Ah, our dear comrade cynic writes!
> Internationalism used to mean taking a stand "at home" against the interests
> of the (your own) ruling class at home and encouraging others to break their
> attachments to these people. It doesn't mean travelling around as much as
> possible between spectacles outside meetings of international institutions
> (or as many on the left used to think, creating international sections of
> your own little sect in as many other countries as possible). International
> conference/protest hopping seems to be the meaning given to the term by the
> grant-funded leadership of the new international "anti-capitalist" movement.
> I've always argued that what really corrupted the old liberation movement
> leadership in South Africa was taking them away from their mass roots and
> keeping them either in airports and airport hotels or conference centres, on
> a fulltime basis. They've been doing this ever since the negotiation
> process here started after 1990 and their feet have never touched the ground
> since. Surely some lessons here?
Yes, at least one: YOU should have been there.
Then you'd know that instead of being on the outside protesting the WB/IMF/WTO/UNCTAD, the old liberation movement went inside, lubricating neoliberalism.
Meanwhile, dozens of exceptionally good South African radical protesters have gone to Singapore, Seattle, Prague, Davos, Porto Alegre (hey, I wasn't at any of these!) and Washington these past couple of years. Their role in undoing the damage of the official SA delegations has been absolutely vital, by all accounts. But then, you wouldn't know, sitting as you do by the beautiful seaside on the Eastern Cape.
Another lesson: class analysis beats vulgar geographical determinism any day, comrade Russell.
Yours in frequent flying, Patrick