After the Water War

Oscar Olivera, ROAR Magazine

In Latin America, the struggle for water as a common good is present in almost all environmental conflicts—sparked by extractive, industrial, highway and energy projects—but also forms part of the agenda of urban and labor movements rallying against privatization, shortages, sanitation problems, and so on.

This does not come as a surprise, since water—as a common good and as a human right—is an essential part of our lifeworld, of how we relate to the planet and to each other. Water to be consumed and managed by humans; water for the reproduction of life; water as a living entity that flows and evolves; water as a sacred being or territory: all the above are perceptions radically opposed to water as a commodity, to water as a “resource” or financial asset.

Liberal Democracy & Ayllu Democracy in Boliva

Liberal Democracy and Ayllu Democracy in Bolivia by TigersEye99 on Scribd

Participatory Democracy in Action: Practices of the Zapatistas and the Movimento Sem Terra

EZLN and the MST by peterrosset

Facing Reality

Libcom

Writing in collaboration with Cornelius Castoriadis and Grace Lee, C.L.R. James examines the practical process of social revolution in the modern world.

"Springing forth from the utopian flames of self-emancipation kindled by the workers councils of the Hungarian Revolution, this pivotal book offers a socialist indictment of the miserabilism of state capitalism and calls for the ongoing rejection of both vanguardism and the bureaucratic rationalism of state power." - Ron Sakolsky, author of Creating Anarchy

In this celebrated "underground classic," also known as "C. L. R. James's most anarchist book," the author of The Black Jacobins, History of Pan-African Revolt and Beyond a Boundary examines the practical process of social revolution in the modern world. Inspired by the October 1956 Hungarian workers' revolution against Stalinist oppression, as well as the U.S. workers' "wild-cat" strikes (against Capital and the union bureaucracies), James and his co-authors looked ahead to the rise of new mass emancipatory movements by African Americans as well as anti-colonialist/anti-imperialist currents in Africa and Asia. Virtually alone among the radical texts of the time, Facing Reality also rejected modern society's mania for "conquering nature," and welcomed women's struggles "for new relations between the sexes."

Richard Turner's Contribution to a Socialist Political Culture in South Africa 1968 - 1978

William Keniston, MA Thesis, 2010

Richard Turner, a banned political science lecturer from the University of Natal, was assassinated on the 8th of January, 1978. In the ten years preceding, Turner had been actively involved in a wide range of activities radically opposed to apartheid and capitalism. Turner was a remarkable professor, who taught his students more through questioning and dialogue than lecture. Turner had a significant impact on left wing white students. He played an important role in encouraging white activists to understand Black Consciousness as a radical politics to be embraced, rather than shunned. Turner encouraged whites to find a role for themselves within a struggle that he saw as driven by Black demands and programmes. In addition, Turner was involved in the emerging trade union movement, following the wildcat strikes in 1973. He participated in creating the Institute for Industrial Education, which had a curriculum focused on increasing class consciousness amongst workers building democratic trade unions.

Social Movements and Leftist Governments in Latin America

by Gary Prevost, Critical Studies Seminar Series

The last decade in Latin America has witnessed two important simultaneous and interrelated developments: the rise in prominence of social movements, and the election of a number of left and center-left governments. The social movements have ranged from the broad, community organized “piqueteros” of Argentina that brought down three governments in the space of one month in 2001 to the indigenous-based movements of Ecuador and Bolivia that have been instrumental in toppling five governments in the two countries within the last decade, the Landless Movement in Brazil (MST), Afro-Colombians resisting displacement in a region coveted by investors, the Cocalaros and the mobilizations against water privatizations and gas pipeline investments in Bolivia, to the Zapatistas in Mexico, who burst on the scene to challenge the formation of NAFTA and the marginalization of the mostly indigenous peasants in Chiapas. The social movements of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia are complemented across the region by a myriad of organizations that engage on a range of issues from land rights to women’s rights to environmental concerns.

The Capacities of the People Versus a Predominant, Militarist, Ethno-Nationalist Elite: Democratisation in South Africa c. 1973-1997

UDF Poster

by Ken Good

In January 1983, Allan Boesak called for the formation of a front to oppose specific apartheid constitutional changes, and after a series of regional conferences, the United Democratic Front was launched in Cape Town in August. Boesak says that fifteen hundred people were present, representing 500 organisations and all sectors of society. The listing of the Front’s eventual affiliates included trade unions, youth and student movements, women’s and religious groups, civic associations, political parties and a range of support and professional groups. Within the next few years, the Front embraced almost 1,000 affiliated groups. Because of the UDF’s capacity to provide national political and ideological coordination to these affiliates, radical political action ‘assumed an increasingly organised form’, says Swilling, ‘enhancing its power and effectiveness.’ As previously with the BCM, the arrival of the UDF was not welcomed by the ANC.

The Eye of the Needle: Towards Participatory Democracy in South Africa

The Eye of the Needle by Richard Turner

Tony Morphet's biographical introduction is online here.

The full text of this book is online here.

The Eye of the Needle marks a particular moment in the political and cultural history of South Africa and more precisely in the history of the opposition to white supremacist rule in South Africa. It also marks a moment in the biography of Richard Turner.

Nothing quite like The Eye of the Needle had (or has since) appeared in South Africa. Perhaps most startling of all are the assumptions which are visible throughout the book....that this society, complex and cruel thought it is, rests finally on nothing more than men's choices and therefore, for that same reason, it can be changed. Most South African writing, both its fiction and polemic, assumes a powerful objective dominance in the social structure - men may protest and bewail their fate but little or nothing can be done to effect any change. Turner's writing breathes a different spirit. Men have made the society in a way that can be completely comprehended, and in the same way men can change the society.

Moving the State: The Politics of Democratic Decentralization in Kerala, South Africa, and Porto Alegre

by Patrick Heller, Politics & Society, Vol. 29 No. 1, March 2001 131-163

Over the past decade, a large number of developing countries have made the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. The rebirth of civil societies, the achievement of new freedoms and liberties have all been celebrated with due enthusiasm. But now that the euphoria of these transitions has passed, we are beginning to pose the sobering question of what difference democracy makes to development, or to be more precise, whether democracy can help redress the severe social and economic inequalities that characterize developing countries.

Building Tomorrow Today

 by Steven Friedman, 1987

The twentieth century, we are told only began in Europe in 1914, when world war swept away its old, complacent rulers. The 1970s began for South African employers early on the morning of January 9, 1973, when 2 000 workers at the Coronation Brick and Tile works on the outskirts of Durban gathered at a football field and demanded a pay rise. 

Click here to download chapters two and 16 of Steven Friedman's Building Tomorrow Today (Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1987)

The Relevance of Contemporary Radical Thought

by Richard Turner, SPRO-CAS, 1971

THE OBJECT of this paper is to discuss the relevance of 'contemporary radical thought' to the South African situation. The phrase 'contemporary radical thought' includes the ideologies of various issue-orientated struggles such as 'Student Power', 'Black Power' and 'Women's Liberation' groups, and also refers to recent developments in Marxist theory and in Christian thought. In political terms it finds expression in a number of parties situated well to the left of the orthodox Communist parties in the political spectrum.

To Resist All Degradations & Divisions

S’bu Zikode interviewed by Richard Pithouse, Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 April 2009

Click here to read an annotated version of this interview in pdf and here to read a summary.

Tell me something about where you were born and who your family were.

I was born in a village called Loskop which is near the town called Estcourt. It is in the Natal Midlands. I was born in 1975. I have a twin sister, her name is Thoko. We are now the last born. I have two other sisters. I also had a brother who passed away so I am the only son.

The Working Class and Organisation

Cornelius Castoriadis, 1959, via LibCom
 
The organizations created by the working class for its liberation have become cogs in the system of exploitation. This is the brutal conclusion forced upon anyone who is prepared to face up to reality. One consequence is that today many are perplexed by an apparent dilemma. Can one become involved without organization? And if one cannot, how can one organize without following the path that has made traditional organizations the fiercest enemies of the aims they originally set out to achieve?