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.

Camalita Naicker on Marikana as an Event in the Subaltern Sphere of Politics

Autonomy in Brazil: towards a new political culture

By Raúl Zibechi, Roar Magazine

This is the second part of an article by Raul Zibechi on the recent Brazilian uprisings (read part one here). The full piece was originally published by the Observatorio Social de América Latina (OSAL Nº 34). English translation by Ramor Ryan for Upside Down World.

The Pan-American Games as a Rehearsal

“People have the illusion that they will profit from the World Cup events, but the truth is that they will be brutally suppressed,” said Roberto Morales, deputy adviser to Marcelo Freixo of the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), a year and a half before the Confederations Cup. (Zibechi, 2012b) Morales participates in the Comitê Popular da Copa (Popular Committee for the World Cup) that was created during the Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, when local people began to resist forced relocation to make way for games’ facilities.

Autonomy in Brazil: below and behind the June uprising

by Raúl Zibechi, Roar Magazine

This article was originally published by the Observatorio Social de América Latina (OSAL Nº 34). English translation by Ramor Ryan for Upside Down World.

The huge mobilizations in June 2013 in 353 cities and towns in Brazil came as much a surprise to the political system as to analysts and social bodies. Nobody expected so many demonstrations, so numerous, in so many cities and for so long. As happens in these cases, media analyses were quick off the mark. Initially they focused on the immediate problems highlighted by the actions: urban transport, rising fare prices and the poor quality of service for commuters. Slowly the analyses and perspectives expanded to include the day-to-day dissatisfaction felt by a large part of the population. While there was widespread acknowledgement that basic family income had risen during the last decade of economic growth, social commentators began to focus on economic inclusion through consumption as the root of the dissatisfaction, alongside the persistence of social inequality.

Talking about a revolution with John Holloway

ROAR Magazine

“There is a growing sense throughout the world that capitalism isn’t working; and that the cracks we create in it may really be the only way forward.”

 - San Andrés de Cholula, Mexico, 03/04/13

On the outskirts of Puebla and at the foot of the giant Popocatépetl volcano lies the sleepy Mexican town of San Andrés de Cholula. It is here that, on a sunny April afternoon, we meet John Holloway. Often referred to as “the philosopher of the Zapatistas”, Holloway — who is a Professor of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Puebla — is widely known for his anti-statist conception of revolution and his intellectual support for autonomous anti-capitalist movements around the world. The publication in 2002 of his influential book, Change the World without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, unleashed a veritable firestorm of both praise and criticism from fellow radicals and helped to provoke a period of profound introspection in Leftist circles on the meaning and necessity of revolution in the post-Cold War context of globalized financial capitalism.

Gender, Political Systems & Social Movements: A West African Experience

Ifi Amadiume: Gender, Political Systems & Social Movements: A West African Experience by TigersEye99

Constructing Mutuality: The Zapatistas’ Transformation of Transnational Activist Power Dynamics

by Abigail Andrews, 2010

This article examines the evolution of transnational Zapatista solidarity networks. Although scholars have described an emerging “mutuality” between the Zapatista movement and its allies at the level of international framing, this article considers how the Zapatistas forged this mutuality on the ground, through active redefinition of alliances with Northern supporters. It argues that the Zapatistas delimited who was included in their solidarity networks, set new terms for partnerships, and redefined legitimacy in their transnational alliances. In so doing, they asserted their autonomy from donors. They also fostered discourses and practices of mutual solidarity and Southern leadership, shifting the balance of power between North and South. The case both illuminates the possibilities for Southern movements to challenge Northern control from within and suggests potential pitfalls of doing so; by defying Northern NGOs’ influence, the Zapatistas may have risked their long-term viability.

A Society Adrift Interviews and Debates, 1974-1997

This posthumous collection of interviews and occasional papers given by Castoriadis between 1974 and 1997 is a lively, direct introduction to the thinking of a writer who never abandoned his radically critical stance. It provides a clear, handy résumé of his political ideas, in advance of their times and profoundly relevant to today’s world.

For this political thinker and longtime militant (co-founder with Claude Lefort of the revolutionary group “Socialisme ou Barbarie”), economist, psychoanalyst, and philosopher, two endless interrogations—how to understand the world and life in society—were intertwined with his own life and combats.

An important chapter discusses the history of “Socialisme ou Barbarie” (1949—1967); in it, Castoriadis presents the views he defended, in that group, on a number of subjects: a critique of Marxism and of the Soviet Union, the bureaucratization of society and of the workers’ movement, and the primacy of individual and collective autonomy. Another chapter presents the concept, central to his thinking, of “imaginary significations” as what make a society “cohere.”

Castoriadis constantly returns to the question of democracy as the never-finished, deliberate creation by the people of societal institutions, analyzing its past and its future in the Western world. He scathingly criticizes “representative” democracy and develops a conception of direct democracy extending to all spheres of social life.

Governments and Movements: Autonomy or New Forms of Domination?

by Raúl Zibechi, The Post-Capitalist Project

The end of 2008 marked the ten-year anniversary of Hugo Chávez's first electoral victory (December 6, 1998), which initiated a new period marked by the emergence of progressive and left governments in South America. His clinching of the presidency was the result of a long process of struggles from below, beginning in February 1989 with the Caracazo—the first great popular insurrection against neoliberalism—which drove into crisis the party-system that for decades had sustained elite domination.

Cornelius Castoriadis: An Interview

Cornelius Castoriadis

The following interview with Cornelius Castoriadis took place at the University of Essex, in late February 1990. Castoriadis is a leading figure in the thought and politics of the postwar period in France. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s he was a member of the now almost legendary political organization, Socialisme ou Barbarie, along with other currently well-known figures, such as Claude Lefort and lean-Franaois Lyotard. Unlike some of his contemporaries, however, he has remained firm in the basic political convictions of his activist years . He may be better known to some Radical Philosophy readers under the name of Paul Cardan, the pseudonym which appeared on the cover of pamphlets published during the 1960s by 'Solidarity', the British counterpart to Socialisme ou Barbarie.

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?