and investigates labor conditions in factories producing for institutions with sweatshop-free sourcing policies. Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity's research is respected domestically and internationally, enjoys the trust of garment workers, and has a track record of producing thorough and credible research in the apparel sector.

DENNIS BRUTUS is a lifelong human rights activist and poet. He is
perhaps the best-known African poet writing in English, although his
books were banned for many years in his home country South Africa. His
tireless work against apartheid in South Africa got him arrested and
shot in 1963. He was sentenced to an 18-month jail term with hard labor
on Robben Island where he broke rocks with Nelson Mandela. He was sent
into exile in 1966 and proceeded to lead the successful movement to have
South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) banned from the Olympics and
other international sporting events. Since then he has remained active
in struggles for human and cultural rights, including co-founding the
Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance in 2002, connecting
international solidarity with workers to the philosophy of Black
Consciousness. He is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of
Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

BISHOP ROYSTER has served in Pastoral ministry for the past 16 years in
United Methodist Church, the Mennonite Church and the Baptist Church
traditions, and is the founder of Living Water United Church of Christ.
Bishop Royster is an advocate for preparing congregations for the
ministry of availability. He is fond of saying that, Ministry should
not be limited to Sunday mornings. It is with this passion that Bishop
Royster became involved with Jobs with Justice supporting workers across
the Delaware Valley to let them know that the faith community will not
sit by and allow injustice and oppression live in any form.

Dennis Brutus poetry in Philadelphia, 11 July 2008

Moonstone Readings

Friday, July 11, 8:00pm
Music and Poetry
Second Friday Live @ Robin's After Hours
Featuring Dennis Brutus And Friends

At Robin's Bookstore
108 S. 13th Street, Philadelphia, 215-735-9600,
www.robinsbookstore.com
Books & Events for Independent Minds from Philadelphia's Oldest
Independent Bookstore
Free and open to Everyone

Ancestor Goldsky (percussion), Byard Lancaster (flute & Sax), NaTanya
Davina (performance art) and Lamont Steptoe (poet). Followed by a music
& spoken word open mic. Bring a poem, an instrument and a smile. Cover
$5. Doors open at 7:30 pm (everyone must be in by 8:15) and then we
close up shop and Live @ Robin's After Hours begins. Refreshments
available. Robin's Book Store, 108 S. 13th Street.

Dennis Brutus
Dennis Brutus is a lifelong human rights activist and poet. He is
perhaps the best-known African poet writing in English, although his
books were banned for many years in his home country, South Africa. His
tireless work against apartheid in South Africa got him arrested and
shot in 1963. He was sentenced to an 18-month jail term of hard labor on
Robben Island where he broke rocks with Nelson Mandela. He was sent into
exile in 1966 and proceeded to lead the successful movement to have
South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) banned from the Olympics and
other international sporting events. Since then he has remained active
in struggles for human and cultural rights, including co-founding the
Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance in 2002, connecting
international solidarity with workers to the philosophy of Black
Consciousness. He is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of
Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a great poet and
one of the few who successfully integrated a life in the arts with a
life on the front lines of the fight for justice and integrity for
everyone. Dennis's book include leafdrift and Poetry & Protest: A Dennis
Brutus Reader.

Byard Lancaster. Even Though we call it 'Philly Jazz', it really means
music, and Lancaster wants to bring jazz, R&B, rock, reggae and all
other forms of music to the streets, schools and to the people. I play
on the streets, school and people.I've been organizing since I was
born, and [finding time to practice] is one of the reasons I play on the
streets, because I sit there about three or four hours without moving.
Byard Lancaster
NaTanya Davina's art focuses on the internalization of racism, sexism,
and abuses of power within the family and larger society, as well as
white supremacy and systemic oppression. She uses culture as a tool in
her work, often utilizing rap, double-Dutch songs, hopscotch, and
chalking by altering their content and using them outside the usual content.

NaTanya Davina
Lamont B. Steptoe is a poet / photographer / publisher born and raised
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books of poetry
including In the Kitchens of the Master, Mad Minute, Uncle's South Sea
China Blue Nightmare, Cat Fish and Neckbone Jazz, Dusty Road, Common
Salt and Trinkets and Beads. Steptoe is a father, Vietnam veteran, and
founder of Whirlpool Press. Thinking bock on it, I was really exposed
to black poetry though the church. Because, as late writer Henri Dumas
said. every black poet is a preacher and every black preacher is a
poet. My work is influenced by the fire and brimstone that black
preachers generally exhibits in the context of the church on Sunday
mornings. He has read his work at the Library of Congress, The National
Library of Nicaragua, the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival,
Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, the Knitting Factory, the Schomburg Center
for Black Culture, and colleges and universities throughout the United
States. Steptoe is also an activist in human rights, environmental
issues, and gay/bisexual issues.
Lamont B. Steptoe

Baruti Amisi at Int'l Society for Third Sector Research congress 11 July 2008

Business Social Networks: A Pathway to Socio-Economic Integration or Self-Exclusion and Exploitation? A Study of Durban Congolese Somali Refugees - Republic of South Africa

Baruti Amisi, UKZN Centre for Civil Society

Abstract
Social networks, as a form of social capital, represent the cornerstone
of survival strategies of refugees in South Africa in absence of
citizenship. Indeed, the socio-economic adaptation of refugees emphasise
the role that these networks play in providing useful information about
migration route, and costs and benefits; survivalist skills, and market
niche, to their members. Social networks are also used as a safety net
against shock, vulnerability, and unexpected events. However, social
networks are subjects to age and gender bias because they are
constructed from traditionalvalues. As a result, social networks and
their subsequent ethnic enterprises perpetuate what they initially
intended to avoid: unequal access to information, rights, and
privileges. I used purposive sampling to select 20 entrepreneurs from
both Democratic Republic of Congo and Somali refugee communities. In
each community, I picked 5 most successful business people in the formal
sector, and 5 in the informal of the Durban economy. The down fall of
this method is that the findings cannot be generalized because it is not
a probability sampling. I collected my data through interviews,
participant observation, and personal insight as a refugee and
chairperson of the institution which oversees other refugee
organizations in the KwaZulu Natal Province. I analysed my data with
NVivo qualitative software and the Constant Comparative Analysis.
Findings reveal the following. First, business social networks play a
key role in providing survivalist jobs - irregular and low wages without
social security - to new comerswho often do not necessarily speak
English or have no marketable skills in Durban. Yet, new comers, once
settled, look for more rewarding jobs elsewhere with the intention of
doing the same to those who will come later. However, the ethnic
businesses which exist do not promote without problem the creation of
the new ones because of age and gender bias, and class differential,
which leads to unequal access to information and privilege. Second,
refugees perpetuate their self-exclusion by relying more on bonding
within the networks rather bridging between communities including South
Africans. Third, the most successful business people, in both informal
and formal sectors, are individuals who operate in bigger ethnic size,
and those who are able to expand their networks beyond the refugee
communities to include foreigners and South Africans. Fourth, religion
plays important role in the success of the ethnic enterprises. Muslim
refugees easily connect to the South African Muslim community in order
to find specific market niches, factory shops that other refugees have
no access to.As a result, they appear to be more successful - to the
refugee’s standard - then refugees who belong to other religious
denominations including Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Church.
Fifth, while business social networks remain, ceteris paribus, is a
pathway to survivalist economic activities of refugees who arrived in
the post-1994; they are beneficial to those who arrived in 1990s.
Indeed, ethnic business prospers within the disadvantaged communities
which are structurally excluded from themain stream economy. It benefits
the well established refugees at the expensive of the new comers.

Civil Society and Development Masters Module (Winter School) 8-22 July 2008

Course Outline

Ntokozo Mthembu and Patrick Bond at SA Sociological Association congress 7 - 10 July 2008

Ntokozo Mthembu, UKZN Centre for Civil Society
The challenges facing sustainable environment: the case of contending
developmental ideologies in Azania (South Africa)

Abstract:
This paper will attempt to scrutinise the bases of the current
interventions that are been adopted when dealing with issues affecting
the environment practitioners especially those based in Azania. It looks
at the changes that have taken place in the post apartheid era that
signalled the new epoch in the country’s welfare history. The paper will
revisit various approaches of interventions in relations to meeting
challenges experienced in the environment world in the country. In
understanding various approaches, the paper will look at Vexliard (1968)
theories such as the autoplastic and alloplastic notions. Lastly, the
paper will examine the current environment practices and their
implications towards the developmental of sustainable environmental
policy in Azania, holistic environmental education approach in meeting
community daily livelihoods in view of poverty and the unemployment that
is ravaging the vulnerable communities in the country.

Patrick Bond, UKZN Centre for Civil Society
The global carbon trade debate For or against the privatisation of the air?

Abstract:
What is the state of the strategic debate over climate change? What
kinds of reforms are being contested? Are we in danger of seeing the air
itself – one of our last commons – become commodified, reflecting not
only the core elite strategy to mitigate global warming, but
market-environmentalist acquiescence? As climate change generates
destruction and misery, the people and corporations responsible for
these problems – especially in the US/EU-centred petro-mineral-military
complex and associated financial agencies like the World Bank – are
renewing their grip on power, but likewise reasserting their rights to
property and to inaction on climate change. And a good many activists
once strongly opposed to the corporate elites have bought in, seduced by
the idea that we have to tackle the climate crisis one step at a time,
with reforms that the establishment can live with, that in turn can be
used to leverage substantial cuts in emissions through clever market
incentives. In this article, four sets of strategies to combat climate
change receive consideration: emissions cap-and-trade options including
investments in Clean Development Mechanism projects, carbon taxation,
command and control of activities responsible for emissions, and
alternative grassroots climate change mitigation strategies.

www.sasaonline.org.za

Patrick Bond, Simphiwe Nojiyeza, Dudu Khumalo and Orlean Naidoo on water rights at Diakonia 24 June 2008

Time: 4:30pm—6:00pm
Date: 24 June 2008
Venue: The Well, Diakonia Centre,
20 Diakonia Avenue, (old St Andrew’s Street)
Durban
Guest speakers: Patrick Bond, Simphiwe Nojiyeza, Dudu Khumalo and
Orlean Naidoo from the Centre for Civil Society

The poor remain the worst affected by water policy. A recent high court judgement changes the practice on water meters. Hear more on these and other issues.

www.diakonia.org.za

How to get there

CCS-Osisa Economic justice advocacy, environment and social policy course 22-29 June 2008

ECONOMIC JUSTICE ADVOCACY, ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL POLICY

UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY in the SCHOOL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES and OPEN SOCIETY INITIATIVE OF SOUTHERN AFRICA ECONOMIC JUSTICE PROJECT

22-29 June 2008
Durban, South Africa

Course Outline

Course Presenters: Patrick Bond (Research Professor and Director of
CCS), Dennis Brutus (CCS Honorary Professor), with additional inputs
from Grace Kwinjeh (CCS Visiting Scholar and OSISA Southern African
Resource Watch), Deprose Muchena (OSISA), Claude Kabemba (OSISA Southern African Resource Watch), Baruti Amisi (CCS doctoral candidate), Simphiwe Nojiyeza (CCS doctoral candidate), Orlean Naidoo (CCS community scholar), Dudu Khumalo (CCS community scholar), Oliver Meth (CCS community scholar), Ennie Chipembere (ActionAid Zimbabwe) and Ben Cashdan (Broad Daylight Films)

We welcome course participants:

Country Name Organisation

Angola Albertina da Rosa Delgado OSISA
Botswana Emmanuel Zuku Somarelang Tikologo
DRC Dala Diana Forum of Congolese Organizations in South Africa
DRC Nzolani Butedi Forum of Congolese Organizations in South Africa
Lesotho Mabusetsa Lenka Transformation Resource Centre
Lesotho Mphutsako Majoro Lesotho Economic Justice Network
Lesotho Lucia Leboto Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace
Malawi Daniel Dunga Society of Accountants in Malawi
Malawi Louis Mafula Malawi Economic Justice Network
Mozambique Alcino Moiana CCM
Namibia Shadrack Tjiramba Legal Assistance Centre
South Africa Moratuoa Thoke OSISA
South Africa Simon Vilakazi Economic Justice Network
Swaziland Sekwanele Dumezweni Dlamini
Swaziland Thembinkosi Dlamini CANGO
Swaziland Mdluli Sibonelo World University Service Swaziland
Zambia Chilufya Chileshe Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection
Zimbabwe Richard Mabemva Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development
Zimbabwe Ennie Chipembere Action Aid

Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond at the CT Book Fair 17 June 2008

Dennis Brutus and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation will launch a new book,
For Camden, which includes poetry by Brutus and Walt Whitman and art
by Ilse Schreiber-Noll. There are only seven copies of this book, and
one will be on display at the RLS stand.

For Camden.
Ilse Schreiber-Noll: Woodcuts and Silk Screens.
Poems by Dennis Brutus and Walt Whitman.
New York. 2007-2008. n.p. 18.5” x 13.25”.
Loose in thick wrappers illustrated with green woodcuts. Conceived,
printed and bound by Ilse Schreiber-Noll. Some pages with gauze overlays
containing images and allowing the viewer to glimpse the words or images
below. Laid in a card box with brown title on the lift-off lid.

From the Introduction: “Camden, N.J. - It does not take much time when
visiting this city to have doubts about a line its most famous resident,
19th century poet Walt Whitman, wrote about it: “I dream’d in a dream I
saw a city invincible.” In the decades after Whitman’s death in 1892,
Camden, located just east of Philadelphia, became a center of industry,
home to RCA and Campbell Soup. [In] the years following, the city
declined into one of the poorest cities in our country, a place
best-known for government corruption and crime.”

The excerpts of the poem ‘Letter to Camden, Burial Place of Walt
Whitman’ were handwritten by the poet, Dennis Brutus, in January 2008,
for this book. The artist cut the entire poem out of linoleum.

Schreiber Noll writes: “The images in … “For Camden”… show the grief and
needs of these troubled together with the voice[s] of two great poets,
Dennis Brutus and Walt Whitman.”

On 17 June, Patrick Bond will join a debate on climate change sponsored
by the Institute for Security Studies.

Patrick Bond at Codesria conference on trade, Addis Ababa, 9-10 June 2008

African Economic and Political Integration and Alternatives to the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements

Trade, Investment and the Looting of Africa
By Patrick Bond

Slide Show: EU-African Economic Partnership Agreements, Neoliberalism, and Eco-Social Resistance
By Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond at Unisa Africa Environmental Politics conference 30 May 2008

Corporate Responsibility, Environmental Protection and Threats to Africa’s Development Paper to be presented by Patrick Bond

Slide Show from Patrick's Presentation

Date: 30 May 2008
Time: 08:00- 14:00
Venue: Senate Hall, Theo van Wijk Building (2nd floor), UNISA Main Campus, Preller Street, Muckleneuk, Pretoria

PROGRAMME

8:00 – 8:30 Registration
8:30 – 8:40 Official Welcome, Professor Mandla Makhanya, Pro Vice-
Chancellor, University of South Africa (UNISA)
8:40-9:00 Keynote Address, The Honourable Mr Khabisi Mosunkutu, MEC
for Agriculture, Conservation and the Environment, Gauteng
Provincial Government

SESSION 1
Chairperson: Ms Jo-Ansie van Wyk, Department of Political Sciences, UNISA
9:00 – 9:15 Dr Anthony Turton, CSIR
The Protection of Africa’s Transboundary Water Resources- Security and Political Implications
9:15-9:30 Dr Stefano Farolfi, Centre for Environmental Economics
and Policy in Africa (CEEPA), University of Pretoria
Integrated Water Resource Management in Africa: Utopia
or Realistic Goal?
9:30-9:45 Discussion
9:45-10:15 Tea/Coffee

SESSION 2
Chairperson: Professor Pieter Labuschagne, Department of Political
Sciences, UNISA
10:15-10:30 Mr Hans-Petter Boe, Regional Representative for Southern
Africa, International Organization for Migration
‘Environmental Degradation and Climate Change: Forced
Migration and The Security Threats Posed to and by Africa’s
Environmental Refugees’
10:30-10:45 Ms Joanne Yawitch, Deputy Director-General, Department
of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, South Africa
‘The Bali Climate Change Talks: Implications for South Africa
and Africa’
10:45-11:00 Discussion

SESSION 3
Chairperson: Mr Rudolph Pretorius, Department of Geography, UNISA
11:00-11:15 Professor Patrick Bond, School of Development Studies,
University of
KwaZulu-Natal
‘Corporate Responsibility, Environmental Protection and Threats to
Africa’s Development’
11:15-11:30 Mr Bobby Peek, groundWork, Friends of the Earth, South Africa
‘Threats to Environmental Justice in Africa in the Age of Climate
Change’
11:30-11:45 Discussion

SESSION 4
Chairperson: David Hedding, Department of Geography, UNISA
11:45-12:00 Ms Trusha Reddy, Project Head, Climate Change and the Governance
of Carbon Trading Projects in Southern Africa, ISS
‘Carbon Trading-the challenges and potential pitfalls facing South
Africa and the African Continent and Short DVD Presentation’
12:00-12:15 Mr Greg McManus, The Environmental Heritage Management
Company, Qualitour
Sustainable Tourism in Africa and the impact on the Environment:
Challenges, Opportunities, Threats
12:15-12:30 Discussion

SESSION 5
Chairperson: Dr Phil Mtimkulu, Department of Political Sciences, UNISA
12:30-12:45 Dr Karsten Feuerriegel, The World Bank,- SA Resident Mission
‘Can Biodiversity Conservation be Pro-Poor?’
12:45-13:00 Richard Worthington, Coordinator, South African Climate Action
Network (SACAN)
‘Africa’s participation in negotiating a post-2012 global climate
agreement’
13:00-13:30 Discussion
13:30 Concluding Remarks and Vote of Thanks by Professor Dirk Kotze,
Head, Department of Political Sciences, UNISA
13:45 LUNCH

Bukurura on Extractive industries and destruction of livelihoods 19 -23 May 2009

Sufian Bukurura speaks about Extractive industries and destruction of livelihoods in Africa at the ActionAid All Africa Policy Meeting in Mombasa Kenya (19-23 May).

Extractive industries and destruction of livelihoods in Africa
Paper presented at the conference by Sufian Bukurura

Slideshow from Sufian's presentation

Ideas and Strategies in the Alterglobalization Movements May 23 2008

2008 International Conference
Institute for Social Sciences Gyeongsang National University
Ideas and Strategies in the Alterglobalization Movements

Time:9:30AM - 5:40PM
Date:Friday, May 23, 2008
Venue:5th floor Conference Room Korean Federation of Public Service and Transportation Workers Unions Seoul, Korea

Conference Programme

Registration: 9:30am-9:50am

Opening Remark: 9:50am-10:00am
Sang-Hwan Jang (Gyeongsang National University)

Session 1: Ideas, Organizations and Strategies of Alterglobalization Movements 10:00am - 12:10pm

Presider: Seungho Kim (Cyber Labor University in Memory of Jun Tae-il)

10:00am-11:00am Seongjin Jeong (Gyeongsang National University),
Eui-Dong Kim (Gyeongsang National University), Chang-Keun Kim
(Gyeongsang National University), and Sibok Chang (Gyeongsang National
University)
Ideas of Alterglobalization Movements
Discussant: Nam-Young Chung (Kyungwon University), No-wan Kwack
(University of Seoul)

11:00am-12:10pm Jin-Sang Jeong (Gyeongsang National University),
Sang-Hwan Jang (Gyeongsang National University), Young-Soo Kim
(Gyeongsang National University), Jeong-Ju Kim (Gyeongsang National
University), and Seung-Hyeob Lee (Korea Labor Education Institute)
Organizations and Strategies of Alterglobalization Movements
Discussant: Byungkee Jung (Seoul National University), Il-bung Choi
(Alltogether)

Lunch Break: 12:10pm-13:10pm

Session 2: Alterglobalization Movements: International Experiences
1:10pm-5:40pm

Presider: Soohaeng Kim (SungKongHoe University and Academy for Social
Science)

1:10pm-2:00pm George Katsiaficas (Wentworth Institute of Technology, USA)
1968 and Alterglobalization Movements
Discussant: Young-Su Won (SungKongHoe University)

2:00pm-2:50pm Dae-oup Chang (Centre of Asia Studies of University of
Hong Kong, China).
Social Movement Unionism and Struggles at Value-Fronts
Discussant: Moo-Hyeon Joo (Korea Employment Information Service)

2:50pm-3:40pm Richard Westra (Pukyoung National University)
A Primer on the Commodity, Capital and Globalization with regards to
De-commodification in Alter-globalization Movement Strategizing
Discussant: Hee-Yeon Cho (SungKongHoe University)

Coffee Break: 3:40pm-4:00pm

4:00pm-4:50pm Patrick Bond and Molefi Ndlovu (University of
KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, South Africa)
Ideology and Strategies in the Fight against Multinational Corporate Water Privatization: The Case of Johannesburg.
Discussant: Young-Soo Kim (Gyeongsang National University)

4:50pm-5:40pm David McNally (York University, Canada)
Another World is Possible: Movements against Global Commodification
Discussant: Il-bung Choi (Alltogether)

Conference Ends 5:40pm

Pictures

CCS hosts University of Ottawa research students, 12-30 May 2008

Civil Society and the Challenge of Development
in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Course Presenters: Prof Patrick Bond, Prof Sufian Bukurura, Prof Dennis Brutus, Mr Ntokozo Mthembu, Mr Molefi Ndlovu, Mr Amisi Baruti and Ms Melanie Samson

Contact
Tel: 031 260 2454
bondp@ukzn.ac.za

South African (Azania*n) workers experience of globalisation
Module prepared for the University of Ottawa – undergraduate research students, 20 May 2008 @ University of KwaZulu-Natal, CCS/SDS Seminar room, eThekwini

Introduction
The overall aim of this course is to engage debates over the character of post-apartheid development in South Africa, highlighting advocacy, policy, programmatic and project interventions by civil society. We will draw upon ‘political economy’ traditions to explore the overall configuration of power relations in public policy formulation, which in turn is an outcome of institutional evolution, accumulation processes, social struggles and other factors both global and domestic.

South Africa is the primary case site, but other countries in Africa and the global North and South will be briefly considered. The course provides an overview of key political economic developments in relation to development and state policies, and also covers the history and trajectory of civil society in relation to apartheid, and to the liberation movement. We will consider how the most significant socio-economic development policies were adopted during the first 14 years of ANC rule (1994-2008), and their results, augmented by a general theoretical and comparative survey of how such policies are formulated and influenced in other states.

For the last decade and a half, the notion of civil society has been holding central sway in official, academic and popular discourses about development, democracy and governance in the world. Although this notion, in various guises and interpretations, has been part of Western political and philosophical thought almost since antiquity, it has seen a spectacular revival since the end of the Cold War and the various transitions to democracy in Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe and much of Africa. In most instances, it was widely recognised that a broad body of non-state actors/ agencies, subsequently lumped under the term civil society, played a key role in these transitions to democracy. Hence, in a world newly shorn of its old theoretical and ideological certainties, the old notion of civil society was revived and imbued with a range of new meanings, interpretations and expectations. It moved rapidly from academic discourse to widespread popular use, across a wide ideological spectrum, becoming, for some time, the new panacea for promoting democracy, ‘good governance’ and development in the world.

In retrospect, there were clearly deeper underlying ideological, political and economic causes that led to the widespread promotion of this notion – most of them tied up with a new emerging world order, based on the notion of liberal democracy and the supremacy of the market. We explore these and other new developments, both in international and country contexts, and look at the challenges and the increasingly stark choices facing civil society organisations worldwide. We will also look at the newer phenomenon of global civil society, which is increasingly challenging the underlying assumptions and practices of the ‘new world order’.

To explore these problems, we will draw upon seminal books and articles from the international civil society and social policy literature. Scores of other relevant global/African/South African documents in the public realm are provided. Additional audio/visual materials – including film footage and internet sites – will be utilised during the course. The ‘Developmental State’ and ‘Two Economies’ disputes in South Africa are amongst areas of enquiry. Students are expected to actively participate in what will be a seminar format, particularly in areas relating to their own specialisations and experiences.

In addition to coverage of civil society – stressing NGOs, social movements and transnational linkages – we will address the following development and economic policy issues: macroeconomics, AIDS (especially treatment), basic municipal services (especially water, sanitation and electricity), socio-environmental dilemmas (such as climate change), labour migrancy, sports/society and gender.

Objectives of the course

The learning objectives are for students to
• become familiar with the civil society literature;
• comprehend basic concepts in political economy;
• firmly establish a basis in political/social and development theory for understanding how public policies are adopted;
• clarify how and why certain kinds of developmental mandates were given to the South African government;
• understand the main features of South Africa’s democratic social, development and economic policies;
• be capable of assessing critiques and rebuttals of arguments associated with these policies’ successes or shortcomings; and
• track how the most recent generations of civil society emerged, locally and globally, in reaction to political and economic pressure.

Course meetings
The course commences on 12 May 2008 at 10am. All meetings will take place in the Centre for Civil Society seminar room (F208 “Training Room”). Meetings are generally three hours in duration, with a very brief break. A detailed schedule will follow.

Method and assessments
Participants are expected to take responsibility for preparing an abstract-style summary plus an analysis/assessment for at least two appropriate readings from the readings during the course (one for Patrick Bond's sessions and one for Sufian Bukurura's sessions), and to provide notes at least one day before the class meeting. These notes should be typed and should summarise the main arguments in the readings, highlight critical arguments, controversies and disagreements and contain some personal points of view on the subject matter. Note that seminar presentations and notes count 50% of your final mark for this course. In addition, a short essay is also required.

The final course mark will be made up as follows:
1. 50% of the mark will be based on two abstracts and seminar presentations.
2. 50% of the mark will be based on the short essay.

Assignment 1) Two reading abstracts (50%)
Write five sentences (or so) as a summary

AN EXAMPLE OF A FIVE-SENTENCE ABSTRACT PLUS ASSESSMENT:
READING: Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
• Central questions are whether the welfare state transforms capitalist social relations, and what causes welfare states to look the way they do?
• Welfare states have been said to have ‘functionalist’ roles in legitimating capitalism and securing a stable labour force (with consumption capabilities that reduce capitalist crisis tendencies), as well as ‘institutionalist’ characteristics associated with the nature of the societies in which they arise (e.g., open/closed, early/late democracy and nature of state-society bargaining systems).
• If social class is a determinant, the interests of workers are to ‘decommodify’ their own labour-power (through assuring benefits that allow them to leave the job market) and to ‘destratify’ access to welfare services (‘universalism’), and in the process to build in redistribution to contribution systems.
• Class coalitions are crucial to understanding how a numerically-important but minority class (workers) can forge alliances with, e.g., rural people, to establish ‘social-democratic’ systems, and conversely why close relations between capital and the state often lead to ‘liberal’ welfare systems that commodify labour and establish means-tests for benefits.
• The three clusters of regime types that help categorise the way welfare states have developed are social democratic (Scandinavia and some other N.European countries); corporatist (middle-Europe); and neoliberal (Anglo-Saxon countries).
• ASSESSMENT: The analysis operates in a nuanced way at the macro-political level, with excellent coverage of preceding theoretical and comparative contributions to the literature—but does it do justice to the micro-level that especially requires consideration of gender, household relations, demography and the interface of labour and social movements?

Assignment 2) Short Essay – due May 27, midnight (50%)
The assignment will entail each student choosing a particular policy and discussing it via either an 800-1000-word ‘op-ed’ article for a periodical, an executive summary of a policy options briefing paper, a research brief for a government department requiring further information about the policy’s impact, a strategy paper for a civil society network intent on political advocacy, or some other means of reflecting on debates about the policy. If you write an op-ed essay on a topic related to the course, for submission to a newspaper of your choice in your country, consider these tips.

An opinion-editorial (‘op-ed’) - usually placed in a newspaper ‘opposite the editorial page’ - is a brief argument meant to persuade. Excessively preachy and moralistic argumentation is often a turn-off to readers. Compressing a complex argument – often about politics or public policy – into 800 words or so is a very useful exercise. Think carefully about your readers’ perspective, what they know and don’t know, and how you might persuade them to take your point of view seriously. Here are some tips:

• First, which publication are you writing for? Specify, and if it is obscure, explain the audience.
• Expect to have *substantial* edits, from a good editor, to tighten the wording and especially rid your article of superfluous material. (Of 500 or so such articles I’ve written, the first 50 were tossed back by editors who were disgusted with my long sentences and babbling, so keep that in mind.)
• Try to start your article with a punchy attention-grabbing idea, possibly a quotation. Try to show why the article addresses a topical issue that the reader will be interested in understanding.
• Use quotations from people ‘in authority’ as much as possible. The reasons for quoting people include their standing (whether they are elites or grassroots people), their quotability (especially if they are good with soundbites), or their articulation of an idea you want to put across. But if you quote someone, give the reader an intro so that s/he knows why you are giving them space. Try to limit the quotation to a couple of sentences.
• Use statistics as much as is appropriate (don’t overload, but definitely demonstrate that you are aware of facts).
• Appear balanced; indeed, try to anticipate what an opponent might argue, and be ready with an implicit or explicit rebuttal.
• Use interesting metaphors or other creative writing tools so that the article flows well and doesn’t get bogged down in minutia.
• Try to end with a punch-line argument, whether it is witty or thoughtprovoking.
• Some newspapers allow 1000 (or even more) words, but you are *much* more likely to have an article published if it is 800 words.
• Provide a good ID note about yourself.

CCS & IOLS workers festival, 7 May 2008

Join Patrick Craven, Aisha Lorgat, Woody Aroun, Orlean Naidoo, Davyn
Fourie, Faith ka Manzi, Xolani Dube, Spencer Kerr, Rob Pattman, Gaby
Bikombo, Patrick Bond and others:

Celebrate Workers Festival!

COMMUNITY AND MEDIA ADVISORY:

CCS & IOLS HOST WORKERS FESTIVAL - 7 MAY 2008

The UKZN Industrial, Organisational, Labour Studies - Research unit and
the Centre for Civil Society, supported by the Durban International Film
Festival, have programmed an entire day dedicated to commemorating
workers on 7 May.

The month of May reminds us of long histories of worker struggles and
incessant solidarity, dating to May Day's origins in Chicago's Haymarket
Rebellion at the end of the 19th century. Since then, with many decades
of intense South African labour struggles to commemorate, we aim to
highlight the plight and bravery of workers, using artistic works.

This Workers Festival will provide creative opportunities, such as
poetry, theatre and films, to address the living reality and struggle of
the working class, here and internationally. Struggles continue today
over the prices of basic essentials, from food to fuel and electricity
increasing exponentially, as the working class will bear the brunt of
the pain.

It is an auspicious time, because Durban's dock and transport workers
have shown their internationalist spirit in recent days by preventing
the shipment of a huge Chinese arms consignment to the Zimbabwe regime,
which no doubt would be used against fellow workers and poor people
demanding democracy.

The UKZN programme features a variety of artistic creations, ranging
from posters by IOLS & Vega Imagination Lab students, to photo essays by
local veteran photographer Peter McKenzie, to a range of challenging
short films and feature films that address livelihoods, worker
struggles, and alienation. There will be poetry and live music. A
highlight will be an input and Q&A with the well-known spokesperson of
the main organisation of the South African working class, COSATU's
Patrick Craven, joined by discussants from Durban's labour, community,
street-trader and academic scenes.

VENUES: film screenings 10:30 -12:00 @ L5 in TB Davids building

poetry & live music 12:00 @ Students Union

film screenings 13:30 onwards @ Howard College Auditorium

panel discussion 17:45 onwards with Patrick Craven, etc @ Howard College Auditorium

For more information, please contact:

Oliver Meth on 031 260 1412 or 076 473 6555 metho@ukzn.ac.za

Azad Essa on 031 260 2117 or 083 382 7323 essa@ukzn.ac.za

CELEBRATE SOUTHERN AFRICAN MIGRANT WORKERS

Here and There
An extraordinary photo exhibition of migrant workers' lives, by Peter Mckenzie, is on display from 6-23rd May at CCS, on the Memorial Tower Building F-section first floor.

DETAILED PROGRAMME, 7 May

All Day: Photo Essay by Peter McKenzie
Venue: CCS Corridor

Posters at IOLS/CCS
Venue: IOLS Seminar Room, 1st Floor MTB

10:30 –12:00 Short Films: Work today
Introduced by Azad Essa (IOLS-Research)
Venue: Howard College Auditorium
10: 35 - Elsie’s Kwota (South Africa, 12 min)
10: 40 · Messaoud (Morocco, 9 min)
11: 00 · Perana (South Africa, 15 min)
11: 20 · Usuku Lwam (South Africa, 13min)
11:40 · Piece of Heaven (Poland, 19 min)

12:00 – 13:00 Poetry/Live Music
Venue: Students Union building, Howard College

13:45 – 16:00 Short Films: Global worker Struggles
Introduced by: Rob Pattman (Sociology)
Venue: L5, Howard College
13: 50 · A story of Cosatu (South Africa, 25 min)
14: 20 · Bakino Faso Informal Economy (ITUC, 4 min)
14: 30· Amambuka Westrike (South Africa, 15 min)
14: 45· The Decent Factory (Denmark, 50min)

17:30 - Main Evening Event: Music & Panel Discussion: Workers’ Labour Matters Live Music

Spencer Kerr - 17h30 – 17h45

Faith ka Manzi – 17h45 – 17h50

Davyn Fourie – 17h50 -18h00

Introduction to Evening/Faciliator: Benedict Xolani Dube

Guest Speaker: Patrick Craven (Chairperson of Cosatu)

Panel and Question & Answer Session with Aisha Lorgat (IOLS-Research),
Orlean Naidoo (CCS), Gaby Bikombo (StreetNet), Patrick Bond (CCS) and
Woody Aroun (Numsa)

Patrick Bond lectures in Massachusetts, 30 April -2 May 2008

Public talks in Massachusetts, April 30-May 2

April 30: Community Economics in South Africa - Hauser Center Brownbag
Lunch, Harvard University John F Kennedy School of Government,
12:30-1:45pm (http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hauser/index.shtml)

April 30: Global Alternatives and the South African Experience - Mass
Global Action encuentro5, 3 Harrison Ave, 5th floor, 7-9:30pm
(http://www.massglobalaction.org/home/ocow/index.htm and
http://www.encuentro5.org)

May 1: The Political Economy of South Africa, Clark University
Graduate School of Geography, Worcester, 4-6pm
(http://www.clarku.edu/departments/geography)

May 2: The Third World Debt: Financial Volatility and Social Power,
Conference on The Political Economy of Monetary Policy and Financial
Regulation, University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research
Institute, Amherst, 4-5:30pm
(http://www.peri.umass.edu/Jane-D-Arista-Co.435.0.html)

ActionAid-CCS African Social Movements workshop, 23-29 April 2008

CCS hosts 70 ActionAid Africa delegates and local community activists from 23-29 April for a detailed enquiry into social movements and social justice:

Africa Movements Dialogue:
South-South Collaboration
A Concept for Discussion

What is the Africa Movements Dialogue?

A journey involving a small number of interested AA country programmes
and their staff, partners and members of social movements… Specifically,

A capacity building and learning process through which we can build and
deepen political, analytical and practical skills for organising and
movement support:

An exchange of experience between social movement activists, partner
organisations and AA staff from different countries;

Training offered by social movement activists/intellectuals drawn from
across the region and from LAC, and possibly Asia; and

Time spent in field learning very directly from social movements and
grassroots formations.

An opportunity for staff, partners and movement activists to critically
explore, document and dialogue about the history, development, struggles
and ‘ impact’ of a movement/grassroots formation at country level. The
aim here is to build understanding and analysis, learn from a particular
experience of movement emergence, and critically consider the role of AA
and other actors. This process should also open up space for a much
wider and critical dialogue amongst multiple actors at country level.
Social movement concepts, ideas and experiences – that are particular to
the AR - are publicised and shared with AA staff, partners, and allies
throughout the AR and beyond.

Activist-to-activist exchanges on the basis of learning needs identified
and opportunities identified through the Dialogue.

What value can the Movement Dialogue add to our work?

Promote greater conceptual clarity - drawing from the AR - on social
movements and the interventions we can make, across contexts, to foster
their emergence and strengthening;

Learn from our work with social movements, and make suggestions for how
we can deepen and strengthen this support work;

Link movements to one another in solidarity, learning and support
relationships;

Build political and analytical capacity for organising and work with
social movements/progressive grassroots formations;

Build conceptual and practical resource material that can assist work
with social movements in the AR and beyond;

An opportunity to consolidate relations with progressive institutions
and actors that share a similar political commitment to AA; and

Open up space for public dialogue and debate about social movements, the
changes they strive for, and the ways in which progressive allies can
work to support them.

Some of the Questions the Dialogue Responds to…

1. There is confusion about what we mean by social movements and whether
this is a useful concept in the AR. There are questions as to whether
social movements indeed exist on the ground, and if so what form they
take, the nature of the struggles they adopt, and their relations to the
state and other actors in society. Some CDs emphasised the need for us
to conceptualise and talk about a range of other organisational forms
(networks, alliances, grassroots formations etc.) and consider whether
these can be further developed and ‘radicalised’. Developing greater
conceptual clarity is of critical importance to the whole organisation
and so any capacity-building or training on grassroots organising and
social movements should generate materials and resources that can inform
the much wider pool of AA staff, partners and allies.

2. Our staff and partners often work in quite an isolated fashion. They
are infrequently exposed to political options and alternatives that can
inspire a different way of working. In addition, we’ve entered more of
an activist mode under RTEP, which has implications for the skills and
abilities that our staff and staff in partner organisations need. One CD
talked about the need for ‘activist formation’ amongst staff and
partners if we are to advance our organisational mission.

3. In countries, AA works with a range of local grassroots organisations,
networks and movements. We have built valuable experience and learnt
much from our work alongside and with these movements/formations. We
often don’t have time to reflect on these lessons and share them with
others. CDs emphasised their desire to see this type of exchange across
countries, but involving partners and members of social movements. In
addition, CDs emphasised that capacity building should open up space for
dialogue between ourselves, partners and members of social movements.
This exchange should include exposure time in field with members of
movements.

A Bit of Background

In July 2006, a Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Region Social
Movements Dialogue was held, which some countries (Ghana and Kenya) in
the Africa Region attended. Regional and IS staff also participated.
This meeting afforded participants an opportunity to understand the idea
of social movements better, to share some of our experience of work with
social movements, and a chance to spend time in the field practically
engaging specific social movements.

At the meeting, the idea formed to open up space for a Dialogue on
Social Movements in the Africa Region. Since then a first concept note
for a Movement Dialogue has been drafted, followed by consultations with
CDs in two clusters: West Africa (Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria and Sierra
Leone) and Southern/East Africa (Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania and
Zimbabwe). The aim of the discussions with CDs was to understand better
country contexts from a social movements perspective, hear what
challenges were being confronted supporting grassroots organising and
social movements, and what value the IS could add in the form of
capacity building and shared learning.

The Centre for Civil Society (CCS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal is
an internationally recognised site of research, publication and direct
engagement with social justice organisations.

CCS will assist ActionAid and support relationship-building with
organisations and individuals to advance AA's social movements dialogue.

Africa Region Social Movements Dialogue
23-29 April 2008

Proposed outcomes

Participants leave inspired and committed to return home to deepen the
work of social movements, to support dialogue and discussion with and
about movements, to support social movement struggles etc.

Participants leave with deeper conceptual insight/understanding of
social movements and the political, social and economic factors/issues
shaping their emergence and their struggles, as well as those of other
civil society actors, like NGOs.

Participants gain deeper insight to the complexity of relations between
state and movements, and between movements and other civil society
actors such as NGOs.

Participants are practically exposed to the specific struggles of social
movements.

Members of social movements have an opportunity to engage one another,
learn from one another, make links and associations, consider ways in
which solidarity and ongoing learning could be forged, and make
particular proposals to AAI in this regard.

AAI, partners and movement members leave with critical insights and
lessons on the ways in which NGOs can potentially support movement
struggles, and the limitations of this support – some concrete ideas and
proposals for AAI support work (with consideration of differences in
context) have been identified.

Participants leave inspired to consider more creative, interactive
tactics and organising methods, and have been challenged to consider the
personal dimension of change, and the importance of transforming within
progressive struggle.

Participants understand the potential value of the systematisation
(action research) methodology – we have considered ways in which we
could employ it in relevant ways in our own context, and have built a
framework for systematising our social movement experiences in some
countries.

Pictures

Opening circle, SM Dialogue

Marliuz Morgan, our systematics guru

Women's council strategising to hold onto power

Shereen Essof, Zimbabwean feminist

Laurie, Amade and other cdes

Ghana reports in

DRC comrades share a song with us

Jubilee/ActionAid Conference: Extractive Industries and Community Justice, 21-22 April 2008

Extractive Industries and Community Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa National Conference
Hosted by Jubilee South Africa and Action Aid South Africa
21 - 22 April 2008 Johannesburg

Draft Programme (Updated 17 April 2008)

Monday, 21 April 2008

9:00 – 9:15 Welcoming Remarks
MP Giyose, Chairperson, Jubilee SA

9:15 – 9:30 Opening Statement and Conference Objectives
Zanele Twala, Country Director, ActionAid South Africa

9:30 – 11:00 Opening Panel Discussion: Extractive Industries in South and Southern Africa: Force for Development?
Chair: Janet Love, National Director, Legal Resources Centre
Speakers: Anglo Platinum, speaker to be confirmed
Ministry of Minerals and Energy, speaker to be confirmed
Rafiq Haja, Executive Director, Institute for Policy Interaction Malawi
George Dor, General Secretary, Jubilee SA
Rose Dlabela, Ga Pila, Jubilee Mokopane

11:00 – 11:30Tea Break

11:30 – 13:00 Opening Panel continued

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

PART I: The Extractive Industries: Issues and Impacts

14:00 – 17:00 Whose land? Mining, Dispossession and Removals
Chair: Teresa Yates, Nkuzi Development Association
Speakers: Nonhle Mbuthuma, Xolobeni, Wild Coast
Motsomi Marobela, Baswara Campaign, Botswana
Phillipos Dolo, Jubilee Mokopane
Henk Smith, Attorney, Legal Resources Centre
Steven Goldblatt, Attorney, Johannesburg

Tuesday, 22 April 2008

8:30 - 10:30 The New Scramble for Minerals in South Africa and the Region
Chair: Zanele Twala, Country Director, ActionAid South Africa
Speakers: Patrick Bond, Director, Centre for Civil Society
Grace Kwinjeh, Southern Africa Resource Watch, (tentative, to be confirmed)
Gavin Capps, PhD Candidate, London School of Economics

10:30 – 11:00 Tea break

11:00 – 13:00 Parallel Session 1: Mining and Water
Chair: To be announced
Speakers: Carin Bosman, Water Analyst, Sustainable Solutions cc
Mariette Liefferink, Environmental Activist/Brand Nthako, Jubilee SA
Thabang Ngcozela, Environmental Monitoring Group

Parallel Session 2: Mining, the Environment and Health
Chair:Bobby Peek, Director, groundWork
Speakers: South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, to be confirmed
Lucas Mekgwe, Rustenburg Environmental Coalition
Charles Abrahams, Attorney, Cape Town

Part 2: Community Resistance: Perspectives and Alliances

14:00 – 14:20 Community Campaigns Update
Facilitator: Jubilee South Africa

14:20 – 14:30 Introduction to Commissions
Facilitator: Jubilee South Africa

14:30 – 16:00 Perspectives and Alliances 1: International Mining Campaigns
Facilitator: Wole Olaleye

Perspectives and Alliances 2: Unions, NGOs and Social Movements
Facilitator: Phinneas Malapela, Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance

Perspectives and Alliances 3: Legal and Policy Strategies
Facilitator: Charles Abrahams, Attorney, Cape Town

Perspectives and Alliances 4: Research Strategies
Facilitators: David van Wyk, Researcher/Gavin Capps, London School of Economics

16:00 – 16:45 Plenary: Sharing of Discussion and Suggestions in Commissions

16:45 – 17:00 Closing Remarks: Dennis Brutus, Patron, Jubilee SAExtractive Industries and Community Justice
in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Introduction
Mining has formed the backbone of the South African economy for more than a century. The mineral and energy sectors dominated the economy of colonial South Africa during the 20th century and this still holds true today. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886 initiated an economic path driven by the mining industry, which led to some of the fundamentals of the apartheid legal architecture. For example, key components of Apartheid legislation were designed to ensure sufficient labour for the gold mines.

In recent years, significant new developments in the mining sector have taken place. Thabo Mbeki, in his opening address to Parliament earlier this month, reiterated that mining underpins our economy. The post-1994 macroeconomic framework, GEAR, and its refinement, ASGISA, are premised on the private sector as the engine of growth, with an overriding emphasis on capital- and energy-intensive mega-projects.

As gold production has started to decline, there has been a rush for platinum, with rapid expansion of mining activities along the Bushveld Mineral Complex in the Limpopo and North West provinces. Increasing demands for energy and shortages of supply have sparked a shift towards re-mining of gold dumps for uranium and a renewed expansion of mining for coal. In addition, mining ventures focused on vanadium, chrome and titanium – among others – are also in full swing. This expansion of mining activities has been fuelled by the intense global demand for products manufactured from these minerals.

This expansion of extractive industries has significant implications on mining communities and the environment. Many of the minerals being mined are found in densely populated areas where rural South Africans have been living on plots of land that they use primarily for subsistence farming. In addition, these areas are environmentally sensitive, such as the Wild Coast where mining companies want to mine titanium. As mining activity expands it impinges on residents of these areas as well as their environment. The negative effects are severe due to these social, economic and environmental factors not receiving adequate consideration.

Communities and environmentalists have been trying to convey these concerns to the mining companies and government officials. These concerns appear to be ignored as mining companies do their business with support from government in the name of economic development. In many instances communities that demand adequate consultation and refuse to be removed from their land are met with police harassment and brutality, arrests of community activists and leaders, and even the use of private security companies who hire ex-combatants from other African countries who try to intimidate community members into submission.

The reality of mining in practice in South Africa appears to not be fully understood by the various role players. Suggested approaches to mitigating the negative effects of mining are many and sometimes contradictory. Attempts at ‘corporate social responsibility,’ for example, claim to be a step toward improvement, while at the same time attempts at holding corporations accountable for damage to the environment and the social fabric of mining communities has born little fruit. Furthermore, larger scale corporate social responsibility initiatives rarely have teeth to penalize corporations who violate social responsibility requirements and often serve as a successful company public relations tool more than anything that actually benefits affected communities. In some areas communities opt to sign away mining rights to businessmen who promise to assist them and improve development and mitigate the negative effects – a promise made by nearly every mining company (small and large) over the last many years.

Bearing these realities in mind, the time is opportune to hold a conference to discuss, debate, and finetune knowledge and its production regarding the effects of extractive industries in SA. To this end, Jubilee South Africa and ActionAid South Africa are working together to convene this gathering.

Participants
It is clear from the above that the communities affected by mining need to be central to the conference. Other invitees include a broad range of sectors, including unions, social movements, environmental groups, churches, NGOs, academics, lawyers, doctors, and environmental technicians. In addition, relevant people from parliament, provincial legislatures, the executive arm of government, as well as other role players will be invited.

Objectives
To create a platform for various stakeholders to share experiences and knowledge on the social, economic and environmental impacts of mining;
To discuss possible opportunities, strategies and support for work to improve the situation for those affected by the extractives industry in South Africa and beyond; To discuss with government and other role players how the social and environmental concerns around mining can be addressed.

Venue and Transportation
Overnight accommodation and meeting facilities will be provided by The Booysens Hotel and Conference Centre, Booysens, Johannesburg (www.booysenshotel.co.za). Transport will be provided for participants from their home to the venue.

Contact Information:
For more information and to confirm your participation please contact Ernestine Mokom at tewahe@yahoo.co.uk, 011 336 9190 (ask for Jubilee South Africa), or 076 583 4790. Additionally you may contact Anne Mayher at akmayher@gmail.com or 082 398 6882 for general questions about the conference.

Political Economy of the Welfare State course taught by Patrick Bond, 21 April - 9 June 2008

SCHOOL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Masters Programme in Development Studies
The Political Economy of the Welfare State
2008

Course Presenter: Patrick Bond
Tel: 260 2454
Email: bondp@ukzn.ac.za

Introduction
The overall aim is to survey and engage with debates over the appropriate forms of state intervention in selected fields of social policy. ‘Political economy’ refers to the overall configuration of power relations in public policy formulation, which in turn is an outcome of institutional evolution, accumulation processes, social struggles and other factors both global and domestic. ‘The Welfare State’ is a phrase that emerged to describe northern societies during the Keynesian, social-democratic era, but analysis of welfare state functions can also be usefully translated to other settings.

South Africa is the primary case site, but other countries in the global North and South will be considered. The course provides an overview of key political economic developments in relation to development and state policies, with attention to global processes and African state/society/economic relations. In South Africa, we will consider how the most significant socio-economic development policies were adopted during the first 13 years of ANC rule (1994-2007), and their results, augmented by a general theoretical and comparative survey of how such policies are formulated and influenced in other states.

We will draw upon seminal books and articles from the international social policy literature. Scores of other relevant global/African/South African documents in the public realm are provided. Additional audio/visual materials – including film footage and internet sites – will be utilised during the course. The ‘Developmental State’ and ‘Two Economies’ disputes in South Africa are amongst areas of enquiry, because these relate closely to other settings.

Students are expected to actively participate in what will be a seminar format, particularly in areas relating to their own specialisations and experiences. If possible, the course will hence overlap with the students’ own research agenda, so that the written assignments will contribute to the thesis writing process, both in terms of background literature and concrete case studies.

This course can be considered, in addition, as preparation for the subsequent course on Social Policy (taught by Professor Francie Lund), with its attention to nutrition and food security, social security, population policy, community care, public works programmes, primary health care. Hence most of the fields covered in ‘The Political Economy of the Welfare State’ are chosen specifically to not overlap. Instead, development and economic policy issues will be
chosen to highlight AIDS (especially treatment), basic municipal services (especially water, sanitation and electricity), socio-environmental dilemmas (such as climate change), and economic debates that relate to social policies (e.g. macroeconomic policy, microfinancing and megaprojects).

Objectives of the course
The learning objectives are for students to

comprehend basic concepts in political economy;

firmly establish a basis in political/social theory for understanding how public policies are adopted;

assess the adoption and implications of different kinds of socio-economic policies;

clarify how and why certain kinds of developmental mandates were given to the South African government;

understand the main features of South Africa’s democratic social, development and economic policies; and

be capable of assessing critiques and rebuttals of arguments associated with these policies’ successes or shortcomings.

Patrick Bond on climate/social change, poli-econ, water in Sydney, April 2008

CLIMATE CHANGE - SOCIAL CHANGE CONFERENCE, APRIL 11-13, 2008, SYDNEY

The world is teetering on the brink of unstoppable climate change. Many
now recognise the need for serious change in the way we produce and use
energy, our transport systems, food production, urban design and
forestry practices. Yet politicians are still mouthing platitudes while
allowing corporations to continue to profit from polluting our
atmosphere and destroying our ecosystem. The need for social change has
become an urgent part of preventing catastrophic climate change. Can the
market fix the problem? What is the real record of carbon trading? How
can we build a social movement capable of averting this disaster? What
models and experiences can offer real solutions?

To strengthen the exchange of ideas and contribute towards that urgent
action Green Left Weekly is organising the Climate Change - Social
Change conference from April 11-13, 2008 in Sydney.

We are pleased to have confirmed:

John Bellamy Foster, author of Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature, editor of Monthly Review sociology.uoregon.edu

Patrick Bond, Director of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; editor of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society www.zcommunications.org/zspace/patrickbond

Roberto Perez, Cuban permaculturalist (featured in The Power of
Community: how Cuba survived peak oil)

We invite your participation in making this more than just an exchange
of ideas - important as that is - but a part of building up resistance
to corporate-led climate change and strengthening the movement for
sustainable development. To receive updates about the conference, send
an email to
climatechange_socialchangeconf_announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Please forward this conference call to your networks.

In solidarity, Kamala Emanuel and Pip Hinman, Climate Change - Social
Change conference organisers

http://www.greenleft.org.au/conference.php

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/745/38557

OUR COMMON CAUSE: A rare and remarkable opportunity

Dick Nichols 29 March 2008

Events such as the April 11-13 Climate Change — Social Change conference
occur very rarely in the intellectual and political life of an
Australian city. This gathering in Sydney will bring together an
extraordinary range of speakers to tackle the theme of social action to
stop climate change.

The conference doesn’t fit any of the standard conference moulds.

It’s not just a theoretical Marxist conference, but it brings to
Australia probably the world’s leading student of Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels’s contribution to ecological thought, John Bellamy
Foster, as well as KwaZulu University’s Patrick Bond (see article on
page 2).

It’s not just a conference about the state of climate science, but
participants will hear from the Carbon Equity Project’s David Spratt,
whose recent work Climate Code Red: the case for a sustainability
emergency dramatically summarises the present state of the global
warming crisis. Green Left Weekly’s Renfrey Clarke will add his own
valuable contribution to this analysis.

It’s not just a conference about sustainable agriculture, but Cuban
permaculturalist Roberto Perez will provide a remarkable insight into
his country’s extraordinary achievements in urban agriculture.

It’s not just a conference about the state of renewable energy
development, but Mark Diesendorf of the University of New South Wales
will contribute his enormous knowledge of the potential of alternative
energy technologies. Diesendorf’s book Greenhouse Solutions with
Sustainable Energy is required reading if we want to understand how
polluting, carbon-intensive power generation can actually be uprooted.

It’s not just a conference of environment and climate change activists,
but speakers like Cam Walker, Jim Green and Stephanie Long (Friends of
the Earth), Matthew Wright (Beyond Zero Emissions) and Wenny Theresia
(Sydney Nuclear Free Coalition) will be leading the debate on how to act
against the global warming threat.

Activists Simon Cunich (Resistance), Vanessa Bowden (Climate Camp) and
Mel Barnes (Students Against the Pulp Mill) will show how young
Australia is leading the fight against global warming at a grassroots level.

It’s not just a conference of unionists concerned about how to struggle
for workers’ rights and against global warming at the same time, but
Chris Cain (secretary, Maritime Union of Australia, WA), Tim Gooden
(secretary, Geelong Trades Hall Council) and Steve Phillips (Rising
Tide, Newcastle) will lead discussion on how the working class and
environmental movements can act together to defend jobs and reverse
global warming. Matt Thistlethwaite from Unions NSW will outline the
struggle against the NSW government’s electricity privatisation plans.

It’s not a conference about the Indigenous struggle in Australia, but
Queensland Aboriginal leader Sam Watson and Kairie community elder Pat
Eatock will bring their perspective on global warming.

Finally, it’s not just a conference of political organisations concerned
about global warming, but NSW Greens MP Sylvia Hale, the Adelaide
Ecosocialist Network’s John Rice and the Socialist Alliance will be
looking at the political aspects of the struggle against climate change.

It’s just the sort of conference the movement against global warming
sorely needs: by listening and learning from each other we can
strengthen our mutual understanding of the issues and the movement’s
forms of organisation and collaboration.

Everyone who can make it to this special event will learn a lot and go
away newly inspired for the fight against global warming, possibly the
greatest threat humanity now faces.
Dick Nichols

[Dick Nichols is the national coordinator of the Socialist Alliance.]

Climate crisis: radical action needed now
By Patrick Bond 18 January 2008

In 1997 at Kyoto, Al Gore bamboozled negotiators into adopting carbon
trading as a central climate strategy in exchange for Washington’s
support — which never materialised.

Likewise, December’s Kyoto Conference in Bali allowed the “everyone
versus the US” debate to obscure much more durable problems. Even many
environmentalists and well-meaning citizens think that building on Kyoto
is the correct strategy for post-Bali negotiations.

These include the powerful Climate Action Network (CAN) of NGOs and
corporate-funded environmental groups including the IUCN (the World
Conservation Union), the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Federation and
Environmental Defense.

“Fixing a market problem (pollution) with a market solution” is still a
mantra to some light-greens, including some in the Australian Greens,
notwithstanding a year’s worth of scandalous reports from practitioners
and the press.

A year ago, Citigroup’s Peter Atherton confessed in a PowerPoint
presentation that the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS)
had “done nothing to curb emissions”, and acted as “a highly regressive
tax falling mostly on poor people”.

On whether policy goals were achieved, he admitted: “Prices up,
emissions up, profits up … so, not really. Who wins and loses? All
generation-based utilities — winners. Coal and nuclear-based generators
— biggest winners. Hedge funds and energy traders — even bigger winners.
Losers … ahem … Consumers!”

The Wall Street Journal confirmed last March that emissions trading
“would make money for some very large corporations, but don’t believe
for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming”. The
paper termed the carbon trade “old-fashioned rent-seeking … making money by gaming the regulatory process”.

Speaking to Britain’s Channel Four news last March, the European
commissioner for energy offered this verdict on the ETS: “failure”.

Yvo de Boer, the sanguine head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, warned of “the possibility that the market could
collapse altogether”. In April 2006, the price of carbon in Europe’s
market fell by half overnight due to authorities’ mismanagement of the ETS.

But not just in Europe. According to Newsweek magazine’s investigation
of Third World carbon trading (through the Clean Development Mechanism)
last March, “It isn’t working … [and represents] a grossly inefficient
way of cutting emissions in the developing world”.

The magazine called the trade “a shell game” that has transferred
“[US]$3 billion to some of the worst carbon polluters in the developing
world”.

After an exhaustive series on problems associated with carbon trading
and offsets, the Financial Times concluded they were merely a “carbon
‘smokescreen’”.

In June, the British Guardian headlined its investigation with equal
scorn: “Truth about Kyoto: huge profits, little carbon saved … Abuse and
incompetence in fight against global warming … The inconvenient truth
about the carbon offset industry.”

Meanwhile the Big Green groups’ professionalism and reasonableness — or
simple cronyism (since key personnel from CAN now work in the industry)
— have made them utterly useless as watchdogs on the carbon trade.

So then who do we turn to?
The Bali conference featured an alternative movement-building component
outside the formal proceedings: a Climate Justice Now! coalition made up
of Carbon Trade Watch (the Transnational Institute); the Center for
Environmental Concerns; Focus on the Global South; the Freedom from Debt
Coalition, Philippines; Friends of the Earth International; Women for
Climate Justice; the Global Forest Coalition; the Global Justice Ecology
Project; the International Forum on Globalization; the Kalikasan-Peoples
Network for the Environment; La Via Campesina; the Durban Group for
Climate Justice; Oilwatch; Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment
Coalition; Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (Institute for Policy
Studies); the Indigenous Environmental Network; Third World Network;
Indonesia Civil Society Organisations Forum on Climate Justice; and the
World Rainforest Movement.

The coalition criticised carbon trading and called for genuine
solutions: “reduced consumption; huge financial transfers from North to
South based on historical responsibility and ecological debt for
adaptation and mitigation costs paid for by redirecting military
budgets, innovative taxes and debt cancellation; leaving fossil fuels in
the ground and investing in appropriate energy-efficiency and safe,
clean and community-led renewable energy; rights-based resource
conservation that enforces Indigenous land rights and promotes peoples’
sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water; and sustainable family
farming and peoples’ food sovereignty.”

In October 2004, the Durban Group was founded to tackle the problems in
carbon trade, warning of all the dangers above, especially Vandana
Shiva’s point that the transfer of the right to pollute is a
multi-trillion-dollar giveaway to the people who caused the bulk of the
climate problems.

But establishment figures will continue confusing matters. At the Bali
meeting, a key Third World leader was South African environment minister
Marthinus van Schalkwyk — successor to Frederik Willem de Klerk as
leader of the South African National Party (NP) after serving the
apartheid police as a spy against fellow students (he later folded the
NP into the ruling African National Congress and was rewarded with a
do-little ministry). His strategy for bringing the US into the fold came
at the price of evacuating any emissions target and accountability
mechanism in the official declaration and reinforcing the carbon trade.

Van Schalkwyk’s leadership is a travesty, for he has said nothing about
South Africa’s own $20 billion in new investments — partly privatised
through the US energy multinational AES — in cheap coal-fired
electricity generation for large corporations. And he endorses nuclear
energy expansion.

South Africa already has an emissions output per person per unit of GDP
20 times worse than the US, and van Schalkwyk’s official carbon trading
policy argues that it is primarily a “commercial opportunity”.

This is true only if there is no resistance to this strategy. In Durban,
Sajida Khan fought carbon trading before her death by cancer caused by
an apartheid-era landfill next door — South Africa’s Clean Development
Mechanism pilot for methane-extraction.

In contrast to carbon trading, what is reverberating within grassroots
struggles in many parts of the world is a very different strategy and
demand by civil society activists: leave the oil in the soil, the
resources in the ground.

This call was first made as a climate strategy in 1997 in Kyoto by the
group OilWatch when it was based in Quito, Ecuador. Heroic activists
from Accion Ecologia took on the struggle to halt exploitation of oil in
part of the Yasuni National Park. This led President Rafael Correa to
declare in mid-2007 that the North should pay Ecuador roughly US$5
billion in compensation for its commitment to permanently forego
exploitation of Yasuni (albeit with concern among Indigenous people
about nearby oil extraction, especially by the voracious Brazilian firm
Petrobas).

A year ago at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, many other groups
became aware of this movement thanks to eloquent activists from the
Niger Delta, including the Port Harcourt NGO Environmental Rights
Action. For example, women community activists regularly disrupted
production at oil extraction sites with sit-ins in which, showing
maximum disrespect for the petro multinationals, they removed their
clothing.

In my own neighborhood, which includes two of Africa’s largest oil
refineries, the South Durban Community and Environmental Alliance has
been mobilising against corporate and municipal environmental crime.
This includes actions against three major explosions and fires since
September and a massive fish kill over Christmas from irresponsible
dumping and inadequate state surveillance of big industries in Durban’s
harbor, the busiest in Africa.

But the legacy of resisting fossil fuel abuse goes back much further and
includes Alaskan and Californian environmentalists who halted drilling
and even exploration. In Norway, the global justice group ATTAC took up
the same concerns at a conference last October, and began the hard work
of persuading wealthy Norwegian Oil Fund managers that they should use
the vast proceeds of their North Sea inheritance to repay Ecuadorans
some of the ecological debt owed.

Perhaps the most eloquent climate analyst in the North is George
Monbiot, so it was revealing that last month, instead of going to Bali,
he stayed home in Britain and caused some trouble, reporting back in his
Guardian column:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the answer! Incredible as it might seem, I
have stumbled across the single technology which will save us from
runaway climate change! From the goodness of my heart I offer it to you
for free. No patents, no small print, no hidden clauses. Already this
technology, a radical new kind of carbon capture and storage, is causing
a stir among scientists. It is cheap, it is efficient and it can be
deployed straight away. It is called … leaving fossil fuels in the ground.

“On a filthy day last week, as governments gathered in Bali to
prevaricate about climate change, a group of us tried to put this policy
into effect. We swarmed into the opencast coal mine being dug at
Ffos-y-fran in South Wales and occupied the excavators, shutting down
the works for the day. We were motivated by a fact which the wise heads
in Bali have somehow missed: if fossil fuels are extracted, they will be
used.”

Canada is another Northern site where activists are working to leave the
oil in the soil. In an Edmonton conference last November, the University
of Alberta’s Parkland Institute and its allies argued for no further
development of tar sand deposits (which require intensive sand heating —
hence vast fossil fuel inputs — so oil can be extracted, and which
devastate local water, fisheries and air quality).

Institute director Gordon Laxer laid out careful arguments for
exceptionally strict limits on the use of water and greenhouse gas
emissions in tar sand extraction; realistic land reclamation plans and
financial deposits; no further subsidies for the production of dirty
energy; provisions for energy security for Canadians (since so much of
the tar sand extract is exported to the US); and much higher economic
rents on dirty energy to fund a clean energy industry (currently Alberta
has a very low royalty rate).

There are a great many examples where courageous communities and
environmentalists have lobbied successfully to keep non-renewable
resources (not just fossil fuels) in the ground, for the sake of the
environment, community stability, work force health and safety and
discouraging political corruption.

The highest-stake cases in South Africa at present are against Anglo
American and LonPlats in the vast Limpopo Province platinum fields, and
against Australia’s Mineral Resources Commodities, which is searching
for titanium and other minerals in the Wild Coast dunes.

In these sites, tough communities are resisting the multinational
corporations. But they will need vigorous solidarity, because corporate
extraction of these resources is extremely costly in terms of local land
use, peasant displacement, water extraction, energy consumption, profit
outflows and political corruption.

Still, the awareness that local activists are generating in these
campaigns makes us all more conscious of how damaging bogus strategies
like carbon trading can be, in contrast with a genuine project to change
the world.
www.greenleft.org.au

The next CCS Public lecture for 2008 will be on Monday 14 April with international guest, Professor Patrick Bond, and local expert Geoff Young.

This lecture is free but please register, giving the details requested below. Please disseminate widely through your networks and apologies for cross postings.

Learning and Action about Water Resources Development: The Role of Civil Society
Professor Patrick Bond & Geoff Young

Public lecture
Convened by the UTS Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre*
When: Monday 14 April, 3.00 – 4.30pm
Where:Lecture Theatre, Building 4, Level 2, Room 34, Broadway campus, University of Technology, Sydney, 745 Harris Street, Sydney (a short walk from Central Railway Station) lift access is available from the Thomas Street entrance

Abstract
What role does progressive civil society play in addressing the
challenge of water scarcity, unequal access and pollution in seeking to
bring about more environmental sustainability? How do environmental and
water advocacy groups engage people, and how effective are they in
facilitating change and learning? How do, and should, community and
water advocacy groups work with or against business and government
partners? What research has been, and should be, undertaken about the
scope and nature of social action for water resources development and
environmental sustainability?

Patrick Bond will deliver a lecture of about 20 minutes followed by 20 minutes of discussion. Geoff Young will then deliver a lecture followed by discussion.

About the presenters
Patrick Bond directs the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. His books include Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments. He will be a guest speaker at the Climate Change|Social
Change conference in Sydney, April 11-13

Geoff Young is Manager of the Community Education Unit, Sustainability
Programs Division, Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW

REGISTRATION

Please send registration details to:
ccs@uts.edu.au

Name:

Group or organizational affiliation:

E-mail address:

This public lecture is free but please register!

Forum: Accumulation, Crisis and the World Capitalist Economy'
Date: Monday April 14
Time: 10am-12pm
Venue: Eastern Avenue Seminar Room 116 University of Sydney
Speakers:

John Bellamy Foster, University of Oregon
'The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis'

Patrick Bond, University of KwaZulu-Natal
'The Relevance of Primitive Accumulation in Africa'

Organised as part of the Political Economy Seminar Series

Can the market Drive Climate Change solutions?

The danger of global warming is increasingly apparent and undeniable. In response, governments and corporations are now arguing that the most effective approach to reduce emissions is to use market mechanisms such as taxes on the emission of carbon dioxide or to allow companies to “trade” carbon emissions.

Glaring omissions in the official discussion is a debate as to whether such mechanisms — which have the primary goal of ensuring the continued capacity of corporations to make profits — will be successful in sufficiently reducing emissions to avoid climate catastrophe.

Also of concern is the extent to which ordinary people, particularly in poorer countries, will be expected to pay the price of any reduction in emissions.

The “solutions” being pushed by the corporate world fail to address the urgent need to overcome our fossil-fuel addiction now and build a sustainable world based on renewable energy.

Featuring guest speaker Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond is the Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. He is a regular writer for Znet and Green Left Weekly. His most recent book is Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments (co-edited with Rehana Dada and Graham Erion).

Date: Saturday April 19
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Fremantle Education Centre
Cnr Cantonment and Parry Streets Fremantle.

Tickets $15/$10 Ph 9218 9608 (bookings essential).

Supported by the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, Murdoch
University Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy and Green Left Weekly

CCS at Amandla Colloquium, Cape Town, 4-6 April 2008

Amandla Colloquium: Continuity and Discontinuity of Capitalism in the Post-apartheid South Africa

4-6 April, Cape Town, Ritz Hotel (Sea Point)
Friday afternoon – Sunday afternoon

Overcoming crisis and restoring profitability? Capital's limited options in uneven and combined South Africa
A presentation to the Amandla Colloquium by Patrick Bond

Colloquium Objectives:

Develop an analysis of the changing nature and structure of capitalism in post-apartheid South Africa

Examining how capitalist restructuring has reshaped the working class
both at the point of production and reproduction

Develop perspectives for anti-capitalist strategies

Develop research agenda related to changing nature of South African
capitalism

Popularise Amandla Publishers as a progressive media initiative that
serves to promote anti-capitalist analysis and perspectives

Strengthen collaboration of radical scholars, activists and movements
engaged in developing perspectives and carrying-out programmes
responding and challenging the contemporary South African political economy.

Friday 4 April Day 1: Session 1:
14.00 – 16.00 Restructuring of Globalised Capitalism in the 21st century and the implications for semi-industrial countries
a. The nature of globalised capitalism
b. The crisis of the world economy
Gilbert Achcar, Bill Tabb

16.00 – 16.15 Tea

16.30 – 18.30
c. Labour in an age of insecurity: locating labour in its global and national context
d. Capitalism today from a feminist perspective
Eddie Webster, Nina Benjamin

Saturday 5 April Day 2: Session 2
9.00– 11.00 What type of capitalism in post – apartheid SA
a. From colonialism of special type / racial capitalism to what?
David Masondo (to be confirmed), Andrew Nash

11.00– 13.00 Society and State in post-apartheid SA
b. Defining the Post apartheid society and the state; How do we account for the neoliberal character of the post apartheid economy and policy
Mohau Pheko, Ashwin Desai

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

Session 3 14.00 – 17.30 Continuities and discontinuities of capitalism post-apartheid
a. What shapes and drives capital accumulation in SA –
b. Towards a new accumulation path: Mineral –energy complex and the
nature of post apartheid industrialisation;
c. Overcoming crisis and restoring profitability: strategies of capital
post apartheid
Seeraj Mohamed, Ben Fine, Patrick Bond

Sunday 6 April Day 3: Session 4 9.00 – 11.00
Capital and Labour: Reproduction of cheap labour: from the migrant
labour system to new forms of super – exploitation
a. Creating a two tier labour system informalisation and casualisation
of labour -
b. Feminisation of labour as form of super –exploitation
Simon Kimani

Session 5 11.00 – 12.00
South Africa in the Region: sub-imperialist power or benevolent hegemon
Azwell Banda

Session 6 12.00 – 13.30
Closing session
Challenges facing the left in confronting post apartheid capitalism;
Ashwin Desai, Gilbert Achcar

National Consultation Workshop on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness 2008

Molefi attends the National Consultation Workshop on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness, 2-3 April

Dennis Brutus at Split the Rock poetry festival, 22 March 2008

Dennis Brutus at Split the Rock poetry festival, Washington, 22 March

Averse to War Split This Rock's Army of Poets Marches Into Town and Raises the Anti

By David Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 22, 2008; Page C01

The poets are in town. Dozens -- no, hundreds. Hundreds of poets. Can
you imagine? They are everywhere.

In long, disheveled columns, they are prowling Langston Hughes's old
neighborhood around U Street NW. They are eating catfish at Busboys and
Poets (where else?) and quoting Hughes, Shelley and Whitman back and
forth -- Through me many long dumb voices -- over the hummus and merlot.

They are signing fans' battered paperbacks and shiny new ones bought on
credit (autographs!). They are squinting from the stage into the
cathedral depths of a filled high school auditorium, amazed at the
turnout. They are sharing with preschoolers the miracle of closely
observed turtles and infinity in a drop of water.

Also, to mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, they are getting
ready to march on the White House.

Who isn't, right?

But poets?

The politicians have had their say, and the veterans, the military
families, the kids getting arrested in the streets this week -- now it's
the poets' turn. They decided to have a convention. Two years in the
planning, the four-day Split This Rock Poetry Festival began Thursday
and concludes tomorrow afternoon with the march to Lafayette Square.
There, the poets -- who have come from California, Maine, Massachusetts,
New York and Texas -- will speak a collective poem to President Bush,
with each poet contributing one line of up to 12 words. Nobody has a
clue how it will turn out, and everybody's a little nervous.

It's another round in the ageless pen-vs.-sword rivalry. But frankly,
after five years of war, more than 100,000 lives lost, and the culture
in general continuing its relentless sink into a distracted,
easily-bored, Britney-addled coarseness, one side seems to be winning. A
hard question must be asked of these poets:

Poetry, huh, yeah, what is it good for?

Mart¿n Espada pauses over his catfish. He's not afraid, he'll take the
question. He has published 12 books, won multiple fellowships and
awards, is an English professor and Neruda expert at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst.

People in this society are starved for meaning, he says. In a time of
war, the government divorces language from meaning. . . . They drain the
blood from words. Poets can put the blood back into words.

Or, as he puts it later at Bell Multicultural High School, No change
for the good ever happens without being imagined first. . . . That's
where poets come in.

Yet this poet, so good with words, is careful not to overstate his case.

What I do is an act of faith. I put words out into the atmosphere. They
become part of what we breathe. Hopefully that has some impact. But we
shouldn't try to quantify the impact of a poem like it's a package of
beans.

Remember the words of the veteran of the Spanish Civil War, that noble,
if doomed, cause. You don't fight the good fight just because you think
you're going to win, Espada says. You fight the good fight because
it's the right thing to do, regardless of the outcome, which you can't
predict anyhow. That's how I feel about the work that I do.

At the registration table, the poets fill out cards labeled Write a
Haiku to the President.

About 250 people sign up for the conference, paying as much as $85 for
the four days.

There are two dozen featured poets, and the rest are poets, too, or
students or lovers of poetry. (The schedule for today and tomorrow is at
http://www.splitthisrock.org.)

The festival had its origins in the poets revolt of February 2003, when
Sam Hamill declined an invitation from Laura Bush for a poetry event at
the White House, because of the looming war, and instead launched a
campaign of antiwar poetry writing. Out of that, local poet Sarah
Browning formed D.C. Poets Against the War, which has been holding
smallish readings ever since.

Browning led the planning for Split This Rock, supported by Sol &
Soul, the local grass-roots arts group, and the Institute for Policy
Studies, the progressive think tank.

Poetry is what we have as poets, so we use it, Browning says.

Now E. Ethelbert Miller, sometimes called the dean of D.C. poetry, is
onstage.

Humble, serious, ascetic in black, yet with his customary twinkle not
absent, Miller launches into a piece by Hughes:

Don't you hear this hammer ring?

I'm gonna split this rock

And split it wide!

When I split this rock,

Stand by my side.

The poem's original theme of worker solidarity lends itself to the task
at hand.

Split this rock. What rock? Sonia Sanchez, the fierce, soft-voiced,
veteran Philadelphia-based poet asks rhetorically at Busboys. Any rock
that interferes with progress. Any rock that attempts to kill.

Dennis Brutus, the revered South African poet with flowing gray hair who
spent time in jail with Nelson Mandela, wades through the thronging
restaurant wearing a hooded sweat shirt under his sports coat and greets
Sanchez, who stands out with her red knit cap. Does poetry matter?

Sanchez: Nobody is saying poetry is the only avenue, but it's a mighty
powerful one.

Brutus: I think of someone like Shelley. 'Poets are the unacknowledged
legislators of the world.' . . . These are the people I think will kick
alive the spirit of anger and resistance.

Between readings and pilgrimages to Hughes's and Whitman's haunts, the
poets attend panel discussions such as Writing in a Warrior Culture
and Personal and Political: The Difficult Art of Writing a Manuscript
of Poems That Bear Witness.

In these intense seminars, the poets get down to the nitty-gritty of
craft. Overheard:

For me, the issue is always handling the narrative voice, the 'I.'

I wanted my 'I' to be the lens through which you saw what was going on
but not to have the poems be about me.

The poets know that to matter, they must break out of the usual poetry
circles. They'll grab any chance to read, anywhere: a boxing ring, a
nursing home, a tortilla factory, the mall. Most important of all: schools.

Scores of D.C. schoolchildren submitted work to a contest hosted by
Split This Rock. Amid all the adults grappling with heavy themes, it was
refreshing to hear the simple and profound couplet of an 8-year-old:

My neighborhood is short and small

But we are not far from Hechinger Mall

San Antonio poet Naomi Shihab Nye dreams of poetry conceiving a
different kind of neighborhood: We could at least create in language a
country within a country where we continue to emphasize humanity, and
embrace-of-difference, and willingness to listen to one another. Poets,
as these marginal renegades, have fulfilled a very important place in
our society in these last years, because the status quo didn't feel as
comfortable speaking out as we did.

Nye writes books for children, and saves her tougher political poetry
for adults. She tries to humanize Arabs while confronting the U.S.
reflex for war. From her opening-night reading, a poem called Letters
My President Is Not Sending:

Dear Rafik, Sorry about that soccer game you won't be attending since
you now have no . . .

Dear Fawziya, You know, I have a mom too so I can imagine what you . . .

Dear Shadiya, Think about your father versus democracy, I'll bet you'd
pick . . .

No, no, Sami, that's not true what you said at the rally that our
country hates you, we really support your move toward freedom, that's
why you no longer have a house or a family or a village . . .

Dear Hassan, If only you could see the bigger picture . . .

The next morning, she gives a reading for preschoolers, children still
young enough to be shielded from the images she raises in her Letters.
They sit cross-legged on the floor before her, their upturned faces
fixed on her as she reads to them.

She shows the children her pretty blue zippered pencil case, and her
little plastic pencil sharpener.

That's your power tool, she says. As a writer, that's all you need.

http://misskateunderground.blogspot.com/2008/03/exhausting-weekend-and-very-un-easter.html

Sunday, March 23, 2008

An exhausting weekend, and very un-Easter-like. I was quite surprised by
how little Easter I saw around me—in Australia there’s chocolate
everywhere for months in advance. In Cambridge a few years ago, Good
Friday was quiet as quiet can be, and the colleges were holding services
all around the place. Then catching a ferry from Livorno to Corsica on
Easter Sunday, I arrived in a shut-down Bastia. (Where I had a very
strange adventure—that could have turned dangerous, but didn’t—which is
a story for another time.) And here—everything is open. I saw one shop
shut today for Easter Sunday, though it was open for Good Friday. I’m
used to Good Friday being the much more solemn day. I was getting
something to eat, and was surprised when my waitress asked if I would
like to add beef to my order. For me it’s only a cultural idea, but I’m
so used to eating only fish on Good Friday. After midnight last night I
celebrated with a few bites of dark chocolate… but my Easter has not
been Easterly. And it will be over far too soon—still so many things I’d
like to read, not to mention things to do. Time flies…

Split this Rock is over now—though there’s lots of a talk about how the
movement can continue. Yesterday I managed to get myself to a few
events, and then I attended a reading this morning.

In the afternoon I attended a talk about archives and vaults, with three
people involved in radio and digital archives discussing their work, and
things that have been sitting on tape for decades that are now being
digitised. While I’m increasingly interested in listening to things, I
have to admit my greatest interest is still the written word:
interviews, notebooks, correspondence, ephemera... and these are works
that I find more interesting in getting to know a little about the
author than being especially illuminating. Perhaps I’m just a
flibbertigibbet. I’ll listen, and then my attention drifts—even with my
newfound nightly podcast lineup that puts me to sleep—mostly radio
national, sprinkled with New Yorker programs. Nonetheless, I’m
fascinated by what sounds like a huge number of programs that will be
available early next week through the Pacifica Program Archives—they’re
making available programs from 1968, which will cover a fascinating
historical moment. I’ll need to find even more listening time in the day.

As well as this panel, the last twenty-four hours have seen me at 3
different poetry readings.

First up was the 5pm reading with Coleman Barks, Pamela Uschuk and Belle
Waring. Lucille Clifton had been scheduled to read as well, but due to
illness was unable to make it—each of the poets read a poem of hers, so
in a way she was still present.

I wasn’t entirely taken with this reading. Coleman Barks is largely
known for his translations of Rumi—which are wonderful. But he was
reading his own work, which didn’t really stack up to his translation
work, to my mind. In fact, the most charming moment in his reading came
when he read a poem written by his (quite young) grandson. In a way, I
would have liked to hear more of his grandson’s work, or more Rumi.
Still, it must be tough to be a well-known translator who is also a poet
(rather than the other way)—you’re best known for someone else’s voice.

Pamela Uschuk’s reading didn’t really penetrate the surface for me—this
is at least partly because I find it very difficult to listen to what
seems to be a prevalent style of reading poetry aloud, especially by
female poets, that is really quite mannered. I can’t at this stage
comment on what her work is like on the page, because universally
well-read as I’d like to be, I’m still just a grad student, and I have
Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley to finish, as well as more highlighting of
Paradise Lost left to do in the next few days…

Belle Waring, though, was wonderful: Waring has worked as a nurse, and
this experience is apparent both in her knowledge and presentations of
the body in her work, and also the steady gaze she brings to her
subjects. She read the poems simply, and came across as very modest—but
the work spoke for itself. I want to read more. (Time, as ever, the key
factor here…)

This was followed by an all-star lineup last night (well, all-star to
me) of Kenneth Carroll, Alicia Ostriker, Mark Doty, Dennis Brutus and
Carolyn Forché. It was, I guess, really the last three that I came to
hear—and I wasn’t disappointed. Kenneth Caroll’s work was by turns fun
and serious (and often both at once). A piece in rhyming couplets about
“Schnooky” and his relationship to the army and the war in Iraq was a
real crowd-pleaser. Alicia Ostriker, unfortunately, didn’t do a lot for
me—again, this could be as a reader of her work. Because I was really
experiencing her work cold, it relied on her, and—well—it didn’t “do it”
for me.

Mark Doty—what is there to say? The man is beautiful, the poetry is
beautiful, and, apparently, his taste in art is beautiful too, because
he read a poem about my favourite painter Joan Mitchell. In opening his
reading he quoted from Taha Muhammed Ali:

And so
it has taken me
all of sixty years
to understand
that water is the finest drink,
and bread the most delicious food,
and that art is worthless
unless it plants
a measure of splendor in people's hearts.

The measure of splendour is front and centre in his poetry. I am
enamored. He reads beautifully too—his poem on Joan Mitchell, though new
to me, was drinkable. I drank.

Dennis Brutus didn’t really read—well, there was a short poem at the end
of his time on stage. Instead, he stood and talked for about half an
hours. Reflecting on the festival title, he recalled his time in prison
on Robbin Island (the same prison in which Nelson Mandela was held) when
he was kept in the maximum security area of the maximum security prison.
He was give stones and a hammer, and each day he had to split these
rocks—at the end of this effort to reduce them to gravel each day, they
were scattered around the cell: illustrating the futility of the hard
work he had to do. Nonetheless, this wasn’t the hardest job. Because he
had once been shot in the back (a through-wound, the bullet came out his
chest) he was spared the harder job that Mandela moved on to: splitting
not just regular stone, but limestone. Just hearing him talk (and,
really, after his life he is entitled to speak in absolutes) was a
privilege.

And—Carolyn Forché. What can I say? I’m under her spell. It looks like
I’ll get to spend a lot more time talking to her soon. She read what is
probably my favourite poem of hers—“Prayer,” which I read in New York in
2003, sitting in a Barnes and Nobel (I couldn’t afford to buy the book,
so I copied the poem into the notebook I was carrying with me). She also
read a beautiful list poem, “The Museum of Stones”—I should tell her
that I too have a miniature stone museum: a small black stone from the
first time I swam in the Mediterranean, a pair of stones from Skågan in
Denmark, from the day I walked off the northern end of Jutland, another
pair my parents brought back from Gallipoli for me, a stone from the
ground at Hanging Rock to hold in my palm when I need to feel Australia.

Then today Naomi Ayala and Galway Kinnell. A wonderful reading. This was
being followed by a silent march to the White House—but for some reason
I didn’t feel like joining the march. Perhaps it was the cento poem they
were creating, with everyone contributing a line of no more than 12
words. I’m already exhausted from listening to all these voices—I don’t
think I could take the buzz of many, many more today. After so many
words, I need silence too.

John Pilger Film Festival, 3-24 March 2008

The UKZN Centres for Creative Arts and for Civil Society, the BAT Centre and KwaSuka Cinema present the

JOHN PILGER FILM FESTIVAL

Diego Garcia, Burma, Afghanistan, Australia, Nicaragua, East Timor, Cambodia, Palestine, Iraq, Arms trade

JOHN PILGER FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAMME

Monday March 3
Stealing a Nation (2004) Shepstone 3, UKZN 12:30-2pm; and KwaSuka, 5-7pm

Children at a Chagos Island demonstration. © ITV plc

Stealing a Nation is about the expulsion of Chagos Islanders from Diego Garcia. They were forcibly removed by the British government between 1967 and 1973 to Mauritius, 1,000 miles away, so that the island could be used as an American airbase. It was the recipient of the Royal Television Society's Best British Documentary award in 2004.

Wednesday March 5
Inside Burma - Land of Fear (1996) MTB 167, UKZN 12:30-2pm; and KwaSuka, 5-7pm

Inside Burma- Land of fear uncovers the untold brutalities taking place by the ruling military regime in Burma, where thousands of people have been killed, subjected to slavery, tortured and over a million people have been forced to leave their homes.

Friday March 7
Breaking the Silence: Truth & Lies in the War on Terror (2003) Howard
College Theatre, UKZN 12:30-2pm; and BAT Centre, 5-7pm

Breaking the Silence- Truth and Lies in the War on Terror investigates through interviews the divergences between American and British claims for their War on Terror in liberated Afghanistan. President George W Bush talks of the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq as 'great victories'; Pilger asks over whom and for what particular reason.

Monday March 10
Welcome to Australia (1999) Shepstone 3, UKZN 12:30-2pm; and KwaSuka, 5-7pm
Welcome to Australia With the run-up to the Sydney Olympics, John Pilger and Alan Lowery take a look at what's behind the curtain of hype and glamour. Australia's Aborigines are still exculded, impoverished and mistreated - while their part in the brilliant history of Australia's sports successes goes virtually unrecognized. Won the Gold Medal in the 'National/International Affairs category' of the 1999 New York Festivals TV Programming & Promotion competition, 2000; Gold Award in the Television Documentary & Information Programmes: 'Political/International Issues category' of WorldFest-Flagstaff, 1999

Wednesday March 12
Nicaragua - A Nation's Right to Survive (1983) MTB 167, UKZN 12:30-2pm and KwaSuka, 5-7pm

A Nation’s Right to Survive about the small nation of Nicaragua and its right to survive investigates the corruption in Central America. In 1979, the Sandinistas won a popular revolution in Nicaragua, putting an end to decades of the corrupt US-backed Somoza dictatorship. They based their reformist ideology on that of the English Co-operative Movement, but proved too 'radical' for the Reagan administration. In this film, Pilger describes the achievements of the Sandinistas and their threat of a good example.

Friday March 14
Death of a Nation - The Timor Conspiracy (1994) MTB 167, UKZN 12:30-2pm;
and BAT Centre, 5-7pm
Death of a Nation - The Timor Conspiracy The exposure of another terrible human tragedy to which governments turned a blind eye, East Timor - a tiny country off the northern tip of Australia - is ruled by bloodshed and fear. More than 200,000 people were wiped out by neighbouring Indonesia. Since East Timor's liberation in 1999, this film's contribution has been recognised worldwide. Won the Gold Award in the 'Political/International Issues category' (Film & Video Production division) at Worldfest-Houston, 1994; Certificate for Creative Excellence (third place) in the category of 'Documentary, Current Events, Special Events', at the U.S. Film & Video Festival in Chicago, 1994; Silver Plaque for 'Social/Political Documentary (National) category' at the Chicago International Film Festival, 1994; Audience Award for Best Documentary at the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam, 1994; Certificate of Merit in the category of 'Documentary - Disputed Lands', Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco, 1995

Monday March 17
Year Zero - The Silent Death of Cambodia (1979) Shepstone 3, UKZN
12:30-2pm; and KwaSuka, 5-7pm
Year Zero- The Silent Death of Cambodia John Pilger vividly reveals the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot / Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which bought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia while neighboring countries, including Australia, shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied this once beautiful country.

Tuesday March 18
Nicaragua - A Nation's Right to Survive (1983), Howard College Theatre 10h15 - 11h50
A Nation’s Right to Survive: about the small nation of Nicaragua and its right to survive investigates the corruption in Central America. In 1979, the Sandinistas won a popular revolution in Nicaragua, putting an end to decades of the corrupt US-backed Somoza dictatorship. They based their reformist ideology on that of the English Co-operative Movement, but proved too 'radical' for the Reagan administration. In this film, Pilger describes the achievements of the Sandinistas and their threat of a good example.

Tuesday March 18
Inside Burma - Land of Fear (1996), Howard College Theatre 12h30 -13h50
Inside Burma - Land of Fear (1996): The story uncovers the untold brutalities taking place by the ruling military regime in Burma, where thousands of people have been killed, subjected to slavery, tortured and over a million people have been forced to leave their homes.

Wednesday March 19
Palestine Is Still the Issue (2002) MTB 167, UKZN 12:30-2pm; and
KwaSuka, 5-7pm
Palestine Is Still the Issue John Pilger returns to the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza where, in 1974, he filmed a documentary with the same title about the same issues, a nation of people - the Palestinians - forced off their land and later subjected to a military occupation by Israel. This was an occupation condemned by the United Nations and almost every country in the world, including Britain. But Israel is backed by a very powerful friend, the United States. Pilger finds that 25 years later the basic problems remain unchanged: a desperate, destitute people whose homeland is illegally occupied by the world's fourth biggest military power. What has changed is that the Palestinians have fought back. Stateless and humiliated for so long, they've risen up against Israel's huge military machine, although they themselves have no arms, no tanks, no American planes and gun ships or missiles.

Friday March 21
Paying the Price - Killing the Children of Iraq (2000) BAT Centre, 5-7pm
Paying the Price- Killing the Children of Iraq John Pilger and Alan Lowery travel to Iraq with Denis Halliday, a former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations who resigned over what he called the immoral policy of economic sanctions. There they find a suffering nation held hostage to the compliance of a dictator, Saddam Hussein, over whom they have no control.

Monday March 24
Flying the Flag - Arming the World (1995) KwaSuka, 5-7pm
Flying the Flag- Arming the World looks behind the political rhetoric and discover the world of international arms dealing. Won a Bronze Apple in all the category of 'Domestic and International Concerns', National Educational Film & Video Festival, Oakland, California, 1995; Certificate of Honourable Mention in the 'International Relations' category, The Chris Awards (Columbus International Film Festival), Worthington, Ohio, 1995.

JOHN PILGER BIOGRAPHY

John Pilger
John Pilger was trained as a newspaper journalist at Australian
Consolidated Press in Sydney. It was one of the strictest language
courses I know, he says. Devised by a celebrated, highly literate
editor, Brian Penton, the aim was economy of language and accuracy. It
certainly taught me to admire writing that was spare, precise and free
of cliches, and to use adjectives only when absolutely necessary. I have
long since slipped Brian Penton's leash, but those early disciplines
helped shape my journalism and writing style.

Pilger became a reporter and feature writer on the Sydney Sunday
Telegraph. Within a couple of years, like many of his Australian
generation, he and two colleagues left for Europe. They set up an
ill-fated freelance 'agency' in Italy (with the grand title of
'Interep') and quickly went broke. Arriving in London, Pilger freelanced
for magazines, then joined Reuters, moving to the Daily Mirror,
Britain's biggest selling newspaper, which was then changing to a
serious tabloid.

He became a feature writer, then special correspondent and chief
international correspondent. He reported from all over the world and
covered numerous wars, notably Vietnam. Still in his twenties, he became
the youngest journalist to receive Britain's highest award for
journalism, that of Journalist of the Year. (He became the first to win
it twice). Moving to the United States, he reported the upheavals there
in the late 1960s and 1970s. He marched with America's poor from Alabama
to Washington, following the assassination of Martin Luther King. He was
in the same room when Robert Kennedy, the presidential candidate, was
assassinated in June 1968.

His work in South East Asia produced a memorable issue of the Daily
Mirror, devoted almost entirely to his world exclusive dispatches from
Cambodia in the aftermath of Pol Pot's reign. The combined impact of his
Mirror reports and his subsequent documentary, 'Cambodia Year Zero', was
more than $40 million raised for the people of that stricken country.
Similarly, his report from East Timor, where he travelled under cover in
1993, helped galvanise support for the East Timorese, then brutally
occupied by Indonesia. His reputation as a 'campaigning' journalist
grew; his four-year campaign for a group of children damaged at birth by
the drug Thalidomide and left out of the settlement with the drugs
company, resulted in a special settlement.

In 1970, he began a parallel career in British television, starting with
the ITV current affairs series, 'World in Action'. His first film, 'The
Quiet Mutiny', is credited with disclosing to a worldwide audience the
internal disintegration of the US army in Vietnam. Thirty-six years and
some 60 documentaries later, he is still making challenging films for
ITV. His films have won Academy Awards in Britain and the United States.

He has been a freelance writer since he and the Mirror parted company in
1986. His articles have appeared worldwide in newspapers such as the
Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,
The South China Morning Post, the Mail & Guardian (South Africa), the
Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Australia), Aftonbladet (Sweden),
Morgenbladet (Norway) and Il Manifesto (Italy). He returned to write for
the Mirror for eighteen months during the build-up to the invasion of
Iraq. Since 1991, he has written a fortnightly column for the New
Statesman. In 2003, he was awarded the prestigous Sophie Prize for '30
years of exposing injustice and promoting human rights.'

Education
Sydney High School
Four-year journalism cadetship scheme, Australian Consolidated Press

Career Summary
1958-62: Reporter, freelance writer, sports writer and sub-editor, Daily
& Sunday Telegraph, Sydney
1962: Freelance correspondent, Italy
1962-63: Middle East desk, Reuter, London
1963-86: Reporter, sub-editor, feature writer and Chief Foreign
Correspondent, Daily Mirror
1986-88: Editor-in-Chief and a founder, News on Sunday, London
1969-71: Reporter, World in Action, Granada Television
1974-81: Reporter/Producer, Associated Television
1981: Documentary film-maker, Central and Carlton Television
Accredited war correspondent Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, India,
Bangladesh, Biafra, Middle East Contributor
BBC Television Australia, BBC Radio, BBC World Service, London
Broadcasting, ABC Television, ABC Radio Australia Publications
Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, The New York
Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation: New York, The Age: Melbourne,
The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin: Sydney, plus French, Italian,
Scandinavian, Canadian, Japanese and other newspapers and periodicals.

Books
The Last Day (1975)
Aftermath: The Struggles of Cambodia and Vietnam (1981)
The Outsiders (1984)
Heroes (1986)
A Secret Country (1989)
Distant Voices (1992 and 1994)
Hidden Agendas (1998)
Reporting the World: John Pilger's Great Eyewitness Photographers (2001)
The New Rulers of the World (2002) Video
Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs (ed.) Cape
(2004)
Blowin' in the wind (2004)
Freedom Next Time (2006)

Documentary Films
The Quiet Mutiny 1971
Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia 1979
Nicaragua. A Nations Right to Survive
Japan Behind the Mask 1987
Cambodia The Betrayal 1990
Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy 1994
Vietnam: the Last Battle 1995
Inside Burma: Land of Fear 1996
Apartheid Did Not Die 1998
Welcome To Australia 1999
Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq 2000
The New Rulers of the World 2001-2002
Palestine Is Still the Issue 2002 Video
Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror 2003
Stealing a Nation 2004
The War on Democracy 2007
Play
The Last Day (1983)

Honours
D. Litt, Staffordshire University
D. Phil, Dublin City University
D. Arts, Oxford Brookes University
D. Laws, St.Andrew's University
D. Phil, Kingston University
D. Univ, The Open University
1995 Edward Wilson Fellow, Deakin University, Melbourne
Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor, Cornell University, USA
Awards include
1966: Descriptive Writer of the Year
1967: Reporter of the Year
1967: Journalist of the Year
1970: International Reporter of the Year
1974: News Reporter of the Year
1977: Campaigning Journalist of the Year
1979: Journalist of the Year
1979-80: UN Media Peace Prize, Australia
1980-81: UN Media Peace Prize, Gold Medal, Australia
1979: TV Times Readers' Award
1990: Reporters San Frontiers Award, France
1990: The George Foster Peabody Award, USA
1991: American Television Academy Award ('Emmy')
1991: British Academy of Film and Television Arts - The Richard Dimbleby
Award
1995: International de Television Geneve Award
2001: The Monismanien Prize (Sweden)
2003: The Sophie Prize for Human Rights (Norway)
2003: EMMA Media Personality of the Year
2004: Royal Television Society Best Documentary, 'Stealing a Nation'

www.johnpilger.com

Visit www.cca.ukzn.ac.za for biographies and photos of participants or contact the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts for
more information on 031 260 2506 or e-mail cca@ukzn.ac.za

Organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal),
the 11th Time of the Writer festival is funded principally by the
Department of Arts and Culture, Humanist Institute for Development
Cooperation (HIVOS), Stichting Doen, French Institute of South Africa,
the Royal Netherlands Embassy, and City of Durban.

For Media Queries Contact Sharlene Versfeld
T: 031 201 1650 : F: 031 201 1654
E: sharlene@versfeld.co.za

Patrick Bond on N.American tour for Durban Group for Climate Justice, 22 February - 16 March 2008

Georgetown University Center for Democracy and Civil Society,
Event: Patrick Bond: Kyoto's Civil Society Critics
Date: Friday, February 22, 2008 Time: 10:00am to 12:00pm
Venue: Mortara Building 101, Mortara Center, 3600 N Street NW, Washington, DC

Details: Patrick Bond is a political economist, expert on eco-social
policy and director of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Bond has an extensive background in
academia and NGO work, both overseas and in the United States.

Join him for 'Kyoto's Civil Society Critics: The Debate over Market Solutuons to Climate Change' on Friday, February 22 from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm at the Mortara Center, 3600 N Street NW, Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown.
RSVP to cdacs@georgetown.edu

Greenpeace Academy, Washington DC, 22 Febuary, 2:30-4:30

State Univ of New York (Geneseo)
7 pm in the MacVittie College Union Ballroom, 27 February

University of Ottawa, Ottawa
Topic: Global Governance and Climate Change: What Scale, What Solutions?
Speaker: Patrick Bond: Professor at the School of Development Studies
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Date: Monday, March 3, 2008
Time: 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Venue: Desmarais Building, room 3120
55 Laurier Avenue East

Patrick Bond, a political economist, is research professor at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies where he
directs the Centre for Civil Society. His training was in economic
geography at Johns Hopkins, finance at the University of Pennsylvania
and economics at Swarthmore College. Patrick’s recent authored and
edited books include Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society
(UKZN Press and Rozenberg Publishers, 2008); Looting Africa: The
Economics of Exploitation (Zed Books and UKZN Press, 2006), Elite
Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (UKZN Press,
2005); Fanon’s Warning: A Civil Society Reader on the New Partnership
for Africa’s Development (Africa World Press, 2005); and Against Global
Apartheid: South Africa meets the World Bank, IMF and International
Finance (Zed Books and University of Cape Town Press, 2003). He was born
in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1961.

This lecture is presented by:

The International Development and Globalization program

The African Studies Research Laboratory

The Institute of Population Health present

The Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

For further information on this upcoming session, please contact
api@uOttawa.ca

Queens University, Hamilton, 3 March

University of Toronto, 4 March

Duke University Marxism and Society Seminar, 5 March

University of North Carolina, 6 - 7 March

Lecture: Climate, Energy and Water Crisis: South Africa and the World
Venue:Global Education Center, Room 1005
Date: 6 March
Time:6:30-9 p.m.

On March 6, in conjunction with African Studies Center, the UNC faculty
working group on Gender and Globalization will be sponsoring Climate,
Energy and Water Crisis: South Africa and the World.

This event is sponsored by the Odum Institute and the African Studies Center.

Professor Patrick Bond is a political economist and research professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies where he directs the Centre for Civil Society. His training was in economic geography at Johns Hopkins, finance at the University of Pennsylvania and economics at Swarthmore College.

Patrick's recent authored and edited books, including Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society (2008), The Accumulation of Capital in Southern Africa (2007), and Looting Africa: The Economics of Explotiation.

Also, on March 7 members of the working group will be holding a half-day
workshop on the themes of our conference in the fall. In addition to
being a resource person for this workshop, Professor Bond will present
his work on the gender implications of globalization, water
privatization, and the environment justice movement in Southern Africa
at the workshop. For more information, contact Eunice Sahle at
eunice@email.unc.edu.

Michigan State University, 12-13 March
SA in Global Context: A Special MSU Three Lecture Series
By Patrick Bond

Africa as Victim of Climate Change and Carbon Trading
Date: Wednesday, March 12
Time: 3-5 pm
Venue: 303 International Center
This builds on Prof. Bond's new book Climate Change, Carbon
Trading and Civil Society (2008)The lecture will be followed by refreshments.

Is Africa still being looted?
Date: Thursday, March 13
Time: 12-1 pm
Venue:Noon African Studies Center Brownbag Lecture -201 International
Center
This lecture builds on Prof. Bond's book, Looting Africa: The
Economics of Exploitation (2006)

Understanding the Political Economy of the New South Africa
Date:Thursday, March 13
Time:3:00-4:40 pm
Venue: Holden Hall, GR 008 Lecture Room.(Holden Hall is next to Cherry Lane Apartments on Trowbridge Rd extension.)
This lecture for ISS 330a Africa: Social Science Perspectives is
open to the public.

Sponsored by the African Studies Center at MSU.

Left Forum, NYC, 14-16 March

From False to Real Solutions for Climate Change
By Patrick Bond

Amidst her welcome critique of the biofuel mania, Vandana Shiva's ZNet
commentary last month (December 13, 2007) also made this point: The
Kyoto Protocol totally avoided the material challenge of stopping
activities that lead to higher emissions and the political challenge of
regulation of the polluters and making the polluters pay in accordance
with principles adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio. Instead, Kyoto put
in place the mechanism of emissions trading which in effect rewarded the
polluters by assigning them rights to the atmosphere and trading in
these rights to pollute.

Indeed in 1997 at Kyoto, Al Gore bamboozled negotiators into adopting
carbon trading as a central climate strategy in exchange for
Washington's support -- which never materialized.

Likewise last month's Kyoto Conference of Parties in Bali allowed the
everyone v. the USA debate to obscure much more durable problems.
Even many environmentalists and well-meaning citizens think that
building on Kyoto is the correct strategy for post-Bali negotiations.

These include the Climate Action Network of NGOs and corporate-funded
environmental groups including the IUCN, Sierra Club, the World Wildlife
Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Senators Sanders, Kerry,
Lieberman, McCain, Leahy, Feinstein, Bingaman, Snow, Specter, Alexander,
and Carper proposed laws in 2007 featuring emissions trading.

Fixing a market problem (pollution) with a market solution is still a
mantra to some light-greens, notwithstanding a year's worth of
scandalous reports from practitioners and the press.

A year ago, Citigroup's Peter Atherton confessed in a PowerPoint that
the European Union's Emissions Trading System (ETS) had done nothing to
curb emissions and acted as a highly regressive tax falling mostly on
poor people. On whether policy goals were achieved, he admitted:
Prices up, emissions up, profits up . . . so, not really. Who wins and
loses? All generation-based utilities -- winners. Coal and
nuclear-based generators -- biggest winners. Hedge funds and energy
traders -- even bigger winners. Losers . . . ahem . . . Consumers!

The Wall Street Journal confirmed last March that emissions trading
would make money for some very large corporations, but don't believe
for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming. The
paper termed the carbon trade old-fashioned rent-seeking . . . making
money by gaming the regulatory process.

Speaking to Channel Four news last March, the European Commissioner for
Energy offered this verdict on the ETS: A failure. Yvo de Boer, the
sanguine head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
warned of the possibility that the market could collapse altogether.
In April 2006, the price of carbon in Europe's market fell by half
overnight due to authorities' mismanagement of the ETS.

But not just in Europe. According to Newsweek magazine's investigation
of Third World carbon trading (through the Clean Development Mechanism)
last March, It isn't working . . . [and represents] a grossly
inefficient way of cutting emissions in the developing world. The
magazine called the trade a shell game which has transferred $3
billion to some of the worst carbon polluters in the developing world.

After an exhaustive series on problems associated with carbon trading
and offsets, the Financial Times concluded they were merely a carbon
'smokescreen.'

In June, the Guardian newspaper headlined its investigation with equal
scorn: Truth about Kyoto: huge profits, little carbon saved. . . .
Abuse and incompetence in fight against global warming. . . . The
inconvenient truth about the carbon offset industry.

Meanwhile the Big Green groups' professionalism and reasonableness -- or
simple cronyism (since key personnel from CAN now work in the industry)
-- have made them utterly useless as watchdogs on the carbon trade.

So then who do we turn to?
The Bali conference featured an alternative movement-building component
outside: a Climate Justice Now! made up of Carbon Trade Watch (the
Transnational Institute); the Center for Environmental Concerns; Focus
on the Global South; the Freedom from Debt Coalition, Philippines;
Friends of the Earth International; Women for Climate Justice; the
Global Forest Coalition; the Global Justice Ecology Project; the
International Forum on Globalization; the Kalikasan-Peoples Network for
the Environment; La Vía Campesina; the Durban Group for Climate Justice;
Oilwatch; Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition; Sustainable
Energy and Economy Network (Institute for Policy Studies); the
Indigenous Environmental Network; Third World Network; Indonesia Civil
Society Organizations Forum on Climate Justice; and the World Rainforest
Movement.

The coalition criticized carbon trading and called for genuine
solutions: reduced consumption; huge financial transfers from North to
South based on historical responsibility and ecological debt for
adaptation and mitigation costs paid for by redirecting military
budgets, innovative taxes and debt cancellation; leaving fossil fuels in
the ground and investing in appropriate energy-efficiency and safe,
clean and community-led renewable energy; rights-based resource
conservation that enforces Indigenous land rights and promotes peoples'
sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water; and sustainable family
farming and peoples' food sovereignty.

In October 2004, the Durban Group was founded to tackle the problems in
the carbon trade, warning of all the dangers above, especially Shiva's
point that the transfer of the right to pollute is a multitrillion
dollar giveaway to the people who caused the bulk of the climate problems.

But establishment figures will continue confusing matters. At the Bali
meeting, a key Third World leader was South African environment minister
Marthinus van Schalkwyk -- successor to FW de Klerk as leader of the
National Party after serving the apartheid police as a spy against
fellow students (he later folded the NP into the ruling African National
Congress and was rewarded with a do-little ministry). His strategy for
bringing the US into the fold came at the price of evacuating any
emissions target and accountability mechanism in the official
declaration and reinforcing the carbon trade.

Van Schalkwyk's leadership is a travesty, for he has said nothing about
South Africa's own $20 billion in new investments -- partly privatized
through the US multinational AES -- in cheap coal-fired electricity
generation for the sake mainly of large corporations; he endorses
nuclear energy expansion. SA already has an emissions output per person
per unit of GDP twenty times worse than the US, and van Schalkwyk's
official carbon trading policy argues that it is primarily a commercial
opportunity.

This is true only if there is no resistance; in Durban, Sajida Khan
fought carbon trading before her death by cancer caused by an
apartheid-era landfill next door -- SA's Clean Development Mechanism
pilot for methane-extraction.

In contrast to carbon trading, what is reverberating within grassroots,
coalface, and fenceline struggles in many parts of the world is a very
different strategy and demand by civil society activists: leave the oil
in the soil, the resources in the ground.

This call was first made as a climate strategy in 1997 in Kyoto by the
group OilWatch when it was based in Quito, Ecuador. Heroic activists
from Accion Ecologia took on the struggle to halt exploitation of oil in
part of the Yasuni National Park. This led President Rafael Correa to
declare in mid-2007 that the North should pay Ecuador roughly $5 billion
in compensation for its commitment to permanently forego exploitation of
Yasuni (albeit with concern amongst indigenous people about nearby oil
extraction especially by the voracious Brazilian firm Petrobas).

A year ago at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, many other groups
became aware of this movement thanks to eloquent activists from the
Niger Delta, including the Port Harcourt NGO Environmental Rights
Action. For example, women community activists regularly disrupted
production at oil extraction sites with sit-ins in which, showing
maximum disrespect for the petro multinationals, they removed their
clothing.

In my own neighborhood, which includes two of Africa's largest oil
refineries, the South Durban Community and Environmental Alliance has
been mobilizing against corporate and municipal environmental crime,
including three major explosions and fires since September and a massive
fish kill at Christmas from toxic dumping in Durban's harbor, the
busiest in Africa.

But the legacy of resisting fossil fuel abuse goes back much further and
includes Alaskan and Californian environmentalists who halted drilling
and even exploration. In Norway, the global justice group ATTAC took up
the same concerns at a conference last October, and began the hard work
of persuading wealthy Norwegian Oil Fund managers that they should use
the vast proceeds of their North Sea inheritance to repay Ecuadorans
some of the ecological debt owed.

Perhaps the most eloquent climate analyst in the North is George
Monbiot, so it was revealing that last month, instead of going to Bali,
he stayed home in Britain and caused some trouble, reporting back in his
Guardian column:

Ladies and gentlemen, I have the answer! Incredible as it might
seem, I have stumbled across the single technology which will save us
from runaway climate change! From the goodness of my heart I offer it
to you for free. No patents, no small print, no hidden clauses.
Already this technology, a radical new kind of carbon capture and
storage, is causing a stir among scientists. It is cheap, it is
efficient and it can be deployed straight away. It is called . . .
leaving fossil fuels in the ground.

On a filthy day last week, as governments gathered in Bali to
prevaricate about climate change, a group of us tried to put this policy
into effect. We swarmed into the opencast coal mine being dug at
Ffos-y-fran in South Wales and occupied the excavators, shutting down
the works for the day. We were motivated by a fact which the wise heads
in Bali have somehow missed: if fossil fuels are extracted, they will be
used.

Canada is another Northern site where activists are working to leave the
oil in the soil. In an Edmonton conference last November, the
University of Alberta's Parkland Institute and its allies argued for no
further development of tar sand deposits (which require a liter of oil
to be burned for every three to be extracted and which devastate local
water, fisheries and air quality).

Institute director Gordon Laxer laid out careful arguments for
exceptionally strict limits on the use of water and greenhouse gas
emissions in tar sand extraction; realistic land reclamation plans and
financial deposits; no further subsidies for the production of dirty
energy; provisions for energy security for Canadians (since so much of
the tar sand extract is exported to the US); and much higher economic
rents on dirty energy to fund a clean energy industry (currently Alberta
has a very low royalty rate).

I have mentioned this demand in many sites over the past two years,
enthusiastically commenting on the moral, political, economic, and
ecological merits of leaving the oil in the soil. Unfortunately, in
addition to confessing profound humility about the excessive fossil fuel
burned by airplanes which have taken me on this quest, I must report on
the only site where the message dropped like a lead balloon: with dear
comrades in petro-socialist Venezuela.

Never mind, there are a great many examples where courageous communities and environmentalists have lobbied successfully to keep nonrenewable resources (not just fossil fuels) in the ground, for the sake of the environment, community stability, disincentivizing political corruption,
and workforce health and safety.

The highest-stake cases here in South Africa at present are the vast
Limpopo Province platinum fields and the titanium and other minerals in
the Wild Coast dunes (where, ironically, the film Blood Diamond was
shot). Tough communities are resisting multinational corporations, but
will need vigorous solidarity, because the extraction of these resources
is extremely costly in terms of local land use, peasant displacement,
water extraction, energy consumption, and political corruption, and
requires constant surveillance and community solidarity.

Still, the awareness that local activists are generating in these
campaigns makes us all more conscious of how damaging bogus strategies
like carbon trading can be, in contrast with a genuine project to change
the world.

Siphiwe Nojiyeza, Baruti Amisi and Dudu Khumalo present to SA Water Caucus sanitation workshop, 15-17 February 2008

The Challenges of eradicating Bucket Sanitation in SA
By Simphiwe Nojiyeza and Baruti Amisi

Sanitation and rural communities of Mzinyathi and Ngcolosi
By Dudu Khumalo

Patrick Bond on climate change at Oxfam, Pretoria, 1 February 2008

Climate Change and the Carbon Trading Controversy in Mitigation and Adaptation

By Patrick Bond
Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal
School of Development Studies and
Director, Centre for Civil Society, Durban
Presented to the Oxfam Climate Change meeting Pretoria, 1 February 2008

Patrick Bond at Gender and Trade in Africa seminar, Joburg, 29 January 2008

Slide Show from Seminar

CCS, SMI, Diakonia, TAC & other Durban activists to celebrate the WSF, Durban, 26 January 2008

WSF FESTIVAL FOR SOCIAL CHANGE IN DURBAN
The State of the People / ASINAMALI to be skypecast, including workshops (Press conference led by Dennis Brutus on 22 January)

Date: January 26
Time: 10am-4pm
Venue: Diakonia Centre, 20 Diakonia Ave [formerly St. Andrews Street], Central Durban
(lunch provided, but please RSVP for a free meal ticket, by calling 031 260 3195)
Followed by a protest march

FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/2844

On Saturday, 26 January at Diakonia Centre in central Durban starting at 10am, hundreds of progressive activists will gather to contemplate the WSF, develop strategy in workshops, air local grievances against municipal neoliberalism and a repressive state, forge unity, and march to nearby targets protesting injustice at 4pm. The event is being arranged by the KwaZulu-Natal Social Movements Indaba network, the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, Diakonia Council of Churches and others committed to social justice. More information will be posted on the CCS Website, where we will also be running a skypecast so comrades across SA, Africa and the world can tune in.

PICTURES FROM THE EVENT

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM 2008: A GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AND MOBILISATION

Millions of women and men, organizations, networks, movements, and trade unions from all parts of the world will act together on January 26 to show that another world is possible

On January 22, 2008 press conferences from cities across the world will
announce details of the 2008 decentralized World Social Forum Global Day
of Mobilization and Action.

Millions of people all over the world will march, speak, celebrate, and
dialogue in villages, rural zones, and urban centers. They will mobilize
on January 26 in the Global Day of Mobilization and Action to coincide
with the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland.

The neo-liberal gathering of the elites in Switzerland represents the
“old” world, with its elites, economists, experts, and ideologies that
produce violence, exploitation, exclusion, poverty, hunger and
ecological disaster and deprive people of human rights. In contrast, the
people’s movement of movements will raise their collective voices and
take action all around the globe as the World Social Forum 2008.

The World Social Forum is an open space where social movements,
networks, NGOs and other civil society organizations come together to
raise issues, debate ideas democratically, formulate proposals, share
experiences, and network for effective action. These movements are
opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital and all forms
of imperialism. Since the first worldwide encounter in 2001, the World
Social Forum has become a permanent global process seeking and building
alternatives to neo-liberal policies.

World Social Forums have taken place at the end of January at different
sites throughout the world each year for the past seven years, and their
spirit will continue to be reflected in the activities planned at those
same sites and worldwide in 2008.

On January 22nd, press conferences will take place in:

Durban, South Africa

Atlanta, USA

Zurich, Switzerland

Mumbai, India

Rome, Italy

Brussels, Belgium

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Erbil, Iraq (to be confirmed)

Seoul, Korea

The press conferences will highlight actions happening in each country
as well as stories from the front lines of people’s struggles.

Millions of people, workers, organizations, networks, and movements
around the world are struggling, against neo-liberalism, war,
colonialism, racism, and patriarchy with rich and varied proposals of
real-life alternatives. They represent all ages, peoples, cultures, and
beliefs united by the strong conviction that

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!

The website www.wsf2008.net is on line. From now until January 26th, the Global Day of Action, it will be the main communication tool for organizing actions as well as the main source of information about the World Social Forum 2008.

In Durban, plenary speakers address a group in the Diakonia courtyard
about the importance of the WSF and the evil of the WEF, starting at
10am with lots of time for questions, opinions, debate. Then there are
at least seven workshop breakaway groups to discuss issues central to
the people and the planet, in conflict with profits and the police state
Durban is becoming. After a vegetarian lunch, we tackle the explicit
grievances that WSF constituents will raise, and at 4pm depart Diakonia
for a protest march to raise our voices against injustice.
Join us!

Background Documents

Linking below, across and against – World Social Forum weaknesses, global governance gaps and the global justice movement’s strategic dilemmas.
By Patrick Bond

Gramsci, Polanyi and Impressions from Africa on the Social Forum Phenomenon
By Patrick Bond

Reformist Reforms, Non-Reformist Reforms and Global Justice: Activist, NGO and Intellectual Challenges in the World Social Forum.
By Patrick Bond

The WSF’s Global Call to Action A Directory

Patrick Bond on resource extraction at Sangoco/SADC conference, Joburg, 24-25 January 2008

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

SANGOCO

SOUTH AFRICA’S PREPARATORY WORKSHOP ON THE SADC INTERNATIONAL CONSULTATIVE CONFERENCE ON POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT

24th and 25th January 2008
Willow Park, Kempton Park

Natural Resources Depedency and Exploitation in SADC
By Patrick Bond

PROPOSED WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES

To provide South African civil society input and views on poverty
eradication in southern Africa and contribute to the proposed SADC
Regional Poverty Reduction Framework (RPFR) and the establishment of the
SADC Poverty Observatory;

To provide civil society organisations with an overview of the
political, socio-economic and environment context of SADC and the
importance of collaboration, coordination and harmonisation within and
between countries to address poverty in the region;

To put forward policy recommendations so that the RPRF and on regional
integration reflects a developmental agenda that seeks to transform
current social and economic policies to achieve sustainable development;
To establish a process for civil society organisations engagement in
SADC and government processes leading up to the conference as well as
ongoing engagement.

DAY ONE, 24 January

08:30 – 09:30 Registration Tea, Coffee

SETTING SCENE: SADC’s REGIONAL CONTEXT

09:30 – 09:45 Welcome and Introductions Japhta Luka – Acting President
SANGOCO

09:45- 10:15 Workshop Overview: Aims, Objectives and Expectations
Michelle Pressend - IGD

10: 00 – 10:40 Overview of the situation in SADC: Challenges of current
strategies and frameworks programmes to address poverty in the region
Malcolm Damon - Economic Justice Network

10:40 – 11:15 Background and update on the SADC objectives and process
in preparation for the Conference on Poverty and Development
Southern Africa Trust

11:15 -11:45 TEA

11:45 -12:30 An assessment and critique of RISDP as SADC key development strategy and SADC Organ on Peace and Security (SIPO) Anthoni van Nieuwkerk - Centre for Defence and Security Management/ FORPRISA

12:30 – 13:00 Discussion

13:00 – 14:00 LUNCH

PRIORITIES AND KEY ISSUES TO ADDRESS POVERTY IN THE REGION 14:00 – 15:30

Natural Resources Dependency, Use and Exploitation in SADC: Impact on
Poverty and Development (Patrick Bond - Centre for Civil Society)
Implications of economic growth and natural resource dependency
Enclave economies and primary commodities impact
External influences and resource governance

Transforming social policy (Michelle Pressend - IGD)
Secure access to productive resources
Public services: access to basic services, health and education and
Developing productive capacity and employment
Small and informal business access to credits and markets
Social wage/grants

Human Rights issues in SADC (Corlette Letlojane - HURISA)
Regional human rights frameworks for movement of people.
Rights of people across and within borders
Strategies to deal with rights and movement of people within national
and regional and human rights criteria

Questions and discussion

15:30 – 15:45 TEA

15:45- 16:30 Wrap up Facilitator

DAY TWO, 25 January

POVERTY IN SOUTH AFRICA
09:00 – 10:30
State of Poverty in South Africa: Perspectives from different stakeholders

NGO Perspective Karen Peters (Black Sash)
Government Perspective Dept. Social Development
Business Perspective BUSA
Labour Perspective COSATU
Faith-based Groups SACC

Discussion

ADDRESSING POVERTY THROUGH REGIONAL INTEGRATION BASED ON DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

10:30 -11:00
Regional Civil Society Engagement on SADC Policy Processes
( Jennifer Chiriga - Southern Africa Trust )
Current Mechanism and process Challenges
Strengthening involvement of the poor in national and regional
decision-making

Questions and Discussion

11:00 – 11:15 TEA

11:15 – 11:45 Strengthening regionalism
Dot Keet’s (AIDC)

11:45- 12:00 Questions and discussion

FRAMEWORK AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS ON PRIORITY AREAS THROUGH CONSOLIDATING IDEAS, RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS OF THE CSOS

12:00- 13:00 Group work/Commissions developing the framework
Principles and values
Approaches, processes and expectations
Qualitative outcome

13:00 – 14:00 LUNCH

14:00 – 15:00 Report backs

15:00-15:30 CS Process issues leading up to Mauritius Meeting Abie
Dithake SADC –CNGO

15h30 - 15h45 Bringing it all together and establishment of a working
group Facilitator

15h45 -16h00 Thanks and Closure
Cynthia Chishimba Provincial Coordinator SANGOCO NW

Visit by St Catherine’s College / Centre for Global Education 21-24 January 2008

ITINERARY

21 January

Introduction to Durban (including local community activists)
PATRICK BOND & ANNSILLA NYAR
09h00-11h00

Post Apartheid South Africa: Challenges and Limitations This session
will contextualize the Reality Tour the students will take the next day.
DENNIS BRUTUS
11h15-13h00

Lunch
13h00-14h00

For students own time
14h00-16h00

22 January

Reality Tour of central Durban with Baruti Amisi (Refugees in Durban)
and StreetNet International (street traders). The tour will also visit
Umlazi with Ntokozo Mthembu (unemployed workers). This will expose
students to important socio-economic issues in Durban.
09h00-11h00

Reality Tour of South Durban with Desmond d’ Sa of South Durban
Community Environmental Alliance. This ‘Toxic Tour’ will explain the
exploitative relationship of Durban’s petrochemical industries with
local communities
11h15-13h00

Lunch
13h00-14h00

Reality Tour of Chatsworth,the historically Indian township south of
Durban with community activist Orlean Naidoo. The tour will include a
stop at Clare Estate to visit the site of the Bisasar Road dump and
meet Activist Fatima Meer. This will help students understand urgent
issues of evictions, substandard housing and service provision and the
related social policy challenges contained therein.
14h00-16h00

23 January

Understanding Violence and Conflict in KwaZulu Natal: The Role of
Ethnicity and Nationalism
GERALD MARE
09h00-11h00

PeaceBuilding in KwaZulu Natal and Gandhi’s Legacy
ELA GANDHI
11h15-13h00

Lunch
13h00-14h00

For students own time
14h00-16h00

24 January

What is Restorative Justice? Reparations and the Truth &
Reconciliation Commission-DENNIS BRUTUS
09h00-11h00

Tea Break
11h15-13h00

Summary Discussion-All
This session will comprise a summary of the week’s activity including
criticisms, debate and questions.

Lunch
13h00-14h00

Back