Some new publications/info/films from/about South Africa:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Franco Barchiesi" <f_barchiesi at hotmail.com> Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 2:55 PM Subject: DEBATE: TABLE OF CONTENTS - "Debate" 6/7
> SUBSCRIBE NOW to "Debate - Voices from the South African Left"
>
> ISSUE #6/7 is OUT with:
>
> SPECIAL FOCUS: "Local-Global/ Connect-Disconnect"
>
> Naomi Klein, "No Fence Big Enough"
>
> Trevor Ngwane, "Rethinking American Empire"
>
> David Harvey, Talal Asad, Cindi Katz, Neil Smith and Ida Susser, "Local
> Horror/Global Response"
>
> Trevor Ngwane, "The 3 Peace Marches in Washington, DC, September 18, 2001"
>
> Neil Smith, "Giuliani Space: Revanchist City"
>
> Chris Bolsmann, "Deaths at the Stadium: A Different Kind of Terror"
>
> Darlene Miller, "Genuine White Lies in Zimbabwe"
>
> Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, "SECC Turns Power On, and Keeps It
On"
>
> Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, "People's Power in Soweto"
>
> Anna Weekes, "Communities in the Unicity"
>
> Eddie Cottle, "Free Water?"
>
> David Harvey, "Local Concerns and Global Ambitions"
>
> John Page, "Glocal Opposition to Privatisation: The Case of Hackney, UK"
>
> Ben Cashdan and Dennis Brutus, "Racism Conference a Victory for the EU"
>
> Prishani Naidoo, "The Silencing Power of the World Conference Against
> Racism"
>
> Peter Alexander and Graca Mkodzongi, "Interview with Munyaradzi Gwisai,
> MDC's Socialist MP"
>
> Darlene Miller, "Jambanja - Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe"
>
> David Pottie, "Queuing for Democracy"
>
> Molly Dhlamini, "The King and Us: Interview with Bongani Masuku, President
> of the Swaziland Youth Congress"
>
> Lenny Gentle, "The Blind Leading the Blind - The Australian Accord and
> Neoliberalism in South Africa"
>
> Andile Mngxitama, "Book Review of 'Banking on Change', by Helena Dolny"
>
> To subscribe (1 year, 4 issues, airmail for overseas addresses) send your
> cheque to "Debate", PO Box 517, Wits 2050, Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA, or
> send your subscription fee to the Account "DEBATE - Voices from the Left",
> Nedbank, Jorissen Street, Braamfontein 2017, Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA,
> Account No. 1965-371418, SORT Code: 19500502, SWIFT Address: NEDSZAJJ.
>
> Subsciption fees:
>
> South Africa: Individual R42.00; Institutions: R100.00; Supporter:
R100.00;
> Student (Copy of ID Required): R36.00;
> Rest of the World:
> Individual: 30 USD (or 20 GBP); Institutions: USD 60.00 (or GBP 40.00);
> Supporter: USD 50.00 (or GBP 34.00).
***
On the US East Coast in late November, early December? Check out Ben Cashdan's latest doccie...
> "You just don't know how lucky you are that black
> people can still tolerate living in shacks and
> go and work for white people in beautiful homes,
> and not kill those white people."
> ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU, JULY 2001
>
> At the Durban anti-racism conference, 20 000 people
> marched for reparations and against globalisation.
> Then five days before the Sept 11 attack the US
> government walked out of Durban.
>
> This new film from South Africa asks why so many
> in Africa blame northern governments and corporations
> for their poverty. Includes exclusive interviews with
> Tutu, Mandela, Soros, Mbeki and others.
>
> Screenings are FREE and presented interactively by the
> filmmaker!
>
> Wed 28 Nov - NEW YORK, NY - New School
> 8:00pm, Swayduck Auditorium, 65 Fifth Ave
> Contact Timo Lyrra: LYYRA at newschool.edu
> 212-229-5580
>
> Thur 29 Nov - NORTHAMPTON, MA - Smith College
> 7:30pm, Neilson Library Browsing Room
> Contact Tandeka Nkiwane (TNKIWANE at email.smith.edu)
>
> Fri 30 Nov - WORCESTER - Clark
> Contact Laila Smith: LSmith at clarku.edu
>
> Sat 1 Dec - BOSTON - MA Coll of Art
> 2pm, 621 Huntington Avenue
> Longwood Stop on Green E Line
> Contact Rajiv Rawat: rrawat at hsph.harvard.edu
>
> Mon 3 Dec - BALTIMORE - Johns Hopkins
> 7.30pm, AMR1 Multipurpose Room
> Johns Hopkins University, Homewood Campus
> 3400 No. Charles St.
> Contact Chris powers: powers at jhu.edu
>
> Tue 4 Dec - WASHINGTON DC
> To be finalised
> Contact Carole Collins: collinsc at igc.org
>
> ---------
>
> "South Africa is in the hands of Global Capital.
> That's why it can't meet the legitimate aspirations
> of its people"
> GEORGE SOROS, FINANCIER
>
> "We can't wait 40 years like the holocaust
> victims. We want reparations now!"
> ARCHBISHOP OF CAPE TOWN NJONGO NDUNGANE
>
> "The gentlemen in Davos are in the minority in the
> world today. The future lies here in Porto Alegre."
> TREVOR NGWANE, SOWETO ACTIVIST
>
> The film includes an inside view of the racism conference
> in Durban, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
> and the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
***
It's not enough to bring Soweto to Rosedale
By NAOMI KLEIN Globe and Mail, Toronto
Wednesday, November 21, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A21
On Saturday night, I found myself at a party honouring Nelson Mandela and raising money for his children's fund. It was a lovely affair and only a very rude person would have pointed out that the party was packed with many of the banking and mining executives who refused to pull their investments out of apartheid-run South Africa for decades.
Similarly, only someone with no sense of timing would have mentioned that, as the Liberals were making Mr. Mandela an honorary Canadian citizen, they were also trying to ram through an anti-terrorism bill that would have sabotaged the anti-apartheid movement on several fronts had it been in place at the time.
The Canadian anti-apartheid movement raised money for the African National Congress, which would easily have fit Bill C-36's sloppy definition of a terrorist organization. Furthermore, anti-apartheid activists deliberately caused "serious disruption" to companies that invested in South Africa, eventually forcing many to pull out. These disruptions would also have been illegal under C-36.
Only someone with absolutely no sense of propriety would have muttered, amidst all the self-congratulation last weekend, that many in South Africa insist that apartheid still exists, and requires a new resistance movement. But two weeks ago, I met Trevor Ngwane, a former ANC municipal council member, who says just that. "Apartheid based on race has been replaced with apartheid based on class."
Confronted with a country where eight million people are homeless and nearly five million are HIV positive, some try to paint deep inequality as a sad but unavoidable legacy of racial apartheid. Mr. Ngwane says it is the direct result of a specific economic "restructuring" program, embraced by the current government and nurtured by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
When Mr. Mandela was freed from prison, his vision was of a South Africa that offered economic, as well as democratic, freedom. Basic needs for housing, water and electricity would be met through massive public works programs.
But as power came into the ANC's reach, writes South African professor Patrick Bond in his new book Against Global Apartheid,enormous pressure was put on the party to prove it could govern with "sound macroeconomic policies." It became clear that, if Mr. Mandela tried genuine redistribution of wealth, the international markets would punish South Africa. Many within the party understandably feared that an economic meltdown would be used as an indictment not just of the ANC, but of black rule itself.
So, instead of its policy of "growth through redistribution," the ANC, particularly under President Thabo Mbeki, adopted the cookie-cutter program of trying to "grow" the economy by pleasing foreign investors: mass privatizations, layoffs and wage cuts in the public sector, corporate tax cuts, and the like.
The results have been devastating. Half a million jobs have been lost since 1993. Wages for the poorest 40 per cent have dropped by 21 per cent. Poor areas have seen their water costs go up by 55 per cent, electricity by as much as 400 per cent. Many have resorted to drinking polluted water, leading to a cholera outbreak that infected 100,000 people. In Soweto, 20,000 homes have their electricity cut off each month. And the investment? They're still waiting.
This is the type of track record that has turned the World Bank and the IMF into international pariahs, drawing thousands to the streets of Ottawa last weekend, with a "solidarity protest" in Johannesburg. The Washington Post recently told the heart-breaking story of one Soweto resident, Agnes Mohapi. The reporter observed, "For all its wretchedness, apartheid never did this: It did not lay her off from her job, jack up her utility bill, then disconnect her service when she inevitably could not pay. 'Privatization did that,' [Ms. Mohapi] said."
In the face of this system of "economic apartheid," a new resistance movement is inevitable. There was a three-day general strike against privatization in August. (Workers held up signs that read, "ANC We Love You But Not Privatizations.") In Soweto, unemployed workers reconnect their neighbours' cutoff water, and the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee has illegally reconnected power in thousands of homes. Why don't the police arrest them? "Because," Mr. Ngwane says, "when the police officers' electricity is disconnected, we reconnect them, too."
It looks as if the Bay Street executives, so eager to have their pictures taken with Nelson Mandela last weekend, have a second chance to fight apartheid -- this time while it's still going on. They can do it not only through good-hearted charity, but by questioning the economic logic that is failing so many around the world.
Which side will they be on this time?
***
The book Against Global Apartheid is now available for international ordering (you can check it out at http://aidc.org.za). Here are the publishers' details:
NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT Title : Against Global Apartheid Author : Patrick Bond Publisher : University of Cape Town Press (http://www.juta.co.za) ISBN : 1919713565 Size : 150mm X 220mm Extent : 302 pages Binding : Soft Cover Price : R149.00 (incl. VAT) (US$15) Available : Immediately
South Africans hold positions of great influence in the world of international finance: President Thabo Mbeki regularly speaks of fighting 'global apartheid', and does so as leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and Commonwealth at the turn of the 21st century. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel recently chaired the World Bank and IMF Board of Governors. Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin is one of the Third World's most forceful trade negotiators, and was President of UNCTAD during the late 1990s. Mamphela Ramphele is a Managing Director of the World Bank, responsible for social development.
However, Patrick Bond poses challenging questions, such as: Are these leading South Africans aspiring to break the chains of global apartheid - or merely to shine them? What, in contrast, are South African's grassroots activists saying and doing at anti-globalisation protests in Seattle, Washington, Prague and Johannesburg? Should the key institutions of international capitalist regulation - the World Bank, IMF and WTO - be fixed or 'nixed'? For people all over the world, what are the implications of corporate globalization's 'race to the bottom', and of South Africans' varied reactions?
Contents
Part One: Powers and Vulnerabilities Chapter One: Global Crisis, African Oppression Chapter Two: Southern African Socio-Economic Conflict Chapter Three: Bretton Woods Bankruptcies in Southern Africa Chapter Four: Foreign Aid, Development and Underdevelopment Part Two: Elite Contestation of Global Governance Chapter Five: The Global Balance of Forces Chapter Six: Ideology and Global Governance Chapter Seven: Pretoria's Global Governance Strategy Part Three: Economic Power and the case of HIV/AIDS Treatment Chapter Eight: Pharmaceutical Corporations and US Imperialism Chapter Nine: Civil Society Conquest, State Failure Part Four: Globalisation or Internationalism plus the Nation State? Chapter Ten: The 'Fix-it-or-nix-it' Debate Chapter Eleven: The Third World in the Movement for Global Justice Chapter Twelve: The Case for Locking Capital Down
Patrick Bond is Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management, and a voluntary associate of the Alternative Information and Development Centre in Johannesburg and of the Center for Economic Justice in Washington (pbond at wn.apc.org).