> Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 19:10:43 +0100
> From: Mark Jones <Jones_M at netcomuk.co.uk>
...
> The worst is that the kind of nexus of corrupted NGO's and
> compromised social movements which forms the new elite in S Africa
> will sideline and exhaust the real anger and energy of people, frustrate
> the struggle to raise consciousness and generally be the most
> baleful (and experienced on the poacher-gamekeeper model) enemy
> of the only kind of revolutionary politics which might make a difference.
This is indeed quite a serious problem. Here's an early attempt to delineate it:
> CALL FOR PAPERS
>
> The Editorial Collectives of the journal "DEBATE - Voices from the
> South African Left" are planning, for issue #5, a special focus on
>
> DEBATING CIVIL SOCIETY -
> Organisations, Movements and Struggle in
> South Africa in the Age of Neoliberalism
>
> The aim of the special focus is to contribute to the definition of an
> analytical and political framework for social struggles and
> movements in South Africa in the current phase. This effort
> will be focused on plural, diverse dynamics of resistance for social
> rights and citizenship, that are currently emerging inside the
> spheres of production and reproduction, factory and communities
> alike. To combine our reconceptualisation of resistance with a
> fundamental respect for differences in its dynamics, we think it
> is important to critically evaluate the importance of the concept of
> "civil society". This evaluation would include both the relevance of
> the concept in understanding social dynamics of contestation, and
> its usefulness for left strategies.
>
> WE INVITE POTENTIALLY INTERESTED CONTRIBUTORS TO SUBMIT PAPERS
> which are possibly focus on questions such as:
>
> * Social rights, citizenship and democracy: exploring the
> contradictions, exposing the weaknesses in current governmnet
> policies
>
> * "Civil society" paradigms and neoliberal developmentalism:
> continuities and ruptures
>
> * Neoliberalism, civil society, and the crisis of welfarism: towards
> an oppositional view of social citizenship as collective
> reappropriation without class cooptation
>
> * Social subjects and movements in a contested understanding of the
> South African civil society: "actually existing movements" in the
> South African context
>
> * Local dynamics of self-organisation in the struggle for social
> rights and services
>
> * Civil society and autonomy: organizational conditions for a
> critical agenda on collective entitlements
>
> * The role of South African NGOs in relation to ideological
> reorientations in the strategies of transnational financial
> institutions: pressures for cooptation and openings for contestation
>
> * Developments in South African civics' politics: towards an
> independent urban social movement?
>
> * Civil society and the "rural question": collective self-empowerment
> or neo-traditionalism?
>
> * Working class organizations and possible links between factory and
> territory in articulating stratgies of struggle
>
> * Capitalist restructuring of production and its impact on social
> movements' agendas
>
> We would welcome, in particular, articles which can combine in depth
> empirical research with a sound, well supported theoretical
> background. This in order to avoid reproducing a mere polarization
> between "theory-based" materials and a list of case studies.
>
> In case you are interested you can contact, for submissions or
> further information:
>
> DEBATE - Voices from the South African Left
> PO Box 581
> Wits 2050
> Johannesburg
> SOUTH AFRICA
> Ph. (++27 11) 716.3290 or 487.1348
> Fax (++27 11) 487.1348
> Email 029frb at cosmos.wits.ac.za
> pbond at wn.apc.org