"Civil Society"

Brian Ashley aidc at iafrica.com
Wed May 13 05:08:08 PDT 1998


In response to Mark Jones' reply to Patrick Bond on civil society:

So what do you propose us to do in SA. All 5 of us try and erect a barricade to make the pre-revolutionary, revolutionary.

How to break the hegemony of reformist ideas that have become so predominant in the "new SA" over the mass of people? It seems to me through building social movements, through social mobilisations around the very issues that people are desperate for i.e. a living wage, decent home, access to water, electricity, health-care facilities etc; promises that were made in the Reconstruction and Development Programme a programme of popular organisations which was adopted by the ANC in December 1993.

It is probably through the long journey of rebuilding the mass movement around basic needs that the possibility for challenging capitalism in SA, as elsewhere, will occur. It is only under these conditions that the necessary class organisations, combativity and consciousness will emerge.

If only deprivation, poverty and inequality equalled insurrection and revolution wouldn't things be great. -- Brian Ashley Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) Tel (021) 4485197 Fax (021) 478583 E-mail Aidc at iafrica.com Home-page http://aidc.org.za P O Box 1139 Woodstock 7924 Cape Town



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