Tag: Shawn Hattingh

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South Africa: Historic rupture or warring brothers again?

South Africa. Everything we are now is built upon all that we were and where we came from. The same can be said for countries, any analysis has to look backwards before it can begin to understand the influences and causes of the present. This makes analysis intrinsically complex and often, almost impossible. At some point we are forced to simplify, look for patterns and analyse situations with a focus on where the key locus of power lies.

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Broken world, broken people – We need a path to a better future

We are living in a world that for most people is broken and that has broken most people. It is not a god given world, but one that has been constructed by those in power and that has left most people mired in deprivation. Under COVID-19, this world has sunk to new lows.

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#Nigeria and the Hope of the #EndSARS Protests

Nigeria. A video went viral on social media platforms on October 3, outlining how the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigerian police force shot a young man, dumped him at the side of the road and stole his car. What followed was three weeks of protests by young people against such police brutality and the corruption that defines the state; initially via social media, #EndSARS, and later in towns and cities across Nigeria.

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Grave diggers: the grim tale of states, capitalism and #COVID19

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it often seems as if we are stuck in a dystopian movie. In this movie death is stalking us, hospitals overflow with the sick and dying, and the grave diggers are at work. We know more victims will soon die as the folly of millions of workers being forced by circumstances to return into cramped mines, banks, factories and warehouses is so evident. Those that are no longer needed by the billionaires who own the companies are marshalled daily by the police and military dishing out violence and on occasion, humiliation, to underline their power and the power of their bosses.

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Democratic Confederalism and Movement Building in South Africa

The ongoing capitalist crisis, and the impacts of COVID19, have made it clear that the capitalist and state system we live under is neither efficient nor just. Inequality has hit record levels and a small elite has more wealth than ever, while the very basics – such as a decent healthcare, water, housing, sanitation, food and electricity – cannot be effectively financed, run nor delivered. Politicians in every state abuse their power too and corruption is rife, only its severity varies. Parliamentary democracy is largely hollow with a majority of people having no real political power. The oppression of women and people of colour continues unabated and imperialism deepens everyday. Due to the ever-expanding nature of capitalism the ecology is on the verge of collapse. It is clear a movement for change and an alternative to capitalism and the state system is needed.

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Alfredo M. #Bonanno: #Anarchism and the National Liberation Struggle

This important pamphlet attempts to develop an anarchist internationalist position on the ever present reality of national liberation struggles and the national question. Wide ranging in the topics it covers – from internal colonialism to a critique of certain Marxist views – the pamphlet argues that anarchists should support national liberation struggles insofar as they are waged by and for the oppressed classes, and that the national question can only be resolved by the free association of peoples on a libertarian and federalist basis.

Humanity will never be free until we liberate ourselves by global social revolution

Third South African Edition, February 2019

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Education for revolution: Anarcho-syndicalist pedagogy for South Africa

South Africa. The roots and principles of anarchosyndicalism are worth revisiting for the practice of worker education in movements inspired by these principles and traditions. Emphasising the democratic practice, working class rooted, organic and critical nature of the pedagogy, the practice seeks to intersect employed and unemployed women and men. Practically, the education provides a platform for post-revolutionary practice of direct democracy at the point of production and, thus, naturally included practical skills such as trades, accounting and sciences.

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South Africa’s polluting giants: it’s about profits and class

When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, South Africa falls within the 15 biggest polluters in the world. But there is also a class dimension when it comes to pinning down which sections of society are responsible for air pollution – the major polluters in South Africa are the ruling class (capitalists, politicians and top state bureaucrats) and their state and corporations (including state corporations), continuing an economy based on cheap black labour, mining and externalising costs. State-backed”empowerment” firms — for Afrikaners from 1948, and blacks from 1994 — are deeply involved.

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A spectre is haunting us: it’s the past weighing like a nightmare on the present

The context we now exist in is one that is defined by glaring contradictions everywhere, its fractured, changing, unstable and confrontational. It is a time of despair, but also pockets of hope.

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Alternatives to Capitalism: The #Rojava Experiment

In this education series we look at experiments, which have arisen through working class struggles, to create alternatives to capitalism.

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