CCS Events - Other Events

The atmosphere business: on the politics and organization of climate change

Department of Business Administration, Lund University, 15 December 2009, 12.30-17.00, room EC3-109.

Global climate change is at the moment the most urgent problem that the world is facing. The United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, happening in tandem with this seminar, puts much of its hope in ‘the atmosphere business’, most importantly carbon trading. But is this commodification of the atmosphere really the solution to today’s problem? To what extent do carbon markets actually lead to a cut of greenhouse gas emissions? And how is today’s ecological crisis situated in the broader history of modern capitalism?

Because of the growing importance of the marketization of climate change a discussion of its underlying logic becomes crucial. This seminar – organized by ephemera and sponsored by The Lund Institute of Economic Research – aims to contribute to this discussion by bringing together some of the world’s most outstanding theorists on the politics and organization of climate change.

Programme

12.30-12.45 Welcome by ephemera

12.45-13.45 Larry Lohmann: ‘Carbon markets: A new global political economy’

13.45-14.45 Patrick Bond: ‘Repaying Africa for climate crisis: “Ecological debt” as a development finance alternative to emission trading’

14.45-15.15 Coffee break

15.15-16.15 Jason W. Moore: ‘Crisis, what crisis? Capitalism as the limit to nature’

16.15-17.00 Steffen Böhm and Siddhartha Dabhi: ‘Why carbon offsetting will not save the planet’

17.00 Book launch of Steffen Böhm and Siddhartha Dabhi (eds.) Upsetting the Offset: The Political Economy of Carbon Markets (available at www.mayflybooks.org, 2009) followed by drinks reception.

Date and Location
15 December 2009 at Department of Business Administration, Lund University, Sweden. Lund is a one-hour train ride from Copenhagen airport (Kastrup). The seminar takes place in room EC3-109, Holger Crafoords Ekonomicentrum, Tycho Brahes väg 1. For directions, visit http://www.ehl.lu.se/en/about/maps.

Registration
The seminar is free and open to all but the number of participants is limited. Please confirm your attendance by sending an email to sverre.spoelstra@fek.lu.se.

About the speakers
Jason W. Moore (jasonwsmoore@gmail.com) is a world historian of the relations between economic, ecological, and social change in the modern world-economy, from its origins in the 16th century. He works at the Department of Human Geography, Lund University.

Larry Lohmann (larrylohmann@gn.apc.org) works with The Corner House, a UKbased research and advocacy organization. His books include Pulping the South: Industrial Tree Plantations in the Global Paper Economy (with Ricardo Carrere)Zed, 1996) and the edited volume Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatization and Power (Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, 2006). He is a founding member of the Durban Group for Climate Justice.

Patrick Bond (pbond@mail.ngo.za) is professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies in Durban, South Africa, where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society. His recent books include: Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society; Looting Africa; Talk Left, Walk Right; and Elite Transition. In service to the new South African government from 1994-2002, Patrick authored/edited many policy papers, including the Reconstruction and Development Programme.

Siddhartha Dabhi (sdabhi@essex.ac.uk) is a researcher from India,
currently based at the University of Essex, UK, working on critiques of the political economy of carbon markets. He did his post-graduate studies in Economics at the University of Essex (UK) and his undergraduate studies in Economics at St. Xavier’s College – Ahmedabad (India).

Steffen Böhm (steffen@essex.ac.uk) is Reader in Management at the University of Essex. His research focuses on the critique of the political economy of organization and management. He is co-founder of ephemera, and co-founder and co-editor of the new open publishing press MayFlyBooks (www.mayflybooks.org). He has also published Repositioning Organization Theory (Palgrave) and Against Automobility (Blackwell).

Oliver Meth at the CCS Workshop on women & child abuse Cato Crest Library, 8 December 2009

CCS Workshop on women & child abuse

16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILD ABUSE (XENOPHOBIA AND HOMOPHOBIA)

A CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY YOUTH WORKSHOP

VENUE: CATO CREST LIBRARY
TIME: 9AM-12NOON
DATE: 8 DECEMBER 2009

GUEST SPEAKER – OLIVER METH (GENDER ACTIVIST)

Cato Crest, a squatter camp near the UKZN Centre for Civil Society, is a
community fraught with violent crimes committed by the youth. Most of
the young offenders overcrowding the Westville Prison are from Cato
Crest. The lack of basic services and leisure activities and the high
rate of unemployment are among the reasons for anti-social behiavour.
The Centre for Civil Society engages with communities in search of
alternatives. In partnership with the Local Councillor, Mr.Mzi Ngiba,
CCS will host a workshop around the issues of violence, xenophobia and
homophobia

For more information please contact Faith ka-Manzi – A CCS Community
Scholar @ (031) 260 1412/3577

Patrick Bond at Roskilde Univ Civil Society Centre, 7 December 2009

Roskilde University Centre for International Studies in Citizenship, Democratic Participation, and Civil Society

African civil society during extreme economic and ecological crises

Lecture by Patrick Bond, Centre for Civil Society, KwaZulu-Natal University

Monday the 7th of December 2009 at 13-15 in Building 25.3 (Conference Room)

ABSTRACT:
The various African civil society reactions to economic crisis follow
well-established traditions, which divide the continent into 'civilised
society' and sometimes rather 'uncivil society'. The latter have made
enormous advances in their campaigns over the past decade, especially in
getting free access to AIDS medicines and in repelling water
privatisation. Scanning the continent's hotspots, especially South
Africa and Nigeria, what can we learn about the ways civil society
forces divide on ideological lines, and approach more universal concerns
such as the world economy and climate change. These latter problems
represent major threats to Africans, and most African states are part of
the problem, not the solution (especially South African and Nigeria).
How African civil society represents and acts in the interests of
ordinary people is an acute challenge in relation to these extreme crises.

About CIPACI

Mission
The Centre for International Studies in Citizenship, Democratic
Participation, and Civil Society (CIPACI) aims at:

strengthening research into the social and democratic processes that are involved in defining citizenship rights

enhancing active participation, and organizing democratic interaction
between civil society organizations and state at local, regional, national and global levels

Target Group
The centre will focus on the establishment of a research and mobility
network for scholars and young researchers in the field.

To facilitate these goals the centre will organise a Lecture Series in
the academic year 2008-09 and in May 2009 host a Conference for centres
dealing with Citizenship, Democratic Participation, and Civil Society in
Europe and elsewhere.

Research
Research at CIPACI is based on an understanding that citizenship rights
are strongly dependent on social participation in all spheres of
everyday life – from the involvement in labour market, family matters
and community networks to the shaping of civic, public and private
institutions, and the realization of democratic rights more generally
within contemporary societies.

www.ruc.dk

Climate Justice Film Festival, 8 December 2009

SDCEA COMMUNITY & MEDIA ADVISORY
Climate Justice Film Festival, December 8th, 2009

As deliberations are taking place in Denmark, Copenhagen at the UN Climate Change Summit, where 100 key state officials will strike a deal which could determine the future possibility of the planet, Climate Justice Now! KwaZulu Natal in conjunction with the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) and the University of KwaZulu Natal Centre for Civil Society (CCS) hosted a Climate Justice Film Festival on Monday 07th December in Wentworth at the John Dunne Hall.

Our goals and objectives of this campaign are to ensure that a just and equitable solution is delivered at the United Nations Conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark, said Des Dâ sa, SDCEA coordinator.

The SDCEA hosted 150 community members at the screening of two short films. The Story of Cap & Trade and The Story of Stuff.

The Story of Cap & Trade which is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. The film host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the devils in the details in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what's really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you've heard about cap and trade, but aren't sure how it works (or who benefits).

The Story of Stuff exposes the consumer driven culture that we have become so accustomed to that we no longer recognise it, said Toni Palmer, SDCEA Intern. Palmer added that The Story of Stuff is what sets the backdrop to the cap and trade.

The huge number of environmental and social issues calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world, said Oliver Meth, UKZN Centre for Civil Society.

The attendees expressed their opposition to polluters causing Climate Change by painting banners and messages on T-shirts, which will be used as a way of creating consciousness around Climate Change issues.

CJN! KZN is campaigning to highlight the need for a just and equitable solution to be delivered at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change which is being held in Copenhagen, Denmark from the 7th to 16th December 2009.

We need to act now, so that livelihoods, jobs and the environment can be protected, said D sa. We need to think of what we can do as individuals to stop climate change and reduce our carbon footprint. We need to reduce consumption. We need to put pressure on our government to pursue real solutions to climate change like renewable energy and stop pursuing false solutions such as nuclear energy, biofuels, and timber plantations, added, Alice Thomson, Climate Justice Now! South Africa

D sa added that while we hope for a positive outcome, we should not expect a real deal out of COP15 because the industrialised countries do not want to give up their ˜business as usual therefore we as the poor suffer because of this greed.

CJN! KZN calls on our political, official and civil society representatives in Copenhagen to put forward a firm and unwavering demand for strong and binding proposals that will lead to immediate pollution reduction in the world and in South Africa. Our government has seen and heard the testimonies of ordinary South Africans who have been affected by the present climate conditions and poverty not only in parliament but in everyday situations of poverty visible throughout South Africa because of our corporate led neo-liberal policies.

Issued by: Oliver Meth and Toni Palmer

Photos

Patrick Bond keynotes Leeds 'Democratisation in Africa' conference, 4 December 2009

African democratic currents during extreme economic crisis.

Patrick Bond takes a tough look at the two processes - top-down reform
and bottom-up social activism - that are the prerequisites for
democratic rule, a satisifed populace and sustainable development. He
finds both wanting. In the context of global economic turmoil, he
addresses 'global governance', the African Peer Review Mechanism, AIDS
treatment access, aid/financing/investment/trade trends, extractive
industries, next week's Copenhagen Climate Summit, South Africa's
political upheavals and ideological tumult so as to chart democratic
currents that shape struggles within and between state, capital and
civil society.

African democratic currents during extreme economic crisis: A view from South Africa Paper presented by Patrick Bond

www.polis.leeds.ac.uk

Patrick Bond at the Nelson Mandela Inaugural Colloquium 2009, 23- 27 November

The SA economy: What has gone so badly wrong?
Powerpoint presentation by Patrick Bond

MAKE SOME NOISE! Concert 06 Nov 2009

Concerts For Freedom In Zimbabwe

6pm, Friday 6th November @ UKZN, Durban

7pm, Saturday 7th November @ The Bassline, Joburg

PRESS RELEASE: For immediate release

Zimbabwe lurches from hope to despair as initial optimism in the unity government is undermined by ZANU PF’s bad faith. Opposition activists are still beaten, MDC ministers are arrested and the constitutional-making process has been violently hijacked by ZANU PF militias. Hate speech continues to dominate the state media while new independent media faces hurdle after hurdle. NGO leaders are arrested for holding internal meetings and MDC officials are abducted. In protest against these violations the MDC has disengaged from government while civil society has refused to interact with the unity government. Meanwhile Zimbabwe loses millions of its people to neighbouring countries such as South Africa where they face poverty and discrimination. The people of Zimbabwe are crying out for a new constitution, freedom of expression and for their social, economic and human rights. The SADC region needs to act in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe. Magamba the Cultural Activist Network in partnership with the Action Support Centre (the host of the Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum secretariat), LNM Entertainment and the Centre for Civil Society (UKZN) will take the MAKE SOME NOISE! concerts from Durban to Jozi in order to build people-to-people solidarity in the region and to maintain a spotlight on the Zimbabwean crisis.

The MAKE SOME NOISE concert will kick off in front of hundreds of people at the Memorial Tower Building Courtyard at University of Kwazulu Natal, Durban from 6pm on Friday 6th November. Aiming to raise awareness about xenophobia and the plight of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa, the concert will feature leading Southern African artists who preach change and make people move at the same time! This will include top Durban artists Iain Ewok Robinson, the Maskandi Band, Car Boot Vendors and Davyn & Kho. Representing Zimbabwe will be the explosive band, Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka whose politically-charged music is “undeniably alluring“ (Globe & Mail, Canada.) Despite their heavily political debut album being banned in their own country Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka have toured globally, having toured the USA twice this year, sharing the stage with the likes of Sly & Robbie, Anthony B and Knaan. Also representing Zimbabwe will be one of Zimbabwe’s most talented emcees, Oustpoken.

The MAKE SOME NOISE! caravan then arrives in Joburg the next day. Kicking off at Bassline from 7pm on Saturday 7th November, the concert will feature Comrade Fatso & Chabvondoka. Also on the line up is Outspoken backed by his band the Essence, Harare’s fresh, politically-charged afro-soul hip hop band, who have been wowing audiences from Mbabane to Durban. Zubz is also on the bill, the Zambia-born, Zimbabwe-bred emcee has been in the scene for over a decade: he’s played opening concerts for Talib Kweli and Black Thought, and has even collaborated with local jazz legend Pops Mohammed.

The SA entourage will include Tidal Waves – known as “the hardest working reggae band in South Africa”, the Waves (as they are affectionately known) have toured extensivley in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and bring their unique brand of roots/ska with rock fusion. The comes Kwani Eperience, Jozi’s gritty yet sophisticated band with a distinct edge in their attitude, their messages, their look and their funky afro hop sound.

Last but not least, the inimitable Zonke makes her debut appearance at Make Some Noise! Zonke is a quality and complete artist who first cut her teeth with Culture Clan, a nine-piece Germany based funk and soul band. Zonke’s talent has become evident and undeniable, with numerous industry recognitions: including 2 nominations at the Metro fm Awards 2007 for Best New Comer and Best Afro Pop, 4 nominations at the 14th Annual MTN SAMA Awards for Best Female, Album of the year, Best Urban Pop Album, and MTN Record of the year. As if that was not enough, in 2008 she was nomited the 2008 MTV MAMA Award Best Female artist for Africa. Since the release of Life, love 'n Music, she has been burning up the play lists on popular radio stations and continues to wow audiences across Southern Africa.

Make Some Noise! resident DJ, the assiduous Kenzhero supplies the tunes all night and Karabo Kgoleng (SA fm) hosts the event.

The inaugural MAKE SOME NOISE concert held in Johannesburg in December 2007 was successful, attended by 200 people. The two consecutive editions in the MAKE SOME NOISE series saw hundreds more attending and 400 letters addressed to Thabo Mbeki demanding action on Zimbabwe were signed by participants and sent to the president’s office. The last MAKE SOME NOISE Concert, held on 29th March 2009, saw over 800 people packing into the Bassline for an unforgettable experience. The MAKE SOME NOISE series attracts significant media coverage, having been covered in mainstream print, radio, web and TV media from over 7 different countries. Don’t miss this MAKE SOME NOISE! which promises to rock you to the rhythms of change!!
Play your part – Make Some Noise!!!

For more info: Contact Oliver Meth at Centre for Civil Society on 031 260 3195 metho@ukzn.ac.za

The Crises and the Commons The Crises and the Commons: Durban debates on politics, economics and environment, 4-7 November 2009

Durban debates on politics, economics and environment
4-7 November 2009
Join us for a Durban Reality Tour and discussions at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society
cohosted by Amandla! Magazine and iKwezi Institute
School of Development Studies, Memorial Tower Building, Howard College

Welcome from Dennis Brutus, with special guests Immanuel Wallerstein, Dani Nabudere, Michael Hardt, Hazel Henderson, Eunice Sahle and others

The world is in turmoil; so are Durban and South/Southern Africa! How do we make sense of it? Do we continue allowing the powerful to offer only ‘false solutions’ to our vast political, economic, social and environmental problems? If not, what can ordinary people do, working through institutions of civil society? Will the state continue to block our aspirations, and will capital continue to run wild? Can we beat back xenophobia, ethnicity, patriarchy and class conflict within society? Will crises persist, or instead can a ‘commons’ strategy joining humanitarian and ecological values across national boundaries arise, imposing on the state and capital new values and politics, transcending profit as the core rationale for economic activity?

The limits of internal capitalist reform are now clear. Too often, civil society institutions have been forced to adapt our strategies and lower our expectations, accepting narrow reforms ‘within the box’. For economic development we have been told we need to be entrepreneurs to move ‘from the second to the first economy’, in part by becoming more ‘competitive’ for export markets regardless of the ensuing economic injustices. To address the climate crisis, we have been told that we must use the market-based strategy of ‘carbon trading’ (with Durban landfills serving as guinea pigs). But reforms have failed, and the economic and ecological crises we face require more urgency, sophistication and creativity than the elites are offering.

Why ‘the crises’? The world’s and South/Southern Africa’s deep economic crises can be traced deeper than the short-term catalysts in the ‘financial sector’ - to long-term causes within capitalism’s distorted ‘real sector’, as well; both need analysis and action. In addition, environmental crises – especially climate-related but also threatening water, fish stocks, air quality and other ecological commons – are becoming potentially lethal to planetary health and the very survival of our and many other species. These problems in turn will create more geopolitical, social, gendered and psychological tensions. Because these crises are interlinked, it is time for holistic analysis: ‘world systems’ perspectives, political economy and political ecology.

Why ‘the commons’? Instead of an individualistic approach, which too often retreats from confrontations with socio-economic injustice, we need a new approach to liberatory politics. We need to tackle not just the distributional problems – unequal access to goods and services - which have already generated world-leading human rights campaigns in South and Southern Africa (e.g. social struggles and mutual aid systems in the health and water sectors, where civil society activists have opposed corporate/state neoliberalism and won free medicines and the defeat of privatisation, respectively. In addition to fairer distribution of a greater share of capitalism’s spoils, the ‘commons’ as an idea allows us to move beyond a world based on profit, to one in which basic needs goods are supplied as a human right.

Through and beyond ‘rights’. But a new debate has emerged, about whether civil society strategists should transcend ‘rights talk’ which sets struggles on legal and individualized terrain - sometimes unsuccessfully, as Sowetans learned in the September 2009 Constitutional Court case regarding Free Basic Water and prepayment meters, but sometimes successfully, as Abahlali baseMjondolo showed in defeating the KZN Slums Act in October 2009.

A regional commons of the people. In addition to South Africans, other activists in our region are exploring these lessons and adapting strategies/tactics accordingly. A regional commons of people can also be constructed, as was shown in April 2008, when in our local port (Africa’s largest), a Chinese ship carrying three million bullets destined for use by Robert Mugabe’s armed forces was sent home by trade unionists and church leaders. In contrast, the economic crisis is exacerbating various structural factors that contributed to South Africa’s 2008 xenophobia outbreak: migrant labour, tight housing markets, Home Affairs corruption, extreme retail trade competition, and crime. These need to be addressed in short- and long-term ways, so that the regional commons happens bottom-up, instead of a commodified economy being imposed top-down.

Commoning nature, too. A commons perspective takes the full life-cycle of the subjects of social advocacy and campaigning seriously. For example, the drops of water enjoyed in Johannesburg swimming pools and flushed into a polluted water table which affects water access downstream in Mozambique must be understood from their origins in the mountains of Lesotho. In Durban, the Inanda Dam is the immediate source of water, and a major campaign was recently declared successful: restoration of land rights which were violated for the local Qadi clan during the late 1980s when the dam submerged their traditional residential and burial sites. The energy commons will be highlighted with studies of global warming and the Inga hydropower facility that will potentially export electricity as far north as Italy and as far south as Cape Town, while ignoring the vast majority of needy Southern Africans – especially women - who operate with ever-scarcer woodlots as their primary energy source. The commons is especially important for environmental analysis given the threat posed by carbon trading to a holistic strategy for climate change.

The cultural commons. Thanks to South African and Zimbabwean cultural artists, the fusion of politics, ecology, music and poetry all come together as the basis for launching the Centre for Civil Society’s new space at UKZN: the top three floors of Durban’s tallest building. Join us from the bottom (Memorial Tower Building courtyard) to the top for some enlightenment of the brain and inspiration of the soul on Friday, from 6pm ‘til late. Then on Saturday, activists return to hard work.

CCS, Amandla! magazine and the iKwezi Institute’s Skenjani Roji Seminar Series present a day of discussion:

Development, Protests and Democracy in South Africa: Social Movements and the Crisis of Service Delivery

South Africa has experienced major protests over services delivery in recent years, with police counting roughly 8,000 per year. The last few months, in spite of hope for a new and different state leadership, the protests have increased in tempo and ferocity. The authorities have responded with intense repression, but also major concessions.

Yet there is a conspicuous absence of social movement organisations providing leadership and articulating community interests, especially in view of the depth of SA’s economic crisis.

What is the state of the new social movements in South Africa? Have these organisations been decimated since their rise a decade ago? Or is there renewed space to organise and build democratic social movements which has not yet been taken advantage of?

The national democratic state has delivered services to communities at a rate higher than the apartheid state did, yet prices of water, electricity and housing have risen to unaffordable levels for many. In this context, do the protests challenge the legitimacy of the democratic local state, similar to the way urban protests of the 1980s undermined the legitimacy of apartheid’s Black Local Authorities? Are communities properly informed of development plans by municipalities? Is local corruption a problem? Do community organisations have adequate voice? Are protests linked to internal political crises within the ANC, or are external political influences guiding the protests? Are the uprisings a manifestation of residents’ genuine frustration over the state’s failure to serve – because of municipal shortcomings and because of inappropriate national policies and inadequate national funding subsidies?

Today, social movement organisations seem to be peripheral to the community protests, at a time they could be providing leadership, articulating development challenges that affect communities, negotiating with authorities, utilising information based on organic research, and proposing genuine solutions.

So what is the future of social movements if they are not present in the communities during this period of social and political crisis? How should they reorganise, if that is the challenge? Are they now facing a crisis of legitimacy too?

Durban and South African activists working in community, environmental, social and labour organisations - and more broadly for a democratic left - have been divided, and need to unite.

The Crises and the Commons Public events at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society
in the School of Development Studies, Memorial Tower Building, Durban
cohosted by Amandla! Magazine (CT) and iKwezi Institute (Jhb)
Programme of Activities, 4-7 November

Nov 4 – DURBAN REALITY TOUR7:45 Bus pick-up at UKZN in front of Memorial Tower Building
8-9:45 Warwick Early Morning Market & Albert Park – hosted by Baruti Amisi
10-12 South Durban toxic tour – hosted by Oliver Meth
12:15-2:30 Chatsworth/Crossmore (with lunch) – hosted by Orlean Naidoo
3-4:30 Cato Manor – hosted by Faith ka Manzi
5-7 Other Durban discussions, solidarity and cultural events at UKZN MTB Courtyard

Nov 5 – DEBATING THE CRISES
Memorial Tower Building, Howard College, ROOM L1
8:30-9 – INTRODUCTION – Patrick Bond, Mazibuko Jara and Dennis Brutus
9-11 – DURBAN AND SOUTH AFRICAN CRISES with Cathy Sutherland, Julie May Ellingson, Dudu Khumalo and Patrick Bond
11-11:15 – TEA BREAK
11:15-1:00 – REGIONAL AND AFRICAN CRISES with Dani Nabudere
1-1:45 – LUNCH
1:45-3:30 – GLOBAL/ECO CRISES with Hazel Henderson, Bert Olivier, Malcolm Roberts
3:30-3:45 – TEA BREAK
3:45-5:15 –THE MEANING OF COMMONS with Michael Hardt and Ashwin Desai
5:15-5:30 – move from Memorial Tower Building to Shepstone 1
5:30-7 – (Shepstone 1): WOLPE LECTURE by Immanuel Wallerstein:
“Crisis of the Capitalist System: Where Do We Go From Here?”

Nov 6 – DEBATING THE COMMONS
Memorial Tower Building, Howard College, ROOM L1
11-1 – COMMONING RESOURCES: Alaskan oil, Ecuador’s Yasuni, Niger Delta, Xolobeni – with Jack Hickel, Art Davidson,
Rehana Dada, Siziwe Khanyile, Sinegugu Zukulu
1-1:45 LUNCH
1:45-3:30 – COMMONING SERVICE DELIVERY: Health/meds, water, electricity, land
3:30-3:45 – TEA
3:45-5:30 – COMMONING PEOPLE: local unity, national alliances, regional anti-xenophobia, int’l solidarity – Baruti
Amisi on Durban research; ‘Citizen X film project’ with Arya Lalloo; Pamela Ngwenya with participatory video teams
5:30-6 – CLOSURE: Trevor Ngwane, Orlean Naidoo, Patrick Bond, Dennis Brutus
6-9 – ANTI-XENOPHOBIA CULTURAL ACTIVITIES (‘Make Some Noise’!) – Outspoken, Chabvondoka with Comrade Fatso, Davyn &
Kho, Matt Wilson, Iain Ewok Robinson, Cato Manor Maskandi Band in MTB Courtyard

Nov 7 – ACTIVIST STRATEGY DAY *Skenjani Roji Seminar Series with iKwezi Institute Development, Protests and Democracy in South Africa: Social Movements and the Crisis of Service Delivery plus workshops on related themes, 9-5

PDF version of this Document

* RSVP essential: Lungi 031-260-3577 (a modest fee to cover costs may be levied)
(We are grateful to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa, Harold Wolpe Trust, CS Mott Foundation and Atlantic Philanthropies for interest and support.)

GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR THE COMMONS:
Respected and Shared by All
November 2009

A GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR THE COMMONS was proposed by civil society organisations and intellectuals attending a conference from 4-7 November 2009: “The Crises and the Commons: Durban Debates on Politics, Economics and the Environment.” The activities included addresses by, amongst others, Professors Immanuel Wallerstein (Yale University) and Dani W. Nabudere (Marcus Garvey Pan Afrikan Institute in Mbale, Uganda); the poetic and political offerings of Dennis Brutus; and satellite presentations by ecological economist Hazel Henderson, social theorist Michael Hardt, global water-commons organiser Anil Naidoo, and former US Secretary of the Interior and Governor of the State of Alaska Wally Hickel with his colleagues in the ‘ownership state’ movement.

Just as importantly, the conference delegates witnessed debates, tours and walks, toxic sites and inspiring innovation projects, and a community ‘service delivery protest’ at City Hall by South Durban residents. These activities in Durban centered on the burning issues affecting poor and working-class communities, including the lack of service delivery (healthcare, education, affordable housing, water, sanitation and electricity) as well as crises of local and global environments and the turmoil and misery caused by the global economic crisis.

Especially poignant reports of seemingly-permanent crisis were offered by NGO and cultural activists from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, the DRC and Lesotho. These problems compelled us to consider solutions that address real problems facing humanity in general in new ways that can unite us all across the globe, drawing us out of the sectoral narrowness that leaves many of us with a ‘silo mentality’. It is these debates that led to the call for the need to create a Global Campaign for the Commons because it was realized during the debates that we cannot survive as a human race unless destruction of the eco-system is halted through our joint struggles.

What are the Commons?
A typical definition of the Commons includes ‘gifts of nature’ - air, water, forests, wildlife – in addition to those products of shared, social production that are in the public sphere, including research, creative works, libraries and public spaces. As one speaker put it, the Commons must expand to incorporate “products of human labor and creativity that we share, such as ideas, knowledges, images, codes, affects, social relationships, and the like.”

After all, it has been observed (www.onthecommons.org) that “A growing social and political movement believes the commons is a crucial sector of the economy and society and useful prism for talking about resources that should be shared… A wider appreciation for the enduring importance of the commons has developed, especially among people deeply involved in the politics of water issues, the internet, the over commercialization of culture and public spaces. This world view is now reaching into many other arenas, including economics, the environment, social justice and numerous citizens movements around the world.”

A restorative framework
Civil society campaigns to preserve the environment and the commons have been with us for decades. Alongside these struggles, there has emerged a greater awareness on the part of both natural and social scientists who once promoted the uncritical development of technological innovation. Together, they realise, science and economic self-interest have generated imbalances in natural systems and excessive human demands on nature. Enlightened scientists have begun to focus on problems created by human actions against nature, and are establishing a framework which makes us, as living beings, more conscious of our dependence on nature.

Scientists can no longer confront the universe merely as objective observers. The universe is largely indifferent to what happens to humans yet nothing happens to human beings that does not have a bearing on the elements that constitute the universe. This gives cosmic significance to our existence as human beings to which we must respond positively.

Alongside this convergence between social sciences and the natural sciences, there has also emerged a movement that advocates restorative justice to embrace all aspects of life and the environment. The concept of restorative justice has been extended to all kinds of human activity, including the way communities can intervene to bring about more harmonious and balanced social relations in society, including ‘healing’ of damaged relationships between opposing sides to conflicts and law. This approach can equally be applied to the current crisis in which human activity has damaged our relations with nature. Therefore our objective in the Campaign for the Global Commons is to try to heal this broken relationship in defence of the Commons in order to re-establish harmonious relations. Therefore the framework of the Commons requires the concept of restorative justice for both social and environmental justice.

What are the issues?
Our Campaign must begin with addressing the real issues that will lead to a restoration of a balanced relationship with nature by defending the Commons. Our common philosophy should enable us to address the old ideological divisions associated with social and environmental justice, so that we can all act in unison on the primary issues. To this end, concrete concerns were raised during the Durban debates, especially relating to social movements’ strategies and tactics. These exist elsewhere in the world, which must be addressed.

As the first issue, the week in Durban enabled us to conclude that the ongoing global economic and environmental crises are much deeper than what the world’s leaders are prepared to admit. The climate-related crisis is also threatening water resources, fish stocks, air quality and other ecological commons, and becoming potentially lethal to planetary health and the very survival of our and many other species. Africa is the continent that will be the hardest hit, given UN projections that nine out of ten peasants will be unable to farm by the end of this century. In turn, these problems are bound to create more geopolitical, social, gendered and psychological tensions, which require interlinked and holistic responses from us all. We need to develop new approaches to a liberatory politics not merely aimed at distributional justice, but which also address restorative justice to the commons as a whole. To the global stocks of natural

Second, the Commons framework should enable us to move beyond a world based on greed, individual profit and the exploitation of nature without compensation, to one where human basic needs are supplied in harmony with environmental conditions. We see, as a result of debates amongst South African community activists, the need to go beyond ‘the rights approach’ without responsibility to the Commons, and for this to be achieved we need to reconstruct the State into an accountable and democratic State. South Africa’s betrayal of its Constitutional promises associated with access to water, described during the Durban debates by Soweto activists and lawyers, was especially disturbing. Assistance is needed for these and so many other communities in their strategies for ‘commoning’ supplies of water, sanitation, electricity and other municipal services, especially in times of fast-rising tariff prices and mass disconnections.

Third, in between the municipal delivery of services and the great natural commons of air, water, fisheries, minerals and other resources (especially those that are non-renewable), lie the commons of our peoples. In Southern Africa, we are still attempting to mediate the perpetual tensions associated with borders cut by colonial powers between our peoples during the 1884-85 Berlin negotiations, the colonial expropriation of land, and the migrant labour systems established by the mining houses, agricultural plantations and factories of the region’s cities. The re-commoning of our peoples across these artificial borders – and indeed across the world more generally – is one of the 21st century’s greatest challenges.

A general appeal
The Global Campaign for the Commons is therefore an obligation on the part of all of us, regardless of the specific workplace, community, household, educational, artistic, recreational or other activity we may be involved in. A combined struggle for the Commons demands an engaged and involved citizenry the world over, because the threats we face are global threats, which can no longer be seen as restricted to a particular country, nation, region or a certain group of people. As our discussion of economic and environmental crises indicated, these threats constitute a global threat to all human beings and must therefore be the concern of all of us. If not, they could well lead to another round of destructive geopolitical crises, such as we observe continuing in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

This Campaign for the Global Commons is therefore a wake-up call to all the people of the world to embark on actions in defence of your commons wherever they may be. It means that all of us who are close to particular communities engaged in struggles to protect the Commons should also see those struggles as being part of our own well-being, because a damaged environment will not harm only those who were involved in creating the harmful conditions or those who stood by the way side while such a damage was done. There is therefore no room for distancing oneself from any activity that harms the environment and the Commons; there is only one route we must all follow: a defence of the Commons on which our future depends.

Solidarity with Durban's oppressed: Bottom-up resistance strategies of shackdwellers, pollution victims and labour-brokered workers, 4 November 2009

The UKZN Centre for Civil Society welcomes you to an afternoon of sharing:

CCS EVENT: Solidarity with Durban's oppressed: Bottom-up resistance
strategies of shackdwellers, pollution victims and labour-brokered workers

Date:Wednesday, 4 November:

Time:5-6:30pm Courtyard of the Memorial Tower
Building, Howard College Campus

Chair: Trevor Ngwane, Centre for Civil Society (and Soweto Electricity
Crisis Committee)

Mazwi Nzimande, President of Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League

REPRESENTATIVE, South Durban Community Environmental Alliance

Zama Hlatshwayo, UKZN Workers Forum leader

And a word on fighting oppression globally, by Professor Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University

(Admission free, refreshments served, donations - including blankets, clothing, nonperishable food - are encouraged. For more information and to RSVP contact Lungi at 031 260 3195.)

Faith Manzi & Oliver Meth at the Gender Based Violence Workshop, Durban 27 & 28 October 2009
Gender Based Violence Workshop

The KwaZulu-Natal Welfare Social Services & Development Forum is hosting the Gender Based Violence Workshop from 27-28 October 2009 in Durban.

Dates: 27–28 October 2009
Time: 8h30 for 9h00 – 16h30
Venue: Bishop Hurley Room, Diakonia Centre, 20 Diakonia Avenue, Durban
RSVP: No later than the 16 October 2009

Contact Person: Stewart Kilburn, tel: 031 260 3331, fax: 086 669 0278, email: stewartk@hivan.org.za

Please Note: This workshop is limited to two persons per organisation Participation for member organisations is complimentary. For Non member organisations the attendance fee is R 50.00 per organisation (Maximum of two people per organisation).

The workshop will focus on:

Sexual Offences Act

Human Trafficking

Pornography

Conducted by: Advocate Dawn Coleman from the National Prosecuting Authority, Sexual Offences and Community Affairs Department

Day 1

Overview of Services of TCC

Role Players at court, court processes & protective measures

Group discussions & exercises: myth or fact
Sexual Offences Act

Case discussions in groups

Referral Networks in KwaZulu-Natal

Day 2

Victims Charter

Child pornography

Group discussions

Human Trafficking

Group discussions & exercises

Conclusion

Baruti Amisi, Trevor Ngwane & Patrick Bond Anti-Xenophobia research project with Strategy&Tactics 19- 20 October 2009

Anti-Xenophobia research project with Strategy & Tactics

Monday 19th October

9.30-11.30: Panel 1: site-specific studies (facilitator: Jenny Parsley)

1. Jara, M &Peberdy, S Progressive Humanitarian and nascent social mobilization by civil society in a neo-apartheid Cape Town

2. Dube, N Case study of Ramaphosa

3. CCS Team Xenophobia and Civil Society: Durban’s Structured Social Divisions (including Ngwane, T: Xenophobia in Bottlebrush)

4. Kirshner, J & Phokela, C Khutsong and Xenophobic Violence

11.30 – 12.00 tea

12.00 – 13.00: Panel 2: COSATU/ANC
(facilitator: Graeme Gotz)

5. Hlatshwayo, M Cosatu’s Response to xenophobia

6. Friedman, S One Centre of Power: the ANC and the Violence of May 2008

13.00 – 14.400 Lunch

14.00 – 15.30: panel 3: Sectors/donors (facilitator: Jenny Parsley)

7. Desai, A Responding to the May 2008 attacks: case study of Gift of the Givers

8. Nyar, A ‘Business as Usual’ Understanding the Response of the corporate sector to xenophobic violence

9. Phakathi S (Nyar to present) The Response of Churches to the xenophobic violence of May 2008

15.30 – 16.00 tea

16.00 – 17.30: Panel 4: Social movements (Yoon – I know you don’t quite fit here but it was the best I could manage...!) (facilitator: Graeme Gotz)

10. Sinwell, L Toward Addressing the Root Causes of Social Tensions

11. Park, Y Visible and Vulnerable

12. Ngwane, T Social Movement Responses to Xenophobia

17.30 – finish

19.00 – supper

Tuesday October 20th (facilitator: David Everatt)

9.00 – 10.30 Jenny Parsley – leads discussion on proposed structure of synthesis reports

10.30 – 11.00 tea

11.00 – 12.00 (facilitator: Jenny Parsley)
David Everatt wraps up – structure/content of synthesis reports, authors, timelines
12.00 – 12.30 – way forward and close
12.30 – 13.00 – process discussion
13.00 – lunch and departure

Durban Sings (Molefi Ndlovu & Claudia Wegener) at National Oral History Conference, 13-16 October 2009

6th National Oral History Conference
Cape Town 13-16 October 2009

DURBAN SINGS a regional community media research project
www.durbansings.wordpress.com
By: Molefi Mafereka Ndlovu & Claudia Wegner

Abstract
Community media is an area in South African society which could become a
tool in the hands of ordinary people that could enable them to further
reassess internal configurations of their communities and households in
relation to a rapidly changing society with diverse culture/s which has
been shaped by its difficult history and an uncertain future.
The Durban Sings: is a regional community media and research project
that that is based in Durban, KwaZulu Natal; seeking to involving
participants drawn from media, civic and artist groups and communities
in the inner city, the townships and surrounding settlements of
eThekwini Metropolitan Area, who have yet to gain access to the use and
enjoyment of information communication technologies (ICTs) in general
and media production/participation in particular.

It is a public audio radio research project involving youth community
media producers and listeners of Greater Durban to explore, test and
outline sustainable realisations of two hypothesis:

1. Radio/Media can be a means towards self reliant community development.

2. Community/ (ies) can be the agency that drives radio/media
development in South Africa.

The project links aspects of oral history interviews and story-telling
with a creative participant led, re-assessment of audio radio tools and
methods of broadcasting in/for the 'information society' from an
'African' perspective. Key questions the project addresses itself to
include: how do post-colonial histories and stories sediment into
everyday language; how do they shape or mark communication desires,
needs and traditions of various forms and types of communities? The
project hopes to 'make a case' for media in development whereby
communities produce and broadcast the media that speaks for themselves,
that is to say, where citizens speak and can be heard as advocates of
citizens' engagement through their own cultural productivity.

Proposal for the XVI. International Oral History ConferenceBetween Past and Future: Oral History, Memory and Meaning: 7 – 11 July, 2010 Prague, Czech Republic

DURBAN SINGS a regional community media research project
www.durbansings.wordpress.com

Themes:
11. Organizing Oral History: Institutions, archives, museums,
organizations and grassroots groups.

Abstract
Community media is an area in South African society which could become a
tool in the hands of ordinary people that could enable them to further
reassess internal configurations of their communities and households in
relation to a rapidly changing society with diverse culture/s which has
been shaped by its difficult history and an uncertain future.

The Durban Sings: is a regional community media and research project
that that is based in Durban, KwaZulu Natal; seeking to involving
participants drawn from media, civic and artist groups and communities
in the inner city, the townships and surrounding settlements of
eThekwini Metropolitan Area, who have yet to gain access to the use and
enjoyment of information communication technologies (ICTs) in general
and media production/participation in particular.

It is a public audio radio research project involving youth community
media producers and listeners of Greater Durban to explore, test and
outline sustainable realisations of two hypothesis:

1. Radio/Media can be a means towards self reliant community development.
2. Community/ (ies) can be the agency that drives radio/media
development in South Africa.

The project links aspects of oral history interviews and story-telling
with a creative participant led, re-assessment of audio radio tools and
methods of broadcasting in/for the 'information society' from an
'African' perspective. Key questions the project addresses itself to
include: how do post-colonial histories and stories sediment into
everyday language; how do they shape or mark communication desires,
needs and traditions of various forms and types of communities? The
project hopes to 'make a case' for media in development whereby
communities produce and broadcast the media that speaks for themselves,
that is to say, where citizens speak and can be heard as advocates of
citizens' engagement through their own cultural productivity.

Introduction
The Durban Sings project builds on the audio radio tools and experiences
of two grassroots media efforts grown on different soil and background,
RASAfm in Soweto, Johannesburg SA(2004) and the NO-GO-ZONES (NGZ) audio radio project in South London UK. Different as these projects are, they share in the common vision that media is a product of community communication and a vital part of human interaction and creative production. Media belongs in the hands of people; it's up for continuous
re-invention how and through what (on/off-air, on/off-line) channels to
serve communication and community development today and tomorrow.

Project overview and summary: an Audio Radio Project in 2 TRACKS
The present proposal Durban Sings is written in response to the above
understanding of media, the hunger for another sound of radio. The
project hopes to 'make a case' for media in development whereby
communities produce and broadcast the media that speaks for themselves
and for itself, that is to say, where citizens speak and can be heard as
advocates of citizens' engagement through their own cultural productivity.

The project is, in its scale and scope, a pilot project, which will be
extended as funding becomes available and as the networks of
participants ('active listeners') grow. In particular, we are aiming for
productive links and exchange between Durban and Johannesburg, as will
be outlined in TRACK III of this proposal and the launch of a 'listening
bridge' between active listeners of the Southern and Northern
Hemispheres in TRACK IV. The listening bridge builds on the foundation
of audio and radio activist networks already established by the RASAfm
project (Soweto, Johannesburg, SA) and the NGZ audio radio project
(South London, UK).

TRACK I: DURBAN SINGS: 4 months of audio radio ground work across a
variety of community groups in Durban leading to on-line and off-line
audio archives, audio radio productions by the participants, distributed
on CDs, on-air and on-line broadcasts, and a local network of 'active
listeners'.

TRACK II: 2 months of developing the Durban Sings final productions
which will make the tools and findings of the project available in form
of an interactive DVD and a report published as a media activist guide
in print and audio format.

Statement of the problem.
The research project takes as its point of departure, an observation
that media in South Africa remains primarily the concern of large
corporate entities. Many of these organizations are driven by the
concern of maximizing revenue flows and remaining commercially
competitive. This entails targeting particular layers of a consuming
public whose values and ideals are put above those lower down in the
hierarchy of consuming publics.

As Jürgen Habermas points out; a major portion of mass media offerings
are designed to serve an entertainment function. These programmes tend
to avoid controversial issues and reflect beliefs and values sanctified
by mass audience. This course is followed by Television networks, whose
investment and production costs are high.

Jerry Mander’s work has highlighted this particular outlook. According
to him, the atomised individuals of mass society lose their souls to the
phantom delights of the film, the soap opera, and the variety show.

Individuals become ‘irrational victims of false wants’ - the wants which
corporations have thrust upon them, and continue to thrust upon them,
through both the advertising in the media (with its continual
exhortation to consume) and through the individualist consumption
culture it promulgates. Thus, according to Habermas, leisure has been
industrialised. The production of culture had become standardised and
dominated by the profit motive as in other industries. In a mass society
leisure is constantly used to induce the appropriate values and motives
in the public. The modern media train the young for consumption.
‘Leisure had ceased to be the opposite of work, and had become a
preparation for it.

As a result; the majority of media content is targeted and produced to
the exclusion of many lower income communities and groups. It is the
contention of this paper that the dominant models of media production
and distribution chains in South Africa (both print and electronic) are
not conducive to the participatory community level media production and
distribution processes.

Objectives:
To contribute to raising the youth organisations’ level of practical
awareness and reflection about their identity in a diverse society by
creatively exploring methods of voice recording, active listening,
editing, and distributing/ broadcasting audio recordings of the research
findings.
To assess meanings and means of representing a community identity in/as
their own media, self-documentation, community journalism and in
exchange with other communities near and far.
To evaluate the challenges faced by community media collectives in
producing local media.

To create foundations for active social links across the participating
groups and communities via a shared creative process, listening to each
other, and a joint production process for the final DVD publication.

To develop editing and listening skills and strengthen a reflective
active listening through a collaborative creative process.

To pass on and share the knowledge and raise awareness about the
procedures and tools used in the present project with all members of the
participant group, including introduction to editing and technical
techniques, artists and other creative producers to harness continued
development of community media.

Conceptual Framework.
The relation of the mass media to contemporary popular culture is
commonly conceived in terms of dissemination from the elite to the mass.
The long-term consequences of this are significant in conjunction with
the continuing concentration of ownership and control of the media,
leading to accusations of a 'media elite' having a form of 'cultural
dictatorship' Habermas (69).

In 'Explanatory notes on content, media and language issues' , the
Nigerian scholar, engineer and media activist Tunde Adegbola lists some
of the 'ideals' that ICTs could realize for contemporary civil society
as combinations of: free flow of content; efficient development of
content; interactivity and participation through re-arrangement of
content; large storage and wide transmission capacities; and all these,
it could be added, at the fingertips of possibly many users at
comparatively low costs.

Adegbola defines content as 'packaging of ideas, facts (etc.) for
storage, presentation and transmission. Regarding the oral nature of
African literary practices; Dathorne notes that the folklore narrator,
priest or reciter is only one side of in the dialogue of exchange that
was the creation. Further, that by assigning the term “primary audience”
to the oral or written artist, one is therefore stressing the importance
of comprehending that the cultural images had already been assembled,
and were known to both sectors of the audience, and that the artistic
act was one in which the dormant images received form and were revived
by the interactions of these two agents of execution (Dathorne, 1975).

It is the view of this paper that audio has the potential to move the
dominant literary traditions in the African continent to higher planes
of refinement and articulation, precisely because of it capturing the
voice - a powerful tool in the oral practices of all African societies.
This includes a concern with primarily the limits of what is understood
and what are understandable roles of primary audiences and secondary
audiences, how does this effect and affects the arrangement and
acceptance of literary images and allocation of meaning in a world which
is rapidly imposing a one-dimensional single set of standards for the
sharing of information and communication?

The research project can be read as an attempt at testing whether the
roles of secondary and primary audiences can flow and interchange so
that the producers of oral content can simultaneously become the active
audience/ listeners of oral content with localized affinity groups and
globally shared in producer/listener collectives and networks in the
sense proposed by Adegbola.

As Sohng (1995) comments, participatory research is a collaborative and
empowering process because it (a) brings isolated people together around
common needs and problems; (b) validates their experiences as the
foundation for understanding and critical reflection; (c) presents the
knowledge and experiences of the researchers as additional resources
upon which to critically reflect; and (d) contextualises what might have
previously felt like personal, individual problems or weaknesses. The
primary strength of an action-oriented or participatory approach to
research is therefore not about description but about trying things out.
It is a research approach that sees its function as one of giving us
different ways of relating to natural and social environments.
Researchers need to be aware of how members of a group perceive and
speak about their lives. This means they must endeavour to find out
everything that can be found out about the community being researched.
Ideally, the researcher already lives in the community, partakes in its
affairs and has an ongoing relationship with the community. There is a
Guinean proverb that links knowledge and love. It states, “We cannot
love that which we do not know.”

In this research project, a song is not just a song echoing Margaret
Drewal, the African art historian who said: In Africa, [musical]
performance is a primary site for the production of knowledge, where
philosophy is enacted, and where multiple and often simultaneous
discourses are employed. ... Not only that, but performance is a means
by which people reflect on their current conditions, define and/ or
reinvent themselves and their social world, and either reinforce,
resist, or subvert prevailing social orders.” We add only that together
with the notion of song is an arguably deeper concept of telling a
story, imparting meaning.

This semblance of stories, rhythms and sound of all forms weaves the
tapestry of what some African philosophers such as Mudimbe (1993) have
termed; “the primordial African discourse in its variety and
multiplicity, in other words the complete ensemble of what the project
defines as the oral traditions of the participant groups and
individuals. Anthony Appiah concedes that a folk philosophy exists in
Africa, although he believes that oral tradition is not hospitable to
philosophy. We want to examine this contentious point.

In order to do this; the project uses the lens of popular Zulu proverbs
that can be found across the Ba-Ntu peoples spread across the territory
that was once describes as Azania land, covering much of what is today
called Sub-Sahara/East Africa. The project seeks to deepen the Inquiry
into the possibilities of an African philosophy of history in the oral
tradition. We conduct our search principally among the communities of
KwaZulu-Natal Ethekwini Metro. There is evidence of ideas about history
in institutions for the generation of ancestors and in art of the
Nguni-Zulu speaking peoples who are the majority of the population of
KwaZulu-Natal Ethekwini metropolitan. As much of the meanings of oral
traditions are implicit (due to a number of factors e.g. Language,
social context, historiographic reference etc) interpretation varies and
sometimes is contradictory before their meaning can be made explicit.
Hence the project uses the, the proverb text approximates to an
explicit commentary on the history represented by the African oral
tradition.

I will tell you something about stories [and songs] . . . they aren’t
just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. Leslie Marmon Silko

Concerning rhythm; the project concurs with the analysis advanced by
Kariamu Welsh-Asante, in Angela M.S.Nelson: in the book;”This is how we
Flow”; where she notes that “the relationship between Africans and
rhythm is not only constant but it is essential. It is not a question of
having rhythm or not having rhythm but how well does one negotiate
rhythm in life and in the artistic, expressions of life. On time or off
time is a simplistic result of very basic relationship with rhythm. The
complexity of rhythm generates multi-layered, multi-leveled,
multi-existence so that it is possible for people to respond to
different layers, levels, and planes and still be in harmony with the
framework of the rhythms and with each other.

The proverb text, however, is not without problems, since it is best
understood in specified contexts and its meaning is not always
unambiguous. The proverb text may, therefore, be characterised as a
contested text. In our view of philosophy as the raising of questions
and ideas for consideration, the problems associated with the use of the
proverb do not make the texts invalid, since they stimulate thought,
comments, and arguments on the oral tradition. Therefore, proverbs as
contested texts make them appropriate material for the discussion of an
African philosophy of history.

It is with the above propositions that we assert that, in articulating a
system which works for African peoples and developing proper mechanism
for assimilating genuine values in our present and coming generations,
there is need to collate and document the wise sayings of African
people. We must build the conceptual framework of self reliance and
cooperative ethics in every facet of our community: governance,
relationships, education, family, etc based on these oral philosophies
which have been captured by the sages in the history of the cradle of
civilization: Africa. A Zulu proverb comes to mind at this stage:
‘IN COPYING EVERYONE ELSE ALL THE TIME, THE MONKEY ONE DAY CUT HIS THROAT’

The gravity of the above proverb cannot be exaggerated within the
context of the aims this project. African Proverbs offer wisdom rhythm
and poetry in just one sentence. Proverbs play an important part in
African cultures all across the continent. Proverbs may be regarded as
the repositories of the traditional wisdom of a people; contemporary
societies are still creating new proverbs and modifying old ones. The
beauty of proverbs is the universality of their meaning, everyone can
relate to them in some way, on some level. Yet they are also uniquely
African and help us gain an insight into African culture. African
proverbs can convey wisdom, truth, a discovery of ideas, as well as life
lessons.

Literature review (case studies)

South African History Archive (SAHA):
www.saha.org.za/projects.htm

a) Forgotten voices in the present: post-1994 oral histories from three poor communities in South Africa
Conducted by Dr Dale McKinley since early 2007, this research project is
an attempt to capture ‘histories from below’ of the South African
transition through the collection and analysis of individual oral
histories from residents in three poor communities. It is intended that
the resulting collection of stories will represent a meaningful
cross-section of rural, urban and peri-urban realities in South Africa’s
post-1994 political, social and economic history, as lived and
experienced by the oppressed and the marginalised majority.
In addition to a complete set of these oral histories being digitised,
transcribed and added to the archives at SAHA, the project will produce
a book-length manuscript that offers a range of alternative histories of
the South African transition, based on the experiences of ordinary
indigent South Africans, whose voices are ordinarily excluded from the
dominant discourses. The possibility of expanding this project through
the production of a documentary film to raise awareness of the ongoing
socio-economic and cultural struggles of poor communities in South
Africa is also being explored.

In the course of gathering these oral histories, a number of potential
access to information requests relating to housing, infrastructure and
community development have been identified by community members in these
locations.

b) Art / Memory workshops
SAHA has developed an art-making workshop process to capture visual and
oral histories of individuals and communities, particularly around
political and human rights struggles and abuses in South Africa.
In 2007 and 2008, SAHA, in conjunction with the Khulumaini Support
Group, has been conducting a series of pilot workshops exploring
people’s memories, their personal histories, and their understandings of
violence and loss during the decades of repression, resistance and the
struggle for national liberation, with communities in the East Rand and
the Vaal Triangle.

The images, artwork, recorded stories, and historical understandings
that emerge from these workshops are intended as memorial and heritage
presentations to, for, and about the specific communities and
organization which make them. SAHA is committed to ensuring the stories
from these workshops are preserved and disseminated as part of our
historical record, the publication Katorus Stories being just one
example of how this can be done.

The Prometheus Radio Project : http://prometheusradio.org/about_us/
The Prometheus Radio Project is a non-profit organization founded by a
small group of radio activists in 1998. Prometheus builds, supports, and
advocates for community radio stations which empower participatory
community voices and movements for social change. To that end, we
demystify technologies, the political process that governs access to our
media system, and the effects of media on our lives and our communities.

The Prometheus Radio project’s primary focus is on building a large
community of Low Powered FM stations and listeners. We hope that this
community will grow into a powerful force working toward the democratic
media future we envision. Toward that end, we support community groups
at every stage of the process of building community radio stations,
facilitate public participation in the FCC regulatory process, and
sponsor events promoting awareness and support of media democracy and
LPFM radio.

THE NO-GO-ZONES AUDIO RADIO PROJECT
http://nogozones.wordpress.com

Since May 2007, we – Claudia Wegener and Terry Humphrey, two radio
obsessed artists in London – have been running a series of weekly
workshops, drop-in radio sessions and live broadcasts on
Resonance104.4fm under the title ‘no-go-zones’. We started working with
a production team of students from Camberwell College of Art and
teenagers from the area of South London collecting recordings,
conducting interviews with individuals or groups, reports about the
‘no-go-zone’ experiences we encounter every day. The result of this
activity is a growing audio collection of people’s no-go-zone stories,
issues and concerns.

The NO-GO-ZONES AUDIO RADIO PROJECT continues with new recordings,
reports, on-line and on-air broadcasts of new and archived material,
contributions in public events, with new audio donations and
contributions by listeners, and the up-coming DVD publication of these
contributions: a presentation of the first 100 influences on the
NO-GO-ZONES archive.

Methodologies.
The project will be adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods
for data collection and data analysis. The study will assume the form of
audio recordings consisting of interviews, songs, poems and other
expressive modes. The interview will. Snow-ball selection criteria will
be applied to identify participants and community leaders as well as
representatives of other civil society entities, state officials and
departments. This excise will enhance the understanding of perceptions
and attitudes of respondents using the metaphor of proverbs as a
foundation for inquiry, relating to a variety themes from political
economy, memories, social practices and artistic expressive modes.
Qualitative approach will also be helpful in the analysis of collected
data (Kuechler, 1998:178).

As Andrew, et al (2003:196) have indicated, survey method can be
utilised when conducting an experimental and non-experimental design
meant to understand perceptions of measurements of initiatives aimed to
improve the individuals’ livelihood (Furthermore, it can also be used in
cases where you want to extrapolate results on a certain or specific
studied group population. Case Study Case method is also used as an
ideal methodology when a holistic, in-depth investigation is needed and
following methods that are well developed and tested as any in the
scientific field. On the other hand, Case study method is designed to
bring out the details from the viewpoint of the participants by using
multiple sources of data. Interactive and collective monitoring reviews
will also be used to analyze data collection to ensure representation
around issues such as gender, age, literacy level, size, and race.

How was this achieved?
The project been running for a period of run for a period of nine (9)
months, using primarily six (6) research methods in order to realize its
set objectives.

Desk top/literature review and comparative analysis/monitoring.

Centralized orientation audio/oral history workshops.

Site based audio recordings and story development.

Centralized editorial sessions

Participative Wolpe series of Seminars /consultations with Tunde
Adegbola.

Write up and publication of report and popular manual.

Desk top/literature review phase:
The information will be collected from various secondary sources,
through public libraries, archives, expert consultations, usage computer
archives on pertaining to the research topic. This will include
published work by the researcher pertaining to the topic. Various
literatures on the same subject will be reviewed and different libraries
will be visited. This will include the identification of other social
movements and community based organizations working strategies in this
field that are adopted that would beneficiary to broader society. This
will assist the researcher in gaining information that is relevant to
the development of the study. This phase will occur throughout the
project cycle.

Practically orientated audio/oral history workshops.
The project will run with nine different sites (5 youth groups, 2 women
groups, 2 precarious groups) over a total of 40 workshop sessions with
participants drawn from groups from KwaDabeka (Clermont), Mznyathi,
Inanda (Newtown A & C) Bhambayi (Phoenix Settlement) Mbubulu (Folweni
Township) and KwaNgcolosi (Hillcrest), Wentsworth and Chatsworth,
Ntuzuma, uMlazi, . We are also in touch with Mr. Amisi Baruti, CCS PHD
candidate and the chairperson of the KZN Refugee Council; the
organisation has assisted and facilitated our outreach to refugee groups
based in Durban inner-city: Albert Park.

The objective of our initial focus on CCS connected community groups is
aimed at developing and strengthening these existing links of community
and academia towards balanced two-way communication, partnership and
mutual benefits. For example, the project aims at exploring together
with the groups/collectives, how their visibility and active
participation in online representations on the CCS web-site can be
increased, developed and facilitated.

Please see detailed Workshop Pack attached, for full details of Workshop
materials and content as well as anticipated outcomes.

Site based audio recordings, primary editing and story development.
The bulk of the project activities have taken place across the nine (9)
sites identified above. The purpose of his activity was to collect
recordings from the nine (9) sites. Roughly the recordings consist of
interviews with at least three representatives (3) of local development
practitioners/ organizations in the specific site, two (2)
representatives from local authorities such as a local councilor, five
(5) respondents who are considered local experts on the history of the
particular community, three (3) respondents from Churches or religious
societies from each site and seven (7) respondents who would represent a
sample of the demographic content of each site e.g. gender, age,
literacy level, size, and race. A Total of twenty (20) semi- formal
interviews in each of the sites have been collected by this project in
total one hundred and eighty (180) audio interviews have been generated
at the end of the project.

A total of fourteen (9) edited final audio dairies are being kept
throughout the project cycle.

The outcomes and outputs of the project will involve a process of
tailor-making the media and communication tools and methods jointly with
the individual groups by assessing and reflecting their current
facilities, particular needs and desires. For example a workable balance
and linking of on-line and off-line tools and products needs to be
fine-tuned to given local circumstances, while at once also opening a
view on the horizon of other additional means and options for future
developments

Regular centralized editorial sessions with editorial collectives.
Another opportunity for a listening exchange across the diverse groups
involved will also be provided by the contextual framework of Durban
Sings as a local exchange of interviews, songs and story-telling.

The common (switchboard) Blog: http://www.durbansings.wordpress.com serves as a shared and public archive for the communities themselves, in
particular, to develop and produce the final Durban Sings publications
in hard copy activist guidelines for oral history methods and findings
as well as in multi-media DVD publication which would present a
selection of songs and stories in off-line format and as visible
(possibly marketable) product. Such a common and communal production
process offers again the opportunity for exchange between the different
groups: each community/group as production team of their local audio
archive would send a representative with a pre-selected play-list of
local audio production to a joint editing meeting where the selection of
tracks for the DVD would be finalised. On-line and off-line
presentations could - in a long term perspective - develop the form of a
journal-like appearance with periodical publications and could find
further distribution via on-air broadcasts on local and national radio
stations, or, for example, via the individual audio collections of local DJ.

Participative Wolpe series of seminars /consultations with Tunde Adegbola
Once the above outlined audio/radio groundwork is in place, we then
invited a scholar, engineer and media activist based in Nigeria; Prof.
Tunde Adegbola for a week of interactive workshops and practical
presentations in Durban to explore together with us, members of the
editing collectives and communities, CCS members and other interested
civil society organisations and entitie

Tri-Continental Film Festival Durban community screenings – (hosted by Oliver Meth) 1- 12 October 2009

CCS COMMUNITY & MEDIA ADVISORY: Tri-Continental Film Festival Durban community screenings – Inanda, Chatsworth, Wentworth, CBD, & Folweni
The 2009 Tri Continental Film Festival runs from 11 September – 12 October at selected Ster-Kinekor and Cinema Nouveau nationally and in Durban communities, co-hosted by the UKZN Centre for Civil Society. The Centre for Civil Society (CCS) has an outstanding selection of films from across the globe.

Many of the films have gained international recognition by winning accolades at major international film festivals. This year’s festival will focus on a variety of human interest issues, which range from local and national revolutions in Mexico, Iran, Nepal and Burma to environmental disasters including Hurricane Katrina, lawsuits brought against Texaco in Ecuador, the global pollution of water and the impact of humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels.

The determination and stamina of women activists is also profiled in a number of films.

The UKZN Centre for Civil Society (CCS) will be screening these films in communities around Durban. The first community screening will kick off at the Nelson Mandela Youth Centre in Chatsworth at 6pm on October 1st, then running through into various communities until 10th October, alongside screenings at the Ster-Kinekor Musgrave Mall from the 08 October – 12 October, where many of the visiting filmmakers will also be present.

Tri-Continental Film Festival is a collaborative effort, between Tri Continental Film Festival, UKZN Centre for Civil Society, Encounters South African International Documentary Festival and the Southern Africa Communications for Development (SACOD).

For more information and contact Oliver Meth at the Centre for Civil Society on 031 260 3195.

Tri-Continental Film Festival, Durban Community screening 2009

Film: The Father Inside 48min, English Subtitles
Magadien Wentzel was first arrested in the mid seventies for taking part in a student protest against apartheid. This event was to change the course of his life. The youngster from Mannenberg in the Cape Flats decided to join the notorious prison gang “The Number”. He believed the gangs were freedom fighters on the “inside”. He spent most of his life in Western Cape prisons. In the short periods of freedom between his sentences he fathered three children. When back in jail he was a leader of the 28 gang, a powerful man who commanded fear. But destiny and history intervened again when prison reform programmes were introduced into South African prisons after Apartheid ended and Magadien became determined to rehabilitate. When he was finally released in 2003, he faced the arduous task of proving his reform to his three children, his community and himself.

Date: October 1
Time: 18h30
Venue: Chatsworth Youth Centre, Chatsworth
Contact: Orlean Naidoo – 072 671 2901

Film: A Place in the City - 30min
The ever growing rift between South Africa’s economically marginalised and its democratic government is told through members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shack dwellers’ movement lobbying for basic service delivery and opposing the removal of residents of informal settlements to new housing outside the city of Durban. Members argue that the eThekwini municipality’s recently instituted Slum Clearance Act, passed in the interest of creating a world class African city, is unconstitutional and will end their already limited access to economic opportunities. At the heart of Abahlali’s struggle is the fight for meaningful citizenship rights for South Africa’s poor majority.

Date: October 5
Time: 12h30
Venue: UKZN campus screening – Sh8
Contact: Oliver Meth – 079 584 4313

Film: In Prison My Whole Life
94min
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black Panther and radical journalist, was arrested for the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia in 1981. He claimed he was innocent but was sentenced to death and has been awaiting execution ever since. Over the years, he has attracted massive international support from organizations such as Amnesty International and world leaders like Nelson Mandela amongst others. Mumia has become the most famous and controversial death row inmate in the United States of America. Through his writings and web and radio broadcasts from Death Row, he has become known to many as “the Voice of the Voiceless”. Never-seen-before footage and brand new evidence create a prevailing case for reasonable doubt while exploring the socio-political climate of America – past and present. Featuring Angela Davis, Mos Def, Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Snoop Dogg, Steve Earle and Amy Goodman.

Date: October 6
Time: 13h00
Venue: Inanda Youth Centre, Newtown A
Contact: Dudu Khumalo – 076 516 2055

Film: Letters to the President
72min, English Subtitles
Allowed to travel on several of Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s populist trips to the countryside, the filmmaker describes a man different to portrayals by the international media- this portrait presents a charismatic politician rather than a dangerous firebrand. During his trips the President receives many letters – the government claims ten million – from poor Iranians asking for help. While not finding evidence for the government’s claim that it helps these letterwriters, the film does show that promises and propaganda ignite a desperate hope from those in need. This hope finds different outlets, particularly for the religious poor. They turn to belief in a Shia messiah, the Mahdi, who will come at the end of time to bring the world justice. At the holy Mosque where the Mahdi will one day reappear, the poor have begun to readdress their letters to their new patron with the belief that maybe he will offer salvation.

Date: October 7
Time: 14h30
Venue: Folweni Youth Centre, Folweni
Contact: Molefi Ndlovu – 076 4546007

Film: The Father Inside
48min, English Subtitles
Magadien Wentzel was first arrested in the mid seventies for taking part in a student protest against apartheid. This event was to change the course of his life. The youngster from Mannenberg in the Cape Flats decided to join the notorious prison gang “The Number”. He believed the gangs were freedom fighters on the “inside”. He spent most of his life in Western Cape prisons. In the short periods of freedom between his sentences he fathered three children. When back in jail he was a leader of the 28 gang, a powerful man who commanded fear. But destiny and history intervened again when prison reform programmes were introduced into South African prisons after Apartheid ended and Magadien became determined to rehabilitate. When he was finally released in 2003, he faced the arduous task of proving his reform to his three children, his community and himself.

Date: October 8
Time: 12h30
Venue: Wentworth Secondary School Hall, Wentworth
Contact: Oliver Meth – 079 584 4313

Hear Us - 16min, English Subtitles
Followed by Finger lunch for guests

In 2008, political violence erupted throughout Zimbabwe as a result of the contested national elections. Zimbabwean women of all ages, targeted for their political affiliations, were abducted from their workplaces and homes, raped, tortured, and beaten in secret torture centers. It is estimated that from May to July, state-sanctioned groups raped over 2,000 women and girls. The local police have ignored these women’s pleas for protection and justice, and national leaders have been equally unresponsive to local and international demands for an end to the violence. Hear Us features four of these women, who have come forward to demand justice from the Zimbabwean government and the Southern African Development Community. Women like Memory and Abigail, who struggle daily with the physical and psychological scars of their abuse, tell their stories to uncover the enduring effects of this violence on the women of Zimbabwe and their families

Date: October 9
Time: 12h30 – 3pm
Venue: IKES Bookstore, Florida Road, Musgrave
Contact:

Photos

Patrick Bond lectures at Suffolk Univ, Boston, 29 Sept-2 Oct 2009

College of Arts and Sciences: The Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series presents

Patrick Bond

Political economist, Patrick Bond is the Director of the Centre for Civil Society, and teaches political economy and eco-social policy at
the School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban, South Africa. Bond has authored/edited more than a dozen policy
papers of the new South African government between 1994-2002, including Reconstruction and Development Programme and the RDP White Paper. For information on his current research projects, please visit the Centre
for Civil Society website ccs.ukzn.ac.za

Please Join Us:

Climate Change: What's Wrong with Carbon Trading
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 29
Time: 1pm
Venue: Sawyer 427/429

South African Politics in the Zuma Era
Date: Wednesday, Sept. 30
Time: 7pm
Venue: Donahue 311
A reception will proceed this event at 6pm, McDermott Conference Room

The Current Crisis and Future of Capitalism
A panel discussion with David Tuerck, Chair of Economics & Sebastián Royo, Assoc. Dean, College of Arts & Sciences
Date: Thursday, Oct. 1
Time 1pm
Sawyer 427/429

Looting Africa
A panel discussion with James Carroll, Distinguished Scholar in Residence &
Lina Zedriga Waru Abuku, Hunt Alternatives Fund
Date: Friday, Oct. 2
Time: 12pm
Venue: The Poetry Center, Sawyer Library

For more information, please contact Nicole Vadnais,
nvadnais@suffolk.edu
or 617-305-6316.
http://www.suffolk.edu/36180.html

Dennis Brutus honored by War Resisters League, 18 September 2009

War Resisters League's 44th Annual Peace Award

Vinie Burrows, Kassahun Checole, Imani Countess, Jennifer Davis, Kenyon
Farrow, Silvia Federici & George Caffentzis, Haymarket Books, Jean &
George Houser, Chaz Maviyane, Liz Mestres, Matt Meyer & Meg Starr, Sonia
Sanchez, Bill Sutherland & Marilyn Meyer invite you to attend the

War Resisters League's 44th Annual Peace Award

k&j=287807494&u=3170302>Stubborn Hope: Celebrating the Ongoing Struggles for Justice and Peace in Southern Africa

Honoring the Work of Dennis Brutus, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), and Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)

Date: September 18, 2009
Time: 6:30 pm
Venue: Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South . New York City

WRL wishes to honor the work of Dennis Brutus, WOZA, and GALZ both by
hearing about their vital campaigns and activities and sharing food and
conversation, as we further weave our movements and celebrate our
victories. We will enjoy an African-inspired dinner at 6:30, followed by
a program and award ceremony at 8:00p.m. including Zimbabwean music.

For tickets and program ads please use our
k&j=287807494&u=3170303> online registration form or call 212.228.0450

About the Awardees:
Dennis Brutus was an anti-apartheid activist from within South Africa
beginning in the 1960s and played a leading role in the international
sports boycott that led to South Africa's ban from the Olympic Games. An
award-winning author, he fled the country after serving a jail term for
his political activity and was eventually granted political refugee
status in the United States, where he worked as professor of Africana
Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. A champion of many causes, he
most recently has been an outspoken campaigner against neoliberalism and
globalization, teaching at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Center for
Civil Society.

Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) was founded in 2003 to provide women from all walks of life with a united voice to speak out on issues affecting their day-to-day lives. Empowering female leadership and community
involvement in pressing for solutions to the political and economic
crisis currently facing Zimbabwe, WOZA has called for tough love based
on the principles of strategic nonviolence. With a national membership
of over 70,000 women and men, WOZA has defined tough love as a people
power tool that any community can use to press for better governance
and social justice.

Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was formed in 1990 to provide gay
men and lesbians in Zimbabwe with a network to facilitate communication
within the gay community. Gaining international attention some years
later when the government of Robert Mugabe banned the group from a
prominent Pan African book fair, GALZ has always emphasized the
importance of understanding that sexual rights are human rights.
Working closely with other human rights organizations, the women's
movement, AIDS initiatives, and regional associates, GALZ is working
around integrating gay rights with the other basic human rights for
which Zimbabwean civil society is currently battling. GALZ members
edited the book Unspoken Facts: A History of Homosexualities in Africa;
GALZ also serves on the Council of War Resisters' International.

For more information about the Peace Award please visit our k&j=287807494&u=3170304>website or call 212.228.0450

WRL 2009 Peace Award
Archbishop Tutu Statement 18 September 2009

It is a pleasure to congratulate Dennis Brutus, and the good members of
WOZA and GALZ, upon their receipt of the War Resisters League 2009
annual Peace Award. We must also congratulate the War Resisters League,
for recognizing the significance of the struggles in Southern Africa in
our global efforts for an end to violence and for a just peace.

When we in South Africa needed the support of the international
community to end the vicious system of racial oppression called
apartheid, we had to have eloquent advocates to tell the world our story
and persuade it to come to our assistance. We had none more articulate
than Dennis Brutus, our wonderful poet-campaigner. We owe him an immense
debt of gratitude.

In the difficult situation that Zimbabwe has been in, the members of
WOZA and GALZ have courageously continued fighting for human rights
there—specifically, for the rights of women and the rights of lesbians
and gay men. Homophobia and the unequal treatment of women are crimes
against humanity, every bit as unjust as apartheid. WOZA and GALZ show
the world that once a people decide they must be free, there can be no
stopping them.

We have long understood that militarism around the world is fueled by
racism and, indeed, by every suppression of human rights. For the War
Resisters League to expand its Peace Award to the international
community by honoring WOZA, GALZ, and Dennis tonight is but another step
in its eighty-six-year history of linking efforts for peace with efforts
for justice.

Finally, I am happy to know that WRL is also honoring its longtime
colleague and my dear friend, Bill Sutherland. For all those reasons, I
am glad to be part of this historic evening. God Bless you all.

The Most Rev. Desmond Mpilo Tutu
Archbishop Emeritus,
Anglican Church of Southern Africa
Nobel Peace Laureate, 1984

Gull
(read by Dennis for his War Resisters League award ceremony 18 September 2009)

Gull gliding against
gray-silver autumn sky
sees a vast miasma of greed
slowly encompass our entire planet
cries out to unheeding stars
to whom wails of children rise
in shrill unending caterwauls

Gull sees traps and snares
lethal pellets of noxious lead
noisome sewers of excreta
dribbling across continents
rivers of pesticide
oozing from lush golfcourses

Gull gasps, chokes on acrid billows
from rainforests rampaging fires
rancid with roasting flesh
ashen with cindered bones

Gull breasts with buckling wing
fierce gusts of questions
strives, resists against questions
slowly droops against questions
succumbs twisting against question
submits to extinction: Questions

October 18, 1995

Patrick Bond Booklaunch: Climate Change, Carbon Trading & Civil Society, 18 September 2009

Patrick Bondon climate and ecological debt 16 September 2009

Powerpoint Presentation by Patrick Bond

Oliver Meth People to People International Documentary Conference, 10-12 September 2009

Conference Programme

Patrick Bond debates Sampie Terreblanche, 6 August 2009

University of Cape Town Private Law Department: uBuntu Project Event Series

The uBuntu project tackles economics and opens up this semester with a series on the world economic crisis: how the world market emerged, the impact of the US meltdown on South Africa’s political economy, and future job prospects for today’s youth.

Thursday August 6th – The World Economic Crisis and SA’s future – Sampie Terreblanche and Patrick Bond (UKZN) talk on “The American economic meltdown: its economic and systemic implications for South Africa’s dysfunctional politico-economic system” and “South Africa’s Political Economy: Drawing Keynesian and Marxist Distinctions”

Kramer Law Building, Faculty Common Room, 17:00 – 19:00, refreshments will be served.
www.uct.ac.za

Patrick Bond addresses Ecuador eco-finance conference, 4 August 2009

Financing and the environment: Big problems and big solutions
Slide show from Patrick's Presentation

Conference programme

Patrick Bond at the South African Civil Society Energy Caucus Meeting, 29-30 July 2009

Hosted by The Institute for Security Studies’ Corruption & Governance Programme

THEME: The new nexus of power and accountability in South African energy

Venue: Townhouse Hotel, 60 Corporation Street, Cape Town
Date: 29 – 30 July 2009

The incoming government’s announcement of the decoupling of minerals & energy represents a symbolic shift away from a troubling legacy in South Africa. Civil society has long called for splitting the incongruous pair into departments with their own clear and distinct mandates. The new stand-alone Department of Energy now has the potential to break some of the steep tensions brought on by a period of capitalist accumulation. But systematic redress is required for this to be realised. A priority for the department is defining its role and mapping out its strategy on universal access to clean, affordable energy. Concurrently the Department will need to outline its strategy on a just transition away from fossil fuels to a no-carbon future that will also create new green jobs. They will also need to deal with a host of other governance and institutional issues, including most prominently resolving its murky relationship with state electricity utility, Eskom. In particular, how will the Department monitor reforms in the Department of Public Enterprises around the better behaviour and governance of Eskom? In addition, how does government plan to manage tensions between itself, Eskom and Nersa and to negotiate conflicts of interest which prevent the national regulator from carrying out its key tasks. How will they put an end to the conflation between electricity and energy that we seem intransigent with. To address all of these requirements will mean a deeper engagement with citizens, listening to their needs, being open & transparent, including them on all manners of decision-making processes and fostering accountability. It may also mean inspiring a more serious conversation with other government departments. Clearly tough choices must be made as the ramifications go well beyond the Department of Energy to fundamentally reorganising power relations in our country as well as confronting the premise and trajectory of our current development model.

This two-day meeting of the South African Civil Society Energy Caucus will explore the country’s willingness and ability to deal with fierce governance challenges ahead which aim to create benchmarks for a sustainable, socially just future.

PROGRAMME

Day 1: Wednesday 29 July

09:00 Registration & Tea

09:30 Welcome & election of chair Trusha Reddy, ISS

09:45 A dawn for new Energy: Prospects for South African governance

Opening Panel & discussion

Vision & leadership in confronting energy & sustainable development challenges

Saliem Fakir, WWF-SA

Decoupling minerals & energy: New dressing for the status quo?

Lance Greyling , Independent Democrats

11:00 Monitoring accountability & transparency deficits: Preliminary findings of the Electricity Governance Initiative Gary Pienaar, Idasa

Presentation & discussion to follow

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Retro-gazing energy governance in South Africa Patrick Bond, Centre for Civil Society

Presentation & discussion to follow

14:00 Electricity price hikes: What hope of rights for the poor to access & inclusion? Liziwe McDaid, The Green Connection

Presentation & discussion to follow

15:00 Tea break

15:30 SA’s international positions & engaging the African region in Copenhagen & beyond Tasneem Essop, WWF-SA

Presentation & discussion to follow

16:30 Closing comments Trusha Reddy, ISS

17:00 Day 1 ends

Day 2: Thursday 30 July

09:00 Review of Day 1

09:15 Putting nuclear back on table: Profits, players & decisions Mike Kantey, Coalition against Nuclear Energy

Presentation & discussion to follow

10:00 The true cost of coal: Price escalations, land grabs & water shortages Mariette Lieferlink, Public Environmental Arbiters

Presentation & discussion to follow

10:45 Tea break

11:15 Techno-fixing a way out of the energy crisis: Big renewables, carbon capture & storage and green jobs Andrew Marquard, Energy Research Centre and Sibusiso Mimi, NUM

Presentation & discussion to follow

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Civil society engagement on energy: Break-out session

Question 1: What energy governance issues should civil society prioritise?

Question 2: What accountability, transparency & oversight structures & mechanisms regarding energy does civil society want government to put in place?

Question 3: What lessons has civil society learnt on engaging in energy?

Question 4: Does civil society need to change the way we engage with different actors (i.e. the Department of Energy/government, Eskom, Nersa, relevant depts, other groups in civil society, corporates) for greater impact? If so, how do we need to act?

14:00 Break-out session feedback and drafting decisions & actions

15:00 Tea break

15:30 Shell’s Climate Scenarios 2050 Rodger Duffet, Association for Peak Oil Studies

Presentation & discussion to follow

16:45 Concluding remarks

CCS hosts free screenings of Durban International Film Festival, 25 July - 1 August 2009

CCS COMMUNITY & MEDIA ADVISORY:
Centre for Civil Society hosts free screenings of Durban International Film Festival in communities around Durban, July 25- August 01

From 25 July through August 1, University of KwaZulu Natal Centre for Civil Society is hosting free film screenings of new Durban International Film Festival documentaries in various poor and working class communities across Durban: the central city, Chatsworth, South Durban, Inanda and KwaMashu. The films will be followed by discussions, in two cases with the filmmakers.

In addition, at UKZN's Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre on 30 July, CCS proudly hosts the world premiere of the documentary Fahrenheit 2010, the first critical analysis of the hidden costs of the World Cup.

For information on the documentaries and the other DIFF events, see http://www.ukzn.ac.za/cca

For more information, contact CCS offices on 031 260 3195

CCS Film Schedule:

WOW Family Resource Centre, Austerville Drive Saturday 25 July, 17h30, Poison fire/ H2Oil Guests in attendance include Bobby Peek and filmmaker Shannon Walsh

BAT Centre, CBD, Sunday 26 July, 13h00, Give Us This Day Followed by a post screening discussion

Inanda Seminary School, Inanda Monday 27 July, 09h30, Cemetery Stories Post screening discussion with filmmaker Cherif Keita

Ohlange Secondary School, Inanda Monday 27 July, 14h30, Cemetery Stories Post screening discussion with filmmaker Cherif Keita

Glenover Secondary School, Chatsworth, Unit 3, Tuesday 28 July, 10h30, Babalwa's Story Post screening discussion

Nelson Mandela Youth Centre, Chatsworth, Thursday 30 July, 19h00, Give Us this Day Post screening discussion

YMCA, Diakonia Avenue, CBD Friday 31 July, 12noon, ISETA- Behind the Road Block/ Sacred Places Post screening discussion

WOW Family Resource Centre, Austerville Drive, Wentworth, Saturday 1 Aug, 17h30, Babalwa’s Story / God Loves Sinners Post screening discussion

DIFF SCHEDULE WITH CCS SUPPORT:
UKZN Thursday 30 July, Farenheit 2010 30 min QnA with filmmaker Craig Tanner
KwaMashu Saturday 1 Aug, Rough Aunties Followed by post screening discussion

FAHRENHEIT 2010 – WARMING UP FOR THE WORLD CUP IN SOUTH AFRICA
d. Craig Tanner, Australia/South Africa 2009 DOC

The measured Fahrenheit 2010 systematically examines the expectations of a variety of South Africans on the country’s staging of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Focal points of the film are South Africa’s socio-economic disparities and debate as to whether the erection of state of the art sports arenas will leave the country with white elephants which it can ill afford. Interviewees include Danny Jordaan, Desmond Tutu, Michael Sutcliffe, Jomo Sono, Dennis Brutus and also, amongst others, construction workers, street traders, soccer players and the sangoma with the answer to Bafana Bafana’s woes.

POISON FIRE
d. Lars Johansson, Tanzania 2008 S.DOC

After fifty years of oil exploitation, the Niger Delta is an environmental disaster zone. One and a half million tons of crude oil has been spilled into the creeks, farms and forests. Natural gas contained in the crude oil is not being collected, but burnt off in gas flares, burning day and night for decades. The flaring produces as much greenhouse gases as 18 million cars and emits toxic and carcinogenic substances in the midst of densely populated areas. Corruption is rampant, the security situation is dire, and people are dying. But the oil keeps fl owing.

H20IL
d. Shannon Walsh, Canada 2009 DOC

Ever wonder where America gets most of its oil? Surprisingly, it’s biggest supplier has become Canada’s oil sands. Located under Alberta’s pristine boreal forests, the process of oil sands extraction uses up to four barrels of fresh water to produce only one barrel of crude oil.

H2Oil traces the wavering balance between the urgent need to protect and preserve fresh water resources and the mad clamouring to fill the global demand for oil. With hope and courage the film tells the story of one of the most significant, and destructive, projects of our time.

GIVE US THIS DAY
d. Billy Raftery, South Africa/USA 2009 DOC

With former street kids behind the camera, director Billy Raftery’s Give Us This Day provides an authentic and intimate look into the lives of Durban’s most visible members. In search of better lives, these kids find only a world of prostitution, drug addiction, and extreme violence. As their innocence is ripped away, all we can do is watch this gut wrenching story unfold. Raftery’s film challenges viewers to look past the violent and often-times graphic images of Durban’s street kids and see the homeless youth for what they are… children.

CEMETERY STORIES: A REBEL MISSIONARY IN SOUTH AFRICA
d. Cherif Keita, USA/South Africa 2009 DOC

Cemetery Stories, the result of eight years of intense research and sleuthing by Malian director Cherif Keita, is an absolute must for South African history buff s. Keita traces the intimate connections between the legendary first president of the ANC, John Dube, and Americans

William and Idabelle Wilcox, a pair of long-forgotten 19th-century renegade missionaries. He convincingly shows how their friendship stands as major landmark in the struggle for black liberation and democracy in South Africa. Along the way, Keita discovers lost pieces of both family histories and eventually reconnects surviving members in Durban.

BABALWA’S STORY
d. Charlene Houston, South Africa 2008 DOC

Babalwa Matomela is a bubbly 22-year-old. However her radiant smile underlies a terrible past. At the age of eight, Babalwa was first molested by a family friend. She kept this a secret, hoping to protect her mother. But the secret took its toll and Babalwa eventually tried to commit suicide twice. Children at school taunted her and boys began taking liberties. At high school, Babalwa became promiscuous and used drugs and alcohol to numb her feelings of fear and shame. It was during this time that she was raped nine times, including by her own boyfriend. A powerful tale of a human being's capacity to heal and grow.

ISETA – BEHIND THE ROADBLOCK
d. Juan Reina and Eric Kabera, Rwanda 2008 DOC

During 1994, on quiet road in Kigali, a group of people murdered their neighbours. These were the opening days of the Rwandan genocide, and though almost one million people were eventually slaughtered, there is remarkably only one known segment of footage showing any actual killing. This harrowing film traces the journey of the original photographer as he returns to Rwanda, revisiting the people and events that he caught on tape. As the footage returns to the community, friends and family relive the tragic events and work with the photographer to identify the victims, and then eventually the killers.

GOD LOVES SINNERS
d. Nami Mhlongo, South Africa 2008 S.DOC

Tumi and Nomonde love each other and simply desire to get married, and while in South Africa the implementation of the Civil Unions Bill extends the legal rights to gay and lesbians to marry, the battle is far from over for two black women. The women must deal with a culture of homophobia in their community and fi nd ways of negotiating the inflexible traditional and religious lines within which they were raised.

ROUGH AUNTIES
d. Kim Longinotto, United Kingdom/South Africa 2008 DOC

Sundance-winning Rough Aunties reveals Amanzimtoti-based Operation Bobbi Bear, a diverse group of women bound together by a commitment to helping abused children. They refuse to stop caring about their young victims, and though sheer defi ance manage to create an alternative social world in which each person cares for all the others. We see the most intimate moments of their lives and work, from gentle support of wounded children to kicking down doors in nighttime police raids. This powerful and profoundly moving film shows how it is often the most horrifying situations that bring out the best in people.

African and South African Films at Durban International Film Festival 2009 July 16th, 2009 by Sharlene Versfeld

The 30th Durban International Film Festival, marks a special point in history of this, South Africa’s longest running festival which continues to celebrate cinema and the art of filmmaking. In the last three decades, African films have remained central to the programming of the DIFF and despite significant downsizing of the overall number of films in the programme, the focus on African content has not shifted. The Festival is proud to present 77 African films, comprising 9 feature films, 28 documentaries and 49 short films. Despite challenges in respect of financing and audience interest for African cinema, a stream of well crafted films continue to get made on the continent, and DIFF is a valued showcase for a selection of such films.

DIFF opens with the South African premiere of internationally acclaimed Durban-made feature My Secret Sky directed by Madoda Ncayiyana, a moving tale of two orphaned rural children and their adventures on the streets of Durban. Other South African films premiering at the festival include the South African Bollywood romantic comedy For Better For Worse by Naresh Veeran, South Africa’s first Xhosa feature length film Intonga by JJ Van Rensburg and Long Street, a second offering from Revel Fox, director of The Flyer. Savo Tufegdzic’s controversial first feature named Crime – Its a way of Life is an unflinching portrait of the psychology of crime in South Africa. Steve Jacobs’ Disgrace is an Australia production of the adaptation of JM Coetzee’s Booker Prize winning novel, and stars John Malkovich with Durban actress Jessica Haines. Anthony Fabian’s Skin is a South African-UK co-production based on a true story about Sandra Laing who was born to a white family during apartheid, but happened to be black. The world premiere of White Lion is an exquisitely shot story about an albino lion cub rejected by his pride yet revered by the Shangaan tribe, great family viewing. Another film suitable for children is The Seven of Daran – The Battle of Pareo Rock, a Dutch production directed by Lourens Blok, shot in South Africa, about two children’s adventures with a mythical giraffe.

Also in the African contingent of feature films this year is The Absence, Senegalese Mama Keita’s thought-provoking film on the brain-drain of African skills and knowledge, particularly to Europe; African Movie Academy Awards winner for Best Nigerian Feature Film Tunde Kelani’s Arugba as well as From a Whisper from Kenya’s Wanuri Kahiu.

In addition to these feature films, the selection of African documentaries includes Sundance Award winning Kim Longinotto’s Rough Aunties, a revealing insight into the dramas of an Amanzimtoti organisation who help abused children, Zola Maseko’s The Manuscripts of Timbuktu about Africa’s great ancient centre of learning, and Malian director Cherif Keita’s well researched unfolding of the connections between ANC founder John Dube and renegade missionaries in Cemetery Stories: A Rebel Mission in South Africa. ISETA- Behind the Roadblock is a personal portrait of lives shattered by the Rwandan genocide; Give Us This Day by Billy Raftery follows the lives of vulnerable children living in the streets of Durban and Charlene Houston’s Babalwa’s Story succinctly paints the picture of the crisis of masculinity in South Africa while championing the resilience of one courageous young woman.

The Foster Brothers (Craig and Damon) have two films in the festival, the world premiere of Ice Man (about Lewis Pugh whose swims in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans highlight the perils of melting ice-caps) and The Nature of Life which addresses climate change from a unique African perspective. Richard H. Nosworthy’s film Reg Park – The Legend documents the life and times of body-building legend Reg Park; The Silver Fez by Lloyd Ross brilliantly explores the competitive character of Cape Malay music culture, while Zwelidumile by Ramadan Suleman shows the impact of exile on families left behind through the story of legendary self-exiled artist Dumile Feni. Cameroonian master filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno presents Sacred Places a film on filmmaking, art, African cinema, globalisation popular culture and business in contemporary Africa. The excellent YandėCodou, The Griot of Senghor introduces us to a remarkable 80-year old singer of polyphonic Sérère poetry, while Canadian production, Nollywood Babylon is a funny, insightful and gripping portrait of the phenomenal Nigerian film industry that delves deep into the lives of the filmmakers and audience in the slums of Lagos. Directed by Ntokozo Mahlalela, Tribes and Clans, a study on tribalism in contemporary South Africa is bound to spark some serious debate on race and identity.

Long regarded as the foundation of good cinema, the short film form is also well represented by African filmmakers this year, with ground breaking works from emerging and established filmmakers. Festival favourite director Akin Omotoso returns to DIFF with Jesus and the Giant an experimental film constructed entirely from over 7000 digital stills images. Michael J Rix, director of South Africa’s first feature length stop frame animation, returns this year with a 5 minute film Strings; Waramutseho by Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu is a Cameroon-Belgium-France co-production that takes a look at the Rwandan genocide from a surprising angle; Voice of Our Forefathers is an M-Net Edit film by KZN local Thomas Hart while acclaimed Zimbabwean writer / filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga offers a musical drama on the scourge of HIV in Zimbabwe called Sharing Day. Not to be missed is the hilarious small town comedy Miss Sgodiphola by Andy “The Admiral” Kasrils; Rwandan Daddy Ruhorahoza’s Lost in the South; Alicia Price’s You’ve been terrified, a telling spoof on reality TV that examines our attitudes towards crime and safety as well Durbanite Akona Matyila’s Ulysses. Also featuring is Coming Home, written by and starring 12 year old Amber-Jay van Rooyen, which has already won international awards. Short films serve as calling card to the industry for entry level filmmakers and the Durban Short Film Challenge, a project of the Durban Film Society that invited filmmakers to make a five minute film in two weeks on a specific theme, has produced a selection of the top 12 films entered to be screened at a special event of the festival on the 30 July at the KZNSA Gallery.

FULL DIFF PROGRAMME

Patrick Bond lecture at carbon trading conference, Johannesburg, 22 July 2009

Environmental
Targets: Who Wins and Loses in Carbon Trading for Emissions Mitigation?
Paper Presented Carbon Trading in Africa Conference.

Patrick Bond lecture on SA Political Economy, San Francisco socialist conference, 4 July 2009

Socialism 2009: Building a New Left for a New Era
San Francisco July 2-5

Orlean Naidoo on participation at DDP seminar, 30 June 2009

Exploring forms of political participation in post-apartheid South Africa

Date: 30 June 2009
Venue: Southern Sun – Elangeni – Durban
Time: 18h00 to 20h00
RSVP : Nondumiso by fax (031 306 2261) or e-mail Nondumiso@ddpdurban.org.za

Critics of the good governance agenda argue that the post-apartheid government’s embrace of liberal democratic theory’s narrow view of politics and participation has created an illusionary divide between civil society and political society. They argue that the tendency to co-opt civil society actors into highly bureaucratized and corporatized arrangements of participation has depoliticized popular agency and has been a strategy to contain oppositional practices. However, evidence suggests that ordinary people are participating in politics using multiple strategies of engagement. Democratic literature is replete with examples of this new participatory drama that has been unfolding in post-apartheid South Africa in which grassroots mobilizations to claim recognition and demand social change happen across an array of formal and informal spaces, ranging from councils, committees, courts, protests, demonstrations, picketing, etc. This new way of practicing politics has expanded the scope of politics from elections and constitutionalism to the redistributional effects of democracy.

To unpack this new participatory drama the DDP will be hosting a public seminar to explore the different ways in which South Africa’s disproportionately poor and marginalized masses are practicing politics in post-apartheid South Africa.

Speakers
Steven L. Robins: Professor of Sociology, University of Stellenbosch and author of From Revolution to Rights in South Africa: Social Movements, NGOs and Popular Politics after Apartheid

Orlean Naidoo: political activist and chairperson of the West Cliff Flats Residence Association

Political Science Researcher
Democracy Development Programme
MA Social Policy
University of KwaZulu Natal
+27-31 304 9305 (office)
+27-31 306 2261 (fax)
+27 72 092 2069 (mobile)
www.dp.org.za

Patrick Bond on 'World Slump: Financial Crisis and Emerging Class Struggles in the Global South', 28 June 2009

The paradigm of debt as applied to ecology
SlideShow from Patrick Bonds presentation

Patrick Bond on African social resistance to economic crisis, Moscow, 26 June 2009

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
HIERARCHY AND POWER IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATIONS
Conference programme

Oliver Meth and Orlean Naidoo facilitate Diakonia Council of Churches Democracy Course, 24 -26 June 2009

“Does the church still need prophets?”

Over the centuries, the church has played a significant and prophetic role in speaking truth to power. In South Africa, we witnessed the church speaking out and taking prophetic action against injustice during the apartheid era.

Has the church been silenced in a post-democratic South Africa?

Why is the church so silent on issues of injustice today

Should the church involve itself in demanding basic human rights for all?
How can we involve ourselves in action inspired by our faith?

Diakonia Council of Churches offers you
a 3-day residential workshop

Who should attend: All lay, youth and church leaders with a concern for social justice issues.
When: Wednesday 24 June to Friday 26 June 2009
Where: St Philomena’s – Sydenham, Durban

Facilitated by UKZN School of Religion and Governance and UKZN Centre for Civil Society

BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL

There is NO COST for this fully residential course.

Transport to St Philomena’s will be available from Diakonia Centre at 9am on 24 June.

To reserve your space, contact Anton at (031) 310-3500 or by e-mail at anton.mlambo@diakonia.org.za on or before Friday 12 June 2009.

Workshop Programme

Patrick Bond, Abedian, Dumisa, Maharaj et al on 'Zumanomics', UKZN Biz School, 3 June 2009

Patrick Bond
Date:3 June 2009
Time: 18:00
Venue:University Of KwaZulu Natal - Graduate School of Business -
Westville Campus

Slide Show from Patrick Bond's Presentation

Rehana Dada keynote address to Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute AGM, 2 June 2009

Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute AGM

Date:Tuesday, 2nd June 2009
Time: Starts 18:30
Venue:Temple David 369 Ridge Road, Overpoort, Durban

Programme
18:30 Finger Supper
Climate Change Can Faith Communities
be part of the solution?
19:00 Guest speakers: Rehana Dada & Liz McDaid
20:00 AGM

Patrick Bond on African underdevelopment at the IDS conference, 1 June 2009

Conference Programme

Dates: 1 June 2009
Time: 10.00 - 18.00
Location: IDS room 120-121

The conference will combine formal presentations, from students as well as experts. In addition to formal presentations, we will engage with misconceptions and gaps in the understanding of Africa through debates and group activities. Ultimately, the aim is to unearth new and forgotten insights about Africa and the vision for her future.

Speakers include:

Lawrence Haddad, Director of the Institute of Development Studies

Kofi Klu, UK-based Pan African activist

Daniel Mataruka, Director of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation

Patrick Bond, renowned Marxist/political activist

African snacks and food to be provided by Pamoja throughout the day!

Book your place now by mailing Pamoja.ids@gmail.com

www.ids.ac.uk

Trevor Ngwane at the International Conference on Ideas and Strategies in the Alterglobalisation Movement, Seoul, 29 May 2009

Date: 29 May 2009
Time: 9:30am - 6:00pm,
Venue: 10th floor Conference Room, Rinnai Building Gyeongsang University Institute for Social Sciences, Seoul,
Paper:Anti-capitalist community resistance to
energy privatization and carbon markets in South Africa By Patrick Bond and Trevor Ngwane
Presenter: Trevor Ngwane

Programme

Registration: 9:30am-9:50am

Opening Remarks: 9:50am-10:00am
Sang-Hwan Jang (Gyeongsang National University, Korea)

Session 1: International Comparison of Ideas and Strategies on
Alterglobalization Movements 10:10am - 12:10pm
Chairperson: Ha-Soon Park (People’s Solidarity for Social Progress, Korea)
Speaker: Jin-Sang Jeong (Gyeongsang National University, Korea)

Lunch Break: 12:10pm-13:10pm

Session 2: Varieties of Experiences and Varieties of Approaches in
Alterglobalization Movements 1:10pm - 3:40pm
Chairperson: Seung-Wook Baik (Chung-Ang University, Korea)
Speakers: Dae-Oup Chang (SOAS-University of London, Korea)
Martin Hart-Landsberg (Lewis and Clark College, USA)
Trevor Ngwane (University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa)

Coffee Break: 3:40pm-4:00pm

Session 3: World Economic Crisis and Marxian Alternatives in
Alterglobalization Movements 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Chairperson: Soo-Haeng Kim (Sungkonghoe University, Korea)
Speakers: Michael Krätke (Lancaster University, Germany)
Gerard Dumenil (University of Paris X:Nanterre, France)

Patrick Bond debates 'The G20 Global Deal' at Wits/Osisa, Johannesburg, 12 May 2009

The University of the Witwatersrand
Graduate School of Public and Development Management (P&DM)

and

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)

Invites you to a

PUBLIC SEMINAR

Post G-20 Summit Reflections:
Issues and Perspectives for Africa

12 May 2009

09h00 – 14h00

Hofmeyr House
University of the Witwatersrand
East Campus
Braamfontein
(It is below Jubilee Hall Residence and is sign posted from Yale Road).
Parking is available on site

RSVP: Moratuoa by 8 May 2009
Tel: 011 403 3414
Fax: 011 403 2708
E-mail: Moratuoat@osisa.org

Post G-20 Summit Reflections:
Issues and Perspectives for Africa

PROGRAMME

Panel 1

South African Perspective on the G-20 London Summit: Key Issues and Concerns
Michael Sachs: Chief Director of International Finance and Development, Government of the Republic of South Africa

The G20 Global Deal and its Implications for Africa and Development
Professor Patrick Bond: Political Economist, Centre for Civil Society, University of Kwazulu Natal

Discussion & Break

Panel 2

Threats and Opportunity for Africa in the New Global Trade Regimes and the Impact of Protectionism
Professor Daniel Bradlow: SARCHI Professor of International Development Law and African Economic Relations, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria

New Wine in Old Wine Skins? The G20 Deal and Prospects for a New Development Paradigm
Dr Godfrey Kanyenze: Executive Director Labour and Economic Development Institute (LEDRIZ), Harare, Zimbabwe

A survey of Poverty and Social Protection Issues and Imperatives: The Role of Civil Society in the Context of the G20 Deal
Nancy Kachingwe: Senior Policy Analyst, Action Aid International

Discussion

Lunch

CCS/DYFS - Anti-xenophobia film screening facilitators workshop, 9 May 2009

The Centre for Civil Society together with the Durban Youth Film Society will mark the month of May by commemorating a dark chapter in South African history. A year ago, the country witnessed malicious xenophobic attacks. We use this month to screen awareness films in communities where xenophobia may still be a problem, in order to create a local dialogue about the underlying causes. We will be in areas where the violence erupted and we will reflect on these events, create a space for dialogue in communities and hopefully help ensure they never occur again.

The Filmmakers Against Racism (FAR) initiative was started by concerned filmmakers during and after the pogroms of May 2008. The FAR initiative has become much more than a package of films curated to commemorate the events of last year. It has become a movement through which artists, civil society organisations and the community at large enter into dialogue about the ills of society bred through discrimination, hate and racism. Nine films were made through the FAR initiative, and these have been packaged with a facilitators guide for post screening discussions.

We also want to use these nine films as a healing process, not only healing the victims of xenophobia, but also the perpetrators of the violence who have their own pain and anger that needs care. We hope to use the films to create a dialogue that works towards restoring dignity, tolerance and balance.

Two representatives from each of the groups attending CCS Wolpe lectures have been invited to attend the facilitators guide training workshop, on Saturday May 9th at CCS training room, from 10h30 till 17h00. Others with interests should contact Oliver Meth at 031 260 3195.

Patrick Bond, Joburg Wolpe Lecture at Wits Univ, 7 May 2009

World Economic Crisis: Implications for South Africa

Patrick Bond at Cosatu electricity workshop, Joburg, 6 May 2009

Rehana Dada at York Univ climate ecojustice conference, Toronto, 16-17 April 2009

Two-Day CONFERENCE, at York University

Date: 16-17 April
Locations: April 16th,Founders Assembly Hall
April 17th, The Underground

Open to All!

Strengthening Leadership for the
Ecojustice Movement:
Community activists and activist scientists from Brazil, India, South Africa, and Arctic Canada will share stories of local vulnerabilities to climate change, and discuss strategies for addressing inequities in climate change causation, mitigation, funding, and global/local politics.

For more information please contact the conference coordinators:
Annette Dubreuil (afdubreu@yorku.ca) or
Jennifer Jew (jenjew@yorku.ca)
RSVP Jen at jenjew@yorku.ca.
Phone: 416-736-2100 ext 33631
347 York Lanes, York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3
Canada

Dennis Brutus: Reconciliation and the Work of Memory in Post-apartheid South Africa, 3 April 2009

DIALOGUE FORUM: RECONCILIATION AND THE WORK OF MEMORY IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

Memory and reparations: Beyond human rights reconciliation under neoliberal capitalism
A comradely response to Jody Kollapen
By Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond, Johannesburg, 3 April 2009

Dates: Thursday 2 April (14.00–16.15)
Friday 3 April (09.30-16.45)

Venue: Nelson Mandela Foundation,107 Central Street, Houghton

Please R.S.V.P. to Lee Davies at leed@nelsonmandela.org or by calling +27 11 853 2627 / +27 11 728 1000 by no later than 15 March 2009.

Please indicate which days and which sessions you will be attending should you not be able to attend the forum in its entirety.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation and the South African History Archive, in partnership with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, are convening a dialogue forum on the theme “Reconciliation and the Work of Memory in Post-apartheid South Africa”. The forum is intended as the first in a series of dialogues around this theme.

South Africa has received praise from around the world for the way in which it has dealt with its oppressive past. Its post-apartheid governments have insisted on the making of a future through intense engagement with memory of the colonial and apartheid eras. Memory work has ranged from the endeavour of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to the flowering of new museums and archives, from the investigations underpinning the land restitution process to the writing of new histories for schoolchildren, from the research supporting special pensions and the location of missing persons to the use of freedom of information instruments by civil society.

It is time to ask searching questions of this post-apartheid memory work. How effective has it been? Is the assumption of exemplary status for South Africa in dealing with its oppressive past justified? Has the springboard constituted by the TRC been utilised adequately by structures of the state and of civil society? There are signs that the work of reconciliation in South Africa has only just started. Old social fissures remain resilient. New ones are appearing. Social cohesion is proving elusive. Could it be that our post-apartheid memory work has been too superficial? And that the really difficult memory work remains to be done?

Four prominent public intellectuals have been commissioned to prepare papers on the theme, each working from a particular societal frame of reference – justice, race, rights and power. Each paper will constitute the opening provocation for a working session. A respondent has been commissioned for each session, and the interchange between speaker and respondent will initiate discussion under the guidance of a facilitator.

Programme

Thursday 2 April

14:00-14:30 Registration

14:30-14:45 Introduction: Achmat Dangor

14:45-16:15 Justice (Speaker: Justice Kate O’Regan; Respondent: Professor Shadrack Gutto)

Friday 3 April

09:30-11:00 Power (Speaker: Professor Ciraj Rassool; Respondent: Dr. Mohau Pheko)

11:30-13:00 Race (Speaker: Professor Xolela Mangcu; Respondent: Commissioner Pregs Govender)

14:00-15:30 Rights (Speaker: Commissioner Jody Kollapen; Respondent: Professor Dennis Brutus)

15:45-16:45 Reflections from Germany (speaker to be announced) and Kenya (Ambassador Kiplagat)

Dennis Brutus celebrations, honorary doctorates, 16- 18 April 2009

He holds six honorary doctorates, including from University of Durban-Westville (now UKZN). He was the recipient of the Langston Hughes Award in 1987 (the first non-African American to receive that award), and was honoured with the first Paul Robeson Award in 1989 for artistic excellence, political consciousness and integrity. He was one of the first South African poets to be widely read internationally, and his work found early critical acclaim. His first book, Sirens, Knuckles, Boots was published by Mbari Press at Ibaden University, Nigeria in 1963 (he won the Mbari Literary Prize but turned it down on grounds of racial exclusivity), at a time he was imprisoned for defying a banning order by the apartheid government. This banning was the result of his ultimately successful campaign to desegregate the South African Olympic team. After being shot in the back by the Special Branch secret police during an escape attempt in 1963, and then breaking rocks for 18 months at Robben Island prison alongside Nelson Mandela, Brutus was exiled in 1965. He resumed simultaneous careers as a poet and anti-apartheid campaigner, and in 1968 was instrumental in achieving the apartheid regimes expulsion from the Mexican Olympics and then in 1970 from the Olympic movement. He won numerous awards for poetry, and helped organize key African writers organizations with his colleagues Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. Upon moving to the U.S., Brutus served in several academic positions, defeating high-profile efforts by the Reagan Administration to deport him (1980-83). Following the transition to democracy in South Africa, Brutus remained active with grassroots social movements in his home country and internationally. In the late 1990s he became a pivotal figure in the global justice movement and a featured speaker each year at the World Social Forum. In the anti-racism, reparations and economic justice movements, he continues to serve as a leading strategist. In South Africa, he is a key figure in the Social Movements Indaba, a coalition of progressive activists, and Jubilee South Africa. In 2006 he published the autobiographical book Poetry and Protest (Haymarket Press and UKZN Press). In 2007 he was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame but turned down the honour on grounds of residual racism in professional sports. In 2008 he received the South African Literary Award for Distinguished Lifetime Literary Achievement.

Brutus's poetry collections are:

Sirens Knuckles and Boots (Mbari Productions, Ibaden, Nigeria and
Northwestern University Press, Evanston Illinois, 1963).

Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (Heinemann, Oxford, 1968).

Poems from Algiers(African and Afro-American Studies and Research
Institute, Austin, Texas, 1970).

A Simple Lust (Heinemann, Oxford, 1973).

China Poems (African and Afro-American Studies and Research Centre, Austin, Texas, 1975).

Strains (Troubador Press, Del Valle, Texas).

Stubborn Hope (Three Continents Press, Washington, DC and Heinemann,
Oxford, 1978).

Salutes and Censures (Fourth Dimension, Enugu, Nigeria, 1982).

Airs & Tributes (Whirlwind Press, Camden, New Jersey, 1989).

Still the Sirens (Pennywhistle Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1993).

Remembering Soweto, ed. Lamont B. Steptoe (Whirlwind Press, Camden,
New Jersey, 2004).

Leafdrift, ed. Lamont B. Steptoe (Whirlwind Press, Camden, New Jersey,
2005).

Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Haymarket Books, Chicago
and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 2006).

Brutus itinerary:

Paterson High School congratulate/welcome Brutus (Brutus was a
teacher during the 1950s), 16 April

Paterson High School alumni celebration in PE, 6-9pm 16 April (venue TBC)

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Graduation, 9am 17 April

Rhodes University Graduation, 6pm 17 April

Rhodes University luncheon, 18 April

Activist and poet, Professor Dennis Vincent BRUTUS, in recognition of his contributions to South African letters and to human rights, democracy and justice, will receive a D Litt (Doctor of Literature) from both Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Rhodes University on April 17th.

Two honorary doctorates are to be conferred on UKZN Centre for Civil Society Honorary Professor (and renowned poet), Dennis Brutus, on April 17. The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Rhodes University will be honouring him in this way. Paterson High School, where he was educated and later taught, will host an alumni celebration on April 16th at The Southend Museum in Port Elizabeth.

Amongst Africa's best-known poets, Dennis Brutus was born in Harare (then Salisbury) in 1924. He was educated in Port Elizabeth, including Paterson High School (where he later taught) and Schauderville High School, before entering Fort Hare University on full scholarship in 1940. He graduated with a distinction in English and a second major in Psychology, and studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand, until his arrest at the South African Olympics Committee office in 1963. He is presently Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society and Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh Departments of English and Africana Studies (which he chaired from 1975-78). He was formerly professor at Northwestern University English Department, visiting professor at the Universities of Denver and Texas, and Distinguished Visiting Humanist at the University of Colorado. He has lectured worldwide as well as in South Africa, and was appointed Research Fellow at the University of Durban-Westville in 1997.

He holds six honorary doctorates, including from University of Durban-Westville (now UKZN). He was the recipient of the Langston Hughes Award in 1987 (the first non-African American to receive that award), and was honoured with the first Paul Robeson Award in 1989 for artistic excellence, political consciousness and integrity. He was one of the first South African poets to be widely read internationally, and his work found early critical acclaim. His first book, Sirens, Knuckles, Boots was published by Mbari Press at Ibaden University, Nigeria in 1963 (he won the Mbari Literary Prize but turned it down on grounds of racial exclusivity), at a time he was imprisoned for defying a banning order by the apartheid government. This banning was the result of his ultimately successful campaign to desegregate the South African Olympic team. After being shot in the back by the Special Branch secret police during an escape attempt in 1963, and then breaking rocks for 18 months at Robben Island prison alongside Nelson Mandela, Brutus was exiled in 1965. He resumed simultaneous careers as a poet and anti-apartheid campaigner, and in 1968 was instrumental in achieving the apartheid regimes expulsion from the Mexican Olympics and then in 1970 from the Olympic movement. He won numerous awards for poetry, and helped organize key African writers organizations with his colleagues Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. Upon moving to the U.S., Brutus served in several academic positions, defeating high-profile efforts by the Reagan Administration to deport him (1980-83). Following the transition to democracy in South Africa, Brutus remained active with grassroots social movements in his home country and internationally. In the late 1990s he became a pivotal figure in the global justice movement and a featured speaker each year at the World Social Forum. In the anti-racism, reparations and economic justice movements, he continues to serve as a leading strategist. In South Africa, he is a key figure in the Social Movements Indaba, a coalition of progressive activists, and Jubilee South Africa. In 2006 he published the autobiographical book Poetry and Protest (Haymarket Press and UKZN Press). In 2007 he was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame but turned down the honour on grounds of residual racism in professional sports. In 2008 he received the South African Literary Award for Distinguished Lifetime Literary Achievement.

Brutus's poetry collections are:

Sirens Knuckles and Boots (Mbari Productions, Ibaden, Nigeria and
Northwestern University Press, Evanston Illinois, 1963).

Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (Heinemann, Oxford, 1968).

Poems from Algiers(African and Afro-American Studies and Research
Institute, Austin, Texas, 1970).

A Simple Lust (Heinemann, Oxford, 1973).

China Poems (African and Afro-American Studies and Research Centre, Austin, Texas, 1975).

Strains (Troubador Press, Del Valle, Texas).

Stubborn Hope (Three Continents Press, Washington, DC and Heinemann,
Oxford, 1978).

Salutes and Censures (Fourth Dimension, Enugu, Nigeria, 1982).

Airs & Tributes (Whirlwind Press, Camden, New Jersey, 1989).

Still the Sirens (Pennywhistle Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1993).

Remembering Soweto, ed. Lamont B. Steptoe (Whirlwind Press, Camden,
New Jersey, 2004).

Leafdrift, ed. Lamont B. Steptoe (Whirlwind Press, Camden, New Jersey,
2005).

Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Haymarket Books, Chicago
and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 2006).

CITATION FOR DENNIS BRUTUS
Honorary Graduand, Rhodes University, 17 April 2009
By Professor Paul Maylam

When one thinks of poets who have also been activists certain names spring to mind – Pablo Neruda, Leopold Senghor, Aime Cesaire, for instance. For South Africa the name that immediately comes to mind is Dennis Brutus – long-standing anti-apartheid activist and eminent poet.

For Dennis Brutus both concerns – poetry and protest – go back many decades. First stimulated by his mother reading Wordsworth and Tennyson to him as a child, he wrote his first poem as a teenager at Paterson High School in Port Elizabeth, the city where he grew up. He saw the moon rising over a lake and liked the image – from this came his first poem. As a student at Fort Hare in the late 1940s he was known to wander about, mumbling poetry to himself – Donne and Hopkins among his favourites.

Dennis Brutus’ activism dates from his time as a school-teacher in Port Elizabeth from the late 1940s to the early sixties. He was initially aligned with organisations like the Unity Movement that insisted on absolutely no participation in dummy institutions, such as the Coloured Affairs Department, set up by the apartheid government. Soon, though,
he moved towards the ANC, drawn there through a friendship with Govan Mbeki.

From the late fifties Dennis became involved in an area of anti-apartheid protest that would dominate his activism for the next 30 years or more. Although no sportsman himself, he came to see that campaigning for South Africa’s isolation in the sporting world would hurt the white minority regime. So in 1958 he was a driving-force behind the founding of what would become SANROC – the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, whose purpose was to show how apartheid policies violated the Olympic Charter.

As SANROC’s campaign began Dennis could not resist a dig at a Mr Honey, the head of the South African Olympic Committee. “Mr Honey”, said Dennis, “despite your name, things are going to get very bitter”. And bitter, indeed, they did become. SANROC’s campaign, headed by Dennis, led to South Africa’s exclusion from the 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games, and in 1970 to the country’s full expulsion from the International Olympic Movement.

In the meantime Dennis’ own personal circumstances had changed dramatically. The 1960 Sharpeville massacre confirmed his decision to align with the ANC. While Mandela was in hiding after Sharpeville, Dennis was one of the people to shelter him in his home, in Port Elizabeth. In 1961 Dennis himself was placed under a banning order that severely restricted his movement and activities. Two years later he was arrested for contravening the banning order. While out on bail he fled to Swaziland, but on trying to enter Mozambique was detained by the Portuguese police who handed him over to the South African authorities. When being driven back into Johannesburg he tried to escape, only to be shot by a policeman, the bullet passing right through him. There followed eighteen months in prison, including a stint on Robben Island which coincided with the arrival there of Mandela and the other Rivonia trialists. Dennis was soon appointed ‘minister of culture’ by his fellow prisoners.

Forced to leave South Africa on a one-way exit permit in 1966, Dennis began a 25-year period in exile – first in London working for the International Defence and Aid Fund, which gave support to South African political prisoners and their families, and continuing the campaign for South Africa’s sporting isolation. On one occasion, during the Wimbledon tennis championships he sat on court to disrupt a match in which a South African was playing. No wonder one figure in the apartheid government once paid Dennis the compliment of calling him “one of the 20 most dangerous South African political figures overseas”.

The greatest part of this exile was spent in the US, where an academic career was launched – first, teaching in the Northwestern University English Department from 1971 to 1985, and then as Professor of Black Studies and English at the University of Pittsburgh. This stay in the US was not without its travails. Three times in the early 1980s the Reagan administration tried to deport Dennis before eventually granting him political asylum.

The agony of exile is a theme that permeates Dennis Brutus’ poetry. In one poem can be found these anguished words:

Exile is the reproach
of beauty in a foreign landscape.

His own personal experiences, tribulations and hopes infuse his twelve volumes of published poems: the time in prison, life under apartheid, the struggles for justice. He writes with a commitment to “recovering our humanity”. For him the artist is “a cultural guerrilla…a fighter for justice”, and the only relevant art is that “which relates to the human condition”.

His poetry has been described as “restrained and beautifully crafted”, written with “grace and penetration”. Given due recognition, last year he received the South African Literary Award for Distinguished Lifetime Literary Achievement – to stand alongside the first Paul Robeson Award, conferred on Dennis in 1989 for “artistic excellence, political consciousness and integrity”.

In the post-apartheid era, dividing his time between the US and South Africa, he has continued to be an outspoken activist, devoting his energy to the global justice movement, giving addresses at the World Social Forum, speaking out against neoliberalism and inequality, voicing support for the Palestinians and opposition to the Iraq war. Nadine Gordimer has said of Dennis Brutus that “His passion for justice in our African continent has now long extended to the whole world where the abyss between rich and poor countries grows instead of closing”.

Tonight Rhodes University honours a man who has, for the past sixty years, fought for justice in the face of state harassment, imprisonment, the threat of deportation. Poet, professor and protester; writer and rebel; artist, academic and activist.

Mr Chancellor, I have the honour to request you to confer on Dennis Brutus the degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa.

Ida Susser booklaunch at Ike's Books, 2 April 2009

Digital Soiree Durban Sings Internet Radio project, 24 March 2009

Date: Tuesday 24 March
Time: 13:15 14:00
Venue: Digital Convent Seminar Room
East Campus, Wits University.

DURBAN SINGS is a regional audio media and oral history project with a story
to tell. The project uses street recordings and internet audio to create an
open platform for contributions and re-mixes from artists and activists
around the world. DURBAN SINGS is a sound network joining hemispheres via
audio correspondence between listeners. DURBAN SINGS is an audio bridge
between communities, artists and activist groups in KZN and the rest of the
world.

Presenters:
Claudia Wegener (radio continental drift), a German, London-based sound and
media artist organising collective radio projects (such as the NGZ audio
radio project: http://www.nogozones.wordpress.com), visiting scholar at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).
http://www.radiocontinentaldrift.wordpress.com
Molefi Mafereka Ndlovu (motho) born in Johannesburg now based in Durban; is
a research fellow at Center for Civil Society full profile @:
http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?10,24. He is a founding member of the
RASAfm Radio Project (Pimville, Soweto 2005), he is a third year student of
Community Development at UKZN- Howard College.

For further information christo.doherty@wits.ac.za

Violent Crime and Democratization in the Global South, 18-19 March 2009

18th & 19th March 2009 Cape Town, South Africa

Draft Workshop Plan

17th March Arrivals

18 March Day One

Session One: 9am-11.am Conceptual and Methodological Issues
a) Violent Crime and Citizenship in the Global South: Issues, Thematics,
Questions
Vanessa Barolsky, HSRC & Suren Pillay, HSRC
b) Thinking Comparatively: Conceptual Lessons from Latin America
Prof. Ignacio Cano, Universidade Federal Flumenese, Rio

Session Two: 11.15-13.00

How have States responded to Violent Crime?
a) Governing Citizenship and Safety in Colombia
Hector Riveros or Paula Zuluaga, Corpovisionaries, Colombia
b) Evaluating the National Crime Prevention Strategy in South Africa
Clifford Shearing, Center for Criminology, UCT
d) Governing Violent Crime in Nairobi
Mutuma Ruteere, former Head of Research, Kenya Human Rights Commission

Session Three: 14.00-16.00

Community and Civil Society Responses to Violent Crime I
a) Vigilantism and the case of the Mungiki Sect in Nairobi, Macharia
Mwangi, Egerton University, Kenya
b) Violent Crime and Democratic Transition: the case of Durban
Oliver Meth, Center for Civil Society, UKZN
c) Crime, Fear and the City: the case of Sau Paulo
Paula Miraglia, United Nations Institute for Crime Prevention, Brazil

Session Four: 16.15- 17.30

Community and Civil Society Responses to Violent Crime II
c) Community Responses in Brazil: the case of Viva Rio
Daniel Luz, Viva Rio
d) Community Responses in South Africa: the case of Proudly Mannenberg
Irvin Kinnes, Center for African Cities, UCT
e) Violence, crime and community policing in India
Surajit Mukhopadhyay, Center for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkatta

19th March Day Two

Session Five: 9.00-12.00am

Roundtable on: Violent Crime and Democratization in the Global South: general trends/ agenda for future research
a) Insights from Latin America
Paula Miraglia and Daniel Luz
b) Policing and Human Rights in Africa
Don Sauls & Mutuma Ruteere
c) Future research questions
Ignacio Cano and Juma Assiago

Session Six: 14.00-17.00pm

Interaction with Community forums/ policy makers/ Ngo’s working on interventions

19.00 Evening Dinner for international guests and invited policy makers

20th March Departures

Patrick Bond debates ANC economic policy, 9 March 2009

SA Economic Performance: Global/Local Capitalist Crisis
Slide Show from Patrick Bond Presentation

DIALOGUE ON THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS AND AFRICAN RESPONSE, 23-24 February 2009

Global Financial Crisis and Implications for Africa
By Patrick Bond
Director, University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society

Presented to the NEPAD/ActionAid
DIALOGUE ON THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS AND AFRICAN RESPONSE
February 23-24, 2009, Midrand, South Africa

DRAFT AGENDA AND DISCUSSION POINTS

09h00 – 09h45 Registration of Participants

09h45 – 10h00 Introductions & Networking

10h00 – 10h30 Opening & Welcome by NEPAD Secretariat, AU Commission and Action Aid International

10h30 – 12h00 Session One: What is the Nature of the Global Financial Crisis?

Crisis Evolution: Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae

Credit Crunch/Irresponsible Lending

Housing Foreclosures/Mortgage Failures

High Job losses social disruption

Global economic recession

Extent of Damage / Bail-out Packages

Buying out ‘toxic assets’

Cash flow & Liquidity Problem in Business

Investment Banking/Capital Markets decline

Increased Debts/Budget Deficits

Another Great Depression?

Questioning the IFIs/Bretton Woods Institutions

Global Risk Aversion Increases

Insufficient Regulatory framework

USA, UK, EU, Japan, China as 1st casualties

12h05 – 12h20 Tea/Coffee Break

12h20 – 13h25 Open Discussion and Recap of Highlights of Session One

13h30 -14h30 Lunch

14h35 – 16h00 Session Two: What are the Effects and Implications of the Crisis?

Global Dimensions & 3rd World Countries

ODA/FDI lowering; Any direct impact on AU/NEPAD priority programs/projects like Infrastructure, Agriculture, etc;

Africa: Commodity price drop; Reduced ODA & FDI? Increased Poverty; Dry-up of Trade Finance; Democratic stability/gains undermined?; Aggravated Food /Energy crisis?

Increase likely in Capital flight,; Reduction in remittances; MDGs in jeopardy; Experience-Sharing by Countries; Reference to the Tunis Process

16h00 – 16h45 Open Discussion & Recap of Highlights of Session Two

16h45 – 17h00 Tea/Coffee Break

17h00 – 18h30 Introduction to Session Three: What should Africa’s Response be?

End of Day One

09h30 -10h30 Session Three: What should be the African Response? Way Forward and ‘Stimulus for Africa’s Economy’

Proactive short/ medium-term measures with the necessary mechanisms/channels/strategies;

Financing Options/Models for Africa’s development, especially from Private sector and domestic resources

National/RECs/multi-country/ Continent-wide levels: AU/NEPAD Role;

Follow-Up on Tunis Process with CSO content; Safe-guarding and s
ustaining Africa’s sectoral initiatives

Africa’s Voice in the global financial space – building new global financial architecture especially within the IFIs;

Strengthening Africa’s engagement with G-8/G-20

10h35 - 10h55 Tea/Coffee Break

11h00 - 12h00 Dialogue on Policy Options & Recommendations for Africa

13h00 - 12h30 Key Outcomes of Dialogue:
Setting An All-Inclusive African Response Agenda on the Global Financial Crisis

Lunch and End of Dialogue

University of Johannesburg Sociology and Anthropology Seminar, 6 February 2009

Conveners: Prof. Peter Alexander, Prof. David Moore and Dr. Marcelle Dawson
Speaker: Prof Patrick Bond (Centre for Civil Society, UKZN) on
Topic: ‘Interpretations of the global financial crisis and their implications for South Africa’
Date:6 February
Time: 16:00
Venue: Room (D-Ring 506) on the Kingsway Campus (former RAU)

Paper posted at here

Public welcome. All meetings will be held in the Anthropology Seminar
Room (D-Ring 506) on the Kingsway Campus (former RAU), and will start at
16.00. Those coming from outside the UJ are advised to enter the campus
through Gate 2 on Ditton Avenue and to park in Car Park B. It may be
helpful to show this invitation to the guard on duty.

Durban Sings internet audio and community radio workshops, 2-6 February 2009

Durban Sings projects brings community groups to CCS for skills-building in technical and creative audio representation of daily life in
eThekwini communities.

Project overview and content outline: An Audio oral/history Project

Quotes:
Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph
Haile Selassie (His Imperial Majesty, 1892)

We tend to privilege experience itself, as if black life is lived experience outside of representation. . . . Instead, it is only through the way in which we represent and imagine ourselves that we come to know how we are constituted and who we are.”
Stuart Hall. (“What Is This ‘Black’” 30)

In the telling and retelling of their stories/ They create communities of memory/ History, despite it’s wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced /With courage, need not be lived again.
(Maya Angelou)

If I am free, it’s because I’m always running. (Jimi Hendrix)

Abstract:
A public Audio counter/history project involving youth community media producers and listeners of Ethekwini na ma phethelo (Greater Durban); creating reports, songs, stories and proverbs from their communities. The project is aimed at developing and strengthening the existing links of community and academia towards balanced two-way communication, partnership and mutual benefits. The project aims at exploring together with the groups/collectives, how their visibility and active participation in online representations on the CCS web-site can be increased, developed and facilitated. The project will have a workshop dimension, meant to be a training session to prepare the participants for their own interviews; we will consider basic interview techniques and how to deal with different interview situations. As well as looking at epistemological questions concerning the creation of sources; whether to look at oral history as an approach or method, how to deal with the dilemmatic relationship between interviewer and interviewee and how to analyze the link between micro- and macro-histories.
More

Durban Sings Oral history guidelines

Joe Slovo Memorial Lecture 28 January 2009

The Chris Hani Institute runs an annual Joe Slovo Memorial Lecture to
celebrate the life and times of Comrade Joe Slovo. The theme for this
year’s (2009) lecture will be: “The current financial crisis and
possibilities for the left”

We therefore invite members of the public to attend the Joe Slovo
Memorial Lecture.

Date: 28 January 2009 (Wednesday)
Time: 10h00-14h00
Venue: COSATU House, 1 Leyds Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg

Panellists:

Keynote: Jeremy Cronin, Deputy General Secretary (SACP)
Respondent: Patrick Bond, Director of Centre for Civil Society (UKZN)

Comradely Regards,
Priscilla Magau
CHI Programme Administrator
011 339 3040,
priscilla.magau@gmail.com

Paper delivered to the Chris Hani Institute seminar on “The current financial crisis and possibilities for the left”
28th January 2009
Jeremy Cronin

Introduction
In 1906 a gifted young South African studying in the United States won
first prize in a Columbia University debating competition. His speech
was entitled “The Regeneration of Africa” and it began with the
assertion: “I am an African”. The speech is a remarkable lyrical hymn to
progress. It was speaking out of a particular ideological illusion of
the early twentieth century. The speech is dizzy with the sense of huge
technological advances, rail-lines traversing continents, the telegraph
system girdling the planet, steam-ships crossing the oceans. These
advances, so the speaker believed, were finally making the world a
single and united reality. The speech then called for an “African
regeneration” that would ensure Africa was not left behind in this
apparently marvellous new era that had opened up.

The prize-winning debater was Pixley ka Isaka Seme, who, less than six
years later, was to be one of the founding fathers of the ANC. Re-read
more than a century later, the speech remains deeply moving. But, as we
can now see with the benefit of hindsight, its hopes were to be
shattered and its illusions cruelly exposed by the white minority
colonial settlement in SA in 1910, by the outbreak of a vicious
intra-imperialist war in 1914, and by the spectacular global capitalist
crisis that began in 1929.

The next phase of accelerated imperialist globalisation was to occur in
the mid-1970s through to the present. Here in South Africa, in the
mid-1990s, towards the tail-tend of this next phase of accelerated
globalisation, an incumbent ANC leader was to invoke the Seme legacy.
Sharing the same fundamental illusions of limitless progress, of a new
global dawn, Mbeki was even given to styling much of his own prose on
Seme’s youthful speech. Once again, the inability to appreciate the
dialectical character of world capitalism’s trajectory, was to lead
Mbeki (like Seme before him) to gravely misread the global situation, to
imagine an “African renaissance” based on catching-up and aligning
ourselves to the “West”, with the promise of an ineluctable,
evolutionary way forward – “today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow
will be better than today.”

The illusions of a young Seme more than a hundred years ago were,
perhaps, understandable and forgivable. Can the same be said of the
grave strategic misreadings and errors that proliferated within our own
country and movement in the past decade? Have we sufficiently
appreciated these errors and taken adequate corrective measures?

The world capitalist system is now in the midst of its worst economic
crisis since the early 1930s. To be sure, capitalism is seldom free of
crisis. There have been many crises in the recent past – among them
Mexico 1982, Japan 1990, and East Asia 1997/8. But the current crisis is
different in many respects. In the first place, its epicentre is in the
core zones of capitalist accumulation – the US, continental Europe, the
UK, and now, increasingly, Japan. It has struck at the heart of the
financial system. Its knock-on impact across the world is, therefore,
much more profound. Given the intensified global interconnectivity
(compared to the 1930s), the speed and reach of the knock-on impact is
also greatly enhanced. While some economies will continue to grow
(notably China) but at a much lower rate (now revised down to a possibly
optimistic 7.5% for 2009 – the lowest in nineteen years), large parts of
the world have already entered into recession, or are poised on the
brink of recession. Tens if not hundreds of millions of jobs are being
lost, homes repossessed, businesses liquidated and value destroyed.

Marx was the first to provide a scientific analysis of the boom-bust
cycle in capitalism, which he showed to be endemic to this mode of
production. Crises in capitalism can occur as a consequence of factors
extraneous to the accumulation process –wars, natural disasters, social
upheavals. However, under capitalism (and in contrast to earlier forms
of production) wars, natural disasters or social upheavals are more
likely to be the consequences of intrinsic crises within capitalism
rather than the fundamental causes of its crises.

The cyclical pattern of booms and busts are systemically linked to the
fact that capitalism – unlike socialism or earlier forms of production –
is essentially production for exchange (and therefore private profit)
and not for social use. In other forms of production (not least
socialism)– over-production of goods would, in principle, usually be a
cause for celebration, but under capitalism “over-production” (i.e. more
than the market demands – i.e. more than can profitably be sold)
triggers a break-down in the system – a crisis of over-accumulation.
This, in turn, requires a massive wave of destruction of productive
capacity (in the form of retrenchments, factory closures, liquidations,
and stock exchange collapses), in order to “clear the ground” for the
next round of capital accumulation through growth. It must be stressed
that under capitalism “over-production” is not the over-production of
products that the mass of the world’s population often desperately
needs. It is “over-production” relative to “market demand”, i.e relative
to what can profitably be sold.[1] Capitalism, for all its dynamism and
robustness, is a profoundly irrational system.

In recent times, liberal economists have boasted that with effective
macro-economic modelling and management, together with some supposedly
inherent self-correcting capacity within capitalist accumulation, we
have been able to “transcend” the boom-bust cycles of capitalism.
Ricardo Hausman, leader of Trevor Manuel’s “Harvard Group”, for
instance, presented a celebrated paper in 2005 along with a fellow
Harvard luminary. In it, they claimed that financial “dark matter” would
prevent a big bang in the world economy. The failure to believe in this
“dark matter”, the authors boasted, made “analysts predict crises that,
for good reason, remain elusive.” All of these boasts now ring hollow.

Booms and busts
Over the past 500 years of modern capitalism, it is possible to detect
three broad (but inter-linked) variants of boom and bust, of cycles of
rise and fall:

relatively short-term cycles of around a decade or so. In the recent
period the global economy has gone into a slump in 1974/5, 1980/2;
1991/3 and 2001/2. In SA the last decade of apartheid corresponded to a
domestic downturn/recession and post-1994 we have seen a general
economic upturn. This upturn is variously attributed to “sound economic
policies”, and the “political miracle”, etc. While subjective factors
like policies are not unimportant, and while the political settlement
has been a key ingredient in this upturn, it is important to notice that
this cyclical upturn has also had an underpinning of objectivity related
to our particular capitalist accumulation path. This local upturn is now
likely entering into a period of several years of downturn if not actual
recession. We obviously make this point, in order to prepare our
defences against what is likely to be a political discourse in the
coming years – blame a largely “objectively” (and externally) determined
downturn on “Polokwane populism”.

These shorter term cycles, and their national/regional characteristics
are related to the particular features of a national/regional economy,
including its positioning and insertion within the global capitalist
economy, and, therefore, they are not unrelated to longer-term cycles in
the world system

These long-term cycles at a global level are sometimes called
“Kondratieff” cycles – after the economist who first noted and analysed
them. Over the past 500 years there has been a remarkably consistent
cyclical pattern, occurring roughly over 50 year periods – with booms
and growing profit occurring over a 25 year period, followed by another
25 year period or so of generally diminishing rates of profit, of
deepening crisis and decline. The present long-term cycle in the world
capitalist system began in 1945, with the upswing reaching a turning
point around 1970/3. Since then, globally, we have been in a long
downturn – somewhat longer than normal, partly because
capitalist-aligned economists and central banks and multi-lateral
institutions (like the IMF), believing that they had finally “beaten”
recession forever, introduced a range of interventions which we can now
see have simply temporarily displaced the epicentre of crisis into
semi-peripheral regions, thus delaying and deepening the full-blown
crisis in whose midst we now are.

Finally, there is another, often even longer term cyclical (or rather
rise and fall) tendency within capitalism:

The geographical shift in hegemony. Marx, Lenin and others following
them have demonstrated how capitalist development is characterised by
high degrees of combined and uneven development. It is a global system
characterised by geographical zones of various importance within the
accumulation process – core zones, semi-peripheral zones, and marginal
or peripheral zones. Within this hierarchical system there is a tendency
for a single zone/region or country to emerge as the dominant hegemon.
Over the past 500 years, if we are to begin in what was still largely
mercantilistic capitalism, the hegemonic centre of capitalist
accumulation has shifted from the Italian city-states (notably Genoa),
to the Netherlands (mid-17th century) and to Britain. Since 1870, the US
has positioned itself as a challenger to British hegemonic domination,
and since 1945 the US has been the uncontested dominant capitalist
power. The emergence of a hegemonic power is usually characterised by a
greater productive and technological dynamism than its rivals. In its
declining years (and the decline might last for a long period), core
centres of production shift to other localities, and the economy of the
waning hegemonic power is increasingly characterised by
“financialisation” – the increased investment of surplus out of
production (and therefore out of job creation and wages) into
speculative activity. This pattern is evident in all hegemonic
societies, and since the early 1970s, as US hegemonic dominance has
begun to wane, a ballooning financialistion process has been evident
there, manifest in many things including a dramatic widening in the gap
between the share of surplus going to profits and that going to wages.

In addition to these three “rise and fall” patterns typical of
capitalism, there is a fourth factor that needs to be borne in mind when
considering the current crisis in the global capitalist system.

Approaching the bio-physical and geographical limits to capitalism?
The capitalist accumulation process is premised on ever-expanding growth
and the illusion of limitless resources. However, there are absolute
limits to capitalist production and reproduction (and, indeed, to any
form of human civilisation). There is now a well-established scientific
consensus that our present global economic trajectory is leading human
civilisation towards catastrophe – with the depletion of non-renewable
natural resources, the destruction of the environment, global warming
and, therefore, the bio-physical preconditions for human survival.
Capitalism and formerly existing socialism both shared the illusion of
limitless natural resources available for ever-expanding exploitation.
Today, socialist Cuba is setting an important example of an entirely
different approach to sustainable development. On the other hand, while
many leading politicians in capitalist countries are beginning to
express grave concern about the future of our planet –denialism; or
market mysticism (somehow the hidden hand of the market will find a
solution); or a cynical, even genocidal, social Darwinism (“don’t worry
there will be losers but there will also be winners”); or hopelessly
inadequate piecemeal reforms remain the order of the day.

In addition to the bio-physical limits to capitalism, there are also
struggle-determined potential limits to the expanded reproduction of
capital. Capital needs constantly to intensify and expand its
exploitation of labour power – it does this in several ways, forcing
workers to work longer hours; increasing the productivity of labour
through technological advances; or attempting to roll back the social
wage (for example, the welfare state). The relative success of any of
these profit-maximising interventions depends on the ability or
otherwise of labour and popular forces in general to resist the
intensification of exploitation. Critically in the current era of
“globalisation”, various forms of geographical displacement have also
been key factors in this pursuit of the expanded reproduction of
capital. In particular, in the current era, capital has relied to a
considerable extent on lowering the cost (to capital) of the
reproduction of labour power by relying on Third World survivalist and
peasant economies to carry much of the burden of this reproduction. Thus
we have seen the vast expansion in the last decades of variously coerced
and regulated forms of mass migrancy (whether “cheap labour”, or the
“brain drain” from the Third World). Or, the flip-side of the latter,
through the geographical displacement of production to new localities
where labour is “rightless” and “disciplined” in various ways (this
happened with the flow of FDI into apartheid SA after 1963, Brazil under
the military junta from the mid-1960s, and Chile from 1973 under
Pinochet, and, under a somewhat different reality, it has been a key
feature of Chinese growth in the last decades).

However, as in South Africa, or Brazil, or South Korea in earlier
periods, and as is now happening in China,[2] it tends to take a
generation or so for workers to organise (or regroup and re-organise)
for better wages, working conditions and social wage measures. In the
coming period, the intensifying class struggles unfolding within China,
and within the Chinese state and ruling party itself, will have a
decisive impact upon the chances of a re-configuration (or otherwise) of
the global economy.

The present crisis – “a perfect storm”
The present global crisis is particularly severe because it involves the
confluence in differing degrees of all four of the systemic factors
considered above:

short-term cyclical downturns, converging with

a longer-term downward trend, coinciding with

a global hegemon now in full decline; all shadowed by

the already detectable impact of approaching bio-physical and perhaps
social limits to the expanded reproduction of capitalism.

For around 100 years (1870 to 1970) the US witnessed an unprecedented
trend of rising productivity and rising real wages for the working
class. This economic reality lies at the basis of the “American dream”,
and of the “consumerism” and relative passivity of the US working class
– a car and a suburban home being the epitome of the American “way of
life”. Since the early 1970s, the US’s hegemonic domination has been
challenged by Japan and the Asian Tigers and some key European economies
- leap-frogging in terms of technological and industrial plant
investments, rendering US industrial plant (fixed investments)
increasingly unprofitable. This has led to US capital moving to other
locations OR moving into increasingly speculative financial activities.
At the same time, US mass consumerism has been kept afloat through
increasing credit, despite declining real wages since the early 1970s.

Export-oriented Asian (especially Chinese) manufacturers and Third World
oil producers became the production sites while US consumption propped
up global market demand. The US has been running huge current account
deficits – by 2006 the US current account deficit was at $800bn (or 6%
of GDP). China, conversely, has played a crucial role in financing this
US deficit, and therefore US consumption. China has now accumulated the
world’s largest foreign exchange reserves ($1.9 trillion, at least
$650bn of which is in US treasury bonds). In theory, China could pull
the plug on the US economy, but a move to sell these assets would
further damage China’s export industries, giving us a situation which
some economists have described as a “mutually assured economic
destruction” capacity on both sides.

This symbiotic but unsustainable reality premised on growing US
consumption was further propped up by a variety of “creative” financial
instruments developed largely by the US financial sector. Among these
were “sub-prime loans” – housing loans to those who basically could not
afford them, in which the initial interest rate was sub-prime, but with
the interest rate escalating over the duration of the mortgage on the
assumption that as the borrower progressed career-wise so there would be
an increased capacity to pay instalments. (Note that this is not very
different from many BEE deals – in which black “investors” acquire
shares on loan, on the assumption that the shares will always go up and
they will be able to repay the loan). These sub-prime loans were then
“diced and sliced” (i.e. mixed up with other more viable loans) and sold
on by the direct mortgage institutions to banks and other financial
institutions.

The collapse of the sub-prime market has been the catalyst of the
present all-round crisis. It has seen one of the top four investment
banks in the US, the 100-year old Lehman Brothers collapsing, and other
banks and the mortgage lenders (Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac) having to be
rescued, often through nationalisations. The dicing and slicing of
sub-prime and other toxic loans has meant that major financial
institutions in the US and Europe, in particular, have no idea of what
they are sitting on. This has led to a reluctance of banks to lend to
each other, and liquidity in the real economy has dried up. Major global
manufacturers (like Nokia, for instance) can still access cash from
banks, but their hundreds of small suppliers cannot get loans and
production across the globe is being impacted. On top of this, demand in
the US and Europe is in recession, and this is impacting heavily on
major global manufacturers, like China where there have already been
hundreds of thousands of retrenchments. The Indian government is
predicting 10 million job losses in its export industries over the
current year.

In many respects we are in uncharted waters, and no-one can say for sure
exactly where it is all headed. There are, however, a few basic
predictions we can make:

There will not be any significant short-term recovery;

Although the world capitalist system is in a grave crisis – it would
be naïve to assume that capitalism will simply collapse, or that the
crisis will spontaneously give birth to a better world;

The relative decline of US economic supremacy (which has been slipping
since the mid-1970s) has now been greatly accelerated. The US will
probably still emerge as the most powerful economy, but the world will
have become significantly more multi-polar.

While multi-polarity offers possibilities, potentially more breathing
space and alternatives, for the global South, it is the people of the
South who will bear the burden of the crisis. For instance, as the core
capitalist economies focus on their own crises and their own stimulus
packages, already paltry development aid is diminishing; trade
protective barriers are going up; FDI is pulling out of much of the
South; premiums on international loans have increased; and portfolio
investments are even more disinclined to bet on the South. It is not
just the core capitalist economies that are retreating out of the South.
For instance, more than 60 Chinese mining companies have left the DRC’s
Katanga province in the past two months as mineral prices collapse, and
100 small Chinese operators are said to have left Zambian mines (Jeffrey
Herbst & Greg Mills, “Africa’s left to face commodity price storm
largely on its own”, Business Report, Jan 22, 2009)

It is possible that dynamic developing economies like Brazil, India
and China may be partially de-linked (de-coupled) from the recession,
but none will escape its impact. China, with its US oriented, export-led
growth strategy will face very serious challenges

South African challenges - From the “unthinkable” to the “unmentionable”
The global economic crisis presents the left with major possibilities
but also serious challenges. Here in South Africa, transformation of our
productive economy has become all the more necessary. But it will also
become more difficult as declining global demand for our exports will
impact on jobs and on state fiscal resources.

We will also encounter an intensified ideological battle, from those
outside of the ANC, and indeed from within the ANC itself. With their
backs to the wall, but with massive resources, our resident neo-liberals
of all stripes are fighting an ideological battle to prevent any
sensible, democratic debate opening up within our country on economic
policy evaluation and change.

We have been here before. In the critical 1994-1996 period, a similar
ideological battle was waged to capture the new government’s economic
policy agenda. This included demonising, caricaturing and belittling
alternative perspectives, especially when they came from the SACP and
COSATU. It also included constant threats about what “global markets”
would do to us if we dared challenge anything in the neo-liberal gospel.
This theme was repeated over and over.

And that is exactly what is now being repeated – except last time, we
were being told there were no alternatives to the Washington consensus.
Now, we are being told that the crisis of this very same economic agenda
is so great, that we had better not risk changing anything.

This was exactly the parting shot from the outgoing deputy finance
minister, Jabu Moleketi, speaking in the week before the October 2008,
alliance economic summit. He told the London Financial Times that it
would be “suicidal” for South Africa to change economic policies: “Any
sudden policy shifts by South Africa’s new leaders would be ‘suicidal’
for a country whose economy survives at the mercy of foreign investors,
according to one of the architects of the recent years of stability.”
(October 7, 2008)

Notice the sleight of hand in this sentence. On the one hand, we are
told that our economy has achieved “years of stability”, and on the
other, we are told it “survives at the mercy of foreign investors”. What
kind of stability is that? But according to one of our architects of
stability, cde Moleketi, the seas are so choppy now that we shouldn’t
try to turn our ship around. Typical of this line of reasoning is a
caricature of what we are actually attempting (supposedly “a total
U-turn”). What we are arguing for is exaggerated, the better to be able
to demonstrate our “lack of wisdom”.

We might be inclined to ignore all of this, if it were not likely to
impact on parts of the ANC and government. But, unfortunately, this is
not something we can take for granted.

Consider an interview with Minister of Finance, cde Trevor Manuel,
conducted by the London Financial Times in the immediate aftermath of
the same mid-October Alliance economic summit. Clearly referring to the
main resolutions from the summit, cde Manuel speaks dismissively: “We
need to disabuse people of the notion that we will have a mighty
powerful developmental state capable of planning and creating all manner
of employment. It may have been on the horizon in 1994 but it could not
be delivered now. The next period is likely to see a lot more
competitiveness in the global economy. As consumer demand falls off
there will be a huge battle between firms and countries to secure access
to markets. (28 October 2008)

Manuel exaggerates and implicitly ridicules the resolutions of Polokwane
and the Alliance summit on the developmental state. (Interestingly, when
talking to the local media, he has been more restrained). He then says
that a major job creation programme led by a developmental state “may
have been on the horizon in 1994 but it could not be delivered now.” In
other words, it is no longer possible to contemplate serious state-led
job creation programmes because of the crisis in the global economy.

But what was cde Manuel saying a few years back when there wasn’t the
global crisis? In 2000 he told the Sunday Independent: “I want someone
to tell me how the government is going to create jobs. It’s a terrible
admission, but governments around the world are impotent when it comes
to creating jobs.” (9 January 2000).

Then it was NEVER possible, now it is NO LONGER possible! A few years
ago change of economic policy was supposedly “unthinkable” – now it’s
“unmentionable”.

“But is it affordable?”
A variant of the “unthinkable/unmentionable” argument which was deployed
hostilely against the RDP in the mid-1990s and which we are encountering
once more in regard to the ANC’s 2009 election manifesto is the tired
refrain: “it is all very noble, but is it affordable?” Indeed, the
affordability of a strategic programme is not irrelevant. And yes,
indeed, the global economic crisis will impact on South Africa. There
may very well be fewer fiscal resources available to government in the
coming years as declining profits hit tax revenue. Our existing social
security net, which we are committed to expanding, will likely come
under increasing pressure as global recession hits South African jobs.[3]

We have to be realistic about these and other related challenges. But
what we absolutely must not allow this time around is that the “but is
it affordable?” refrain should be used to deflect us off our strategic
and programmatic DIRECTION.

This is what happened in the mid-1990s to the RDP. The affordability
argument was used to intimidate comrades in government (and was used, in
turn, by some in government). In the name of “finding the resources” to
“deliver” on “RDP promises”, the RDP programme was dumbed down into a
list of “delivery targets”. GEAR effectively replaced developmental
transformation as the key priority, making stabilisation and
re-stimulation of essentially the same century-long growth path the
priority. “Development” was turned into earnest endeavours at
re-distribution out of growth, while the stabilised and moderately
stimulated growth proceeded to reproduce all the systemic features of
racialised underdevelopment that had characterised this growth path for
the better part of a century.

This time around we are making it very clear that it is decent work and
sustainable livelihoods (and not 6% growth, or some other arbitrary
figure) that will be the key indicator of progress or otherwise. This,
in turn, will require the marshalling of our resources around a
state-led industrial policy that prioritises the transformation of our
productive economy. Key features of this industrial policy must include:

Breaking the suffocating grip of private monopoly cartels in the
mineral, energy, finance, chemical, and agro-processing sectors – in
order to ensure a more balanced development of small and
medium-enterprises with a capacity to create jobs;

Achieving a better balance between production for export and
production for our national and regional markets; this will include
ensuring that trade policy is governed by industrial policy (and not the
other way around);

More effective strategic coordination of energy policy – to ensure
greater national energy sovereignty and long-term sustainability, with
as rapid as possible greening of our economy

Paying much greater attention to national (and regional) food security

The consolidation of our SOEs and Development Finance Institutions,
ensuring that their strategic development mandates are aligned and clear.

Reconfiguring the state apparatus to ensure that there is effective
(and participatory) planning in all spheres, that budget allocations are
determined by strategic and planned priorities, that macro-economic
policy is shaped according to our developmental priorities, and that the
professionalism and technical capacity of the state is significantly
improved.

Our industrial policy and broader developmental strategy should not
just be “national” in character, but it should also deliberately embrace
a Southern African regional and even South-South dimension. Many
capitalist forces around the world can be expected to respond to the
global crisis with a dog-eats-dog mentality, with an each one for
themselves approach of the kind that cde Manuel is predicting in his
Financial Times interview quoted above (“The next period is likely to
see a lot more competitiveness in the global economy. As consumer demand
falls off there will be a huge battle between firms and countries to
secure access to markets.”). While this trend is already evident, there
are also inspiring alternative examples from which we should learn and
emulate where possible – foremost among them the ALBA process in Latin
America and the Caribbean.[4]

Integral to our developmental agenda, and in order to buttress the
priority of job creation and sustainable livelihoods, we are further
identifying four other areas requiring prioritised systemic
transformation if we are to ensure sustainable transformation –
health-care, education, rural development and community safety. These
are not add-ons, but integral components of a developmental path to
systemic transformation.

It might be that deepening global recession and its impact upon our own
economy will have consequences for the scale and the time-frames for
meeting our strategic developmental priorities. As we proceed, we need
to monitor and evaluate outcomes and likely forward progress on a
continuous basis. And we need to make whatever adjustments might be
required. What we absolutely must NOT do this time around is to
compromise on our strategic DIRECTION and on our systemic
TRANFORMATIONAL objectives

To keep focused on our strategic development agenda, we need also to
engage actively in a critique of what remain dominant illusions about
our present national reality.

MYTHS ABOUT THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY

Central to the neo-liberal campaign to block serious economic debate and
policy evaluation in our country is a series of inter-related myths
about the state of health of our economy.

Myth number one: “over the last decade South Africa has witnessed
‘unprecedented’ growth”
It is true that since 1994 there have been 14 years of successive
growth. Between 1994 and 2003 this growth averaged 3%. Between 2004 and
2007 it averaged 5%. It is now likely to dip again to 1%, if not down to
negative growth

Back