Conflict can destroy movements. We need to fight the system, not each other

Erica Garner & Kemi Alabi, The Guardian 

On 17 July 2014, New York Police Department officer Daniel Pantaleo killed my father, Eric Garner. More than 11 minutes of video footage show Officer Pantaleo placing him in an illegal chokehold, and people all over the world soon learned my father’s final words: “I can’t breathe”. Faced with yet another incontrovertible act of police brutality, angered viewers formed resistance groups – practically overnight – to demand justice.

The Hijacking of Fergu$on

T-Dubb-O, UrbanCusp

The Ferguson uprising started the development of a revolution here in the United States. There is no question that Ferguson was much different and more radical than anything we’ve seen here in this country. A movement filled with young, black, oppressed, and fearless males and females who were unapologetic on their conquest for freedom. St. Louis, MO opened the door for factual conversations around racism and oppression in this country. The entire world watched and supported Ferguson, but that support did not reach the people of St. Louis, MO.

Liberal Democracy & Ayllu Democracy in Boliva

Liberal Democracy and Ayllu Democracy in Bolivia by TigersEye99 on Scribd

Praxis & the Work of Building Counter-Power

Richard Pithouse

In the ‘70s and ‘80s the idea of praxis was often taken seriously in the process of building the organisations, movements and unions that undertook the work of developing the counter-power of the oppressed. Praxis was often understood as more than just the idea that effective political work required reflection on action, and action guided by reflection. It was also an idea with democratic and ethical dimensions.

No investigation, no right to speak?

No investigation, no right to speak?

Richard Pithouse

In January last year I was in Harare for a conference organised by the people around the journal Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. There were lots of interesting people and papers, and interesting visits to flourishing farms, but one of the things that really struck me was a paper by a Brazilian scholar who has worked with and on the MST in Brazil, as well as the Landless Peoples’ Movement (LPM) in South Africa.

Shifting the Ground of Radical Reason

Richard Pithouse, SACSIS

For some time now much of the left has either been alienated from actually existing popular mobilisation or unable to make and sustain productive connections with it. But the emergence of new forces to the left of the ANC, forces with money, a national reach, easy access to the media and, in the case of NUMSA, an established and organised membership, is generating fresh optimism.

Raymond Suttner on Numsa's United Front

Notes on Praxis for the RGS Panel on the Co-Production of Urban Contestation, London, August 2014

Notes on Praxis for the RGS Panel on the Co-Production of Urban Contestation, London, August 2014

Richard Pithouse

Rigorous ongoing reflection on praxis is an essential practice for all participants in any struggle. There can be no effective emancipatory political action on a sustained basis without this reflexivity. It is simultaneously ethical and strategic work. It is necessary to strive to ensure that this is a collective practice within struggles as well as taking it on as an individual obligation.

A few good whites: Will civil society take Dr Ramphele back?

Sisonke Msimang

Sisonke Msimang, The Daily Maverick

Ramphele’s assumption that she will be accepted into civil society, where she can continue her project of ‘active citizenship’ without having to be directly accountable to a real live constituency, speaks volumes. The good doctor is not wrong in this regard. Sadly, many civil society groups will accept her because the sector is not yet robust enough, not yet racially secure enough to tell prominent blacks (and whites) where to get off when they mess up.

Remembering the Overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Yves Engler, CounterPunch

On February 29, 2004 the US, France and Canada overthrew Haiti’s elected government.

As my first two articles in this series outlined, Ottawa helped plan the coup and was heavily implicated in the human rights disaster that followed.

But the most shocking aspect of the intervention was the role played by purportedly progressive non-governmental organizations. A slew of NGOs received tens of millions of dollars from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to advance Ottawa’s anti-democratic policy in Haiti.

Raymond Suttner on Disillusionment with Formal Politics

Savages, Victims & Saviours: The Metaphor of Human Rights

Savages, Victims & Saviours: The Metaphor of Human Rights by TigersEye99

Richa Nagar interviwed by Selda Tuncer

Richa Nagar interviwed by Selda Tuncer (2012) by TigersEye99

Power, Knowledge and Social Control in Participatory Development

Power, Knowledge and Social Control in Participatory Development by troy_13

Can the project of Community Engagement be used as an emancipatory tool?

Fezokuhle Mthonti

Post-apartheid  South Africa,  saw a number of  legislative decisions come into play, which sought to create a more inclusive socio political environment in which South Africans could start to reconcile themselves with the numerous  institutional and political divisions that had polarized  them for so long. Part of this legislative process was the release of the Education White Paper- A programme for Higher Education Transformation. This paper was drafted by the National Commission on Higher Education (NHCE) in 1997 and sought to integrate the theoretical practice of community engagement into the fabric of South African Higher Education. In a paper entitled Embedding Community Engagement in South African Education Mabel Erasmus argues that the White Paper “called on higher education institutions to ‘demonstrate social responsibility and commitment to the common good by making available, expertise and infrastructure for community service programmes’.” (Erasmus:2008,57) Further to that, Erasmus argues that “one of the goals of higher education, is ‘to promote and develop social responsibility and awareness among students and to increase the role of higher education in social and economic development through community service programmes’.” (Erasmus:2008,57)

Black people are poor, not stupid

by Malaika wa Azania, Thought Leader,15 April 2013

I am terribly annoyed by academics and political analysts in this country. It has become a Herculean task for me to even read their works and research based on the conditions of black people, particularly in the townships and rural areas. Most of these academic papers and articles, whatever issue they deal with, however different the research methodology employed, seem to be arriving at the same conclusion about the consciousness of our people. The conclusion is that the toiling masses in townships and rural areas, the majority of them black, are ignorant or stupid.

The Unemployed People’s Movement will not be Participating in the So-Called ‘People’s Space’ at the BRICS Meeting in Durban

Sunday, 24 March 2013

Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement

The Unemployed People’s Movement will not be Participating in the So-Called ‘People’s Space’ at the BRICS Meeting in Durban

The Unemployed People’s Movement will not be participating in the so-called ‘People’s Space’ at the BRICS meeting in Durban.

Our Umlazi branch received a phone call recently informing us that buses were being provided for us to send our members to the so-called ‘People’s Space’ at the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN. We were instructed to mobilise to fill the buses.

The Dignity of the Poor is Vandalized from Many Quarters

by Abahlali baseMjondolo (KwaZulu-Natal), Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal) & the Unemployed People's Movement (Eastern Cape, Free State & KwaZulu-Natal), Harvard International Review

When black people rose up against apartheid, the government usually said that they couldn’t have organized themselves and that there must have been a white person making them resist. Some thought that only whites were capable of thinking, speaking, and acting for themselves. But it was not only the government that looked for conspiracies every time black people organized themselves. This also happened within the movement.

Time of the signs: Feminism, by any other name . . .

Nokulinda Mkhize

by Nokulinda Mkhize, City  Press

Our pages have been filled with news and stories of statistics regarding ­gender-based violence and the abuse, assault and violation of women and girls. One that received great prominence was the case of Anene Booysens.

Men in her community, who were known to her, violently assaulted and raped her. She sustained heinous injuries and later died.

This is but one example of the violent acts perpetrated against South African women every four minutes.

NGOs: In the service of imperialism

Petras NGOsImperialism by hobbesianstudent