------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 16:10:24 -0400
Reply-to: World-L - Forum on non-Eurocentric world history
<WORLD-L@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU>
From: Haines Brown <BROWNH@ccsua.CTSTATEU.EDU>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 15:11:22 +0800 (WST)
From: Peter Limb <plimb@library.uwa.edu.au>
To: "NUAFRICA: Program of African Studies Mailing List"
<nuafrica@listserv.acns.nwu.edu>
Announcing a new journal from South Africa...
>>> DEBATE
>>> VOICES FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN LEFT
>>>
>>>
>>>*********First issue now available - subscription info below********
>>>*******Lead editorial reprinted at the bottom of this message*******
>>>
>>>
>>> -- FIRST ISSUE INCLUDES--
>>>
>>>Franco BARCHIESI, "Promises for Sale - Debunking the
>>> Developmentalist State Form"
>>>
>>>Dale McKINLEY, "Critique of Government's Macroeconomic
>>>Vishwas SATGAR, Strategy: Growth, Employment and
>>>Langa ZITA Redistribution"
>>>
>>>Oupa LEHULERE "Debating Social Democracy"
>>>Eddie WEBSTER
>>>Franco BARCHIESI
>>>Rehad DESAI
>>>
>>>Franco BARCHIESI Interview with Immanuel Wallerstein
>>>Matthew GINSBURG
>>>
>>>Greg RUITERS "On Civil Society - Review of Mzwanele
>>> Mayekiso's 'Township Politics'"
>>>
>>>Mzwanele MAYEKISO Excerpts from 'Township Politics'
>>>
>>>Frank S. WILDERSON "The Makgoba Affair: Semiotics of a
>>> Prelates War"
>>>
>>>Sandile DIKANI Two Poems
>>>
>>>
>>> --Subscription Information--
>>>
>>>
>>> South Africa Overseas
>>>
>>>Workers R50 N/A
>>>
>>>Full-Time R40 N/A
>>>Students
>>>
>>>Salaried R75 $30/L20
>>>Individuals
>>>
>>>Institutions R120 $60/L40
>>>
>>>Overseas rates include the cost of airmail postage in all cases.
>>>
>>>Workers and students should provide proof of where they work or study
>>>(eg photocopy of student card, union card, etc)
>>>
>>>Send checks or international money order to:
>>>
>>>DEBATE: VOICES FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN LEFT
>>>P O Box 483
>>>Wits 2050
>>>South Africa
>>>
>>> or contact us by:
>>>
>>>Phone: (011) 482-4327
>>>Fax: (011) 716-3781
>>>E-mail: 029frb@cosmos.wits.ac.za
>>>
>>>Please include the following information
>>>with your subscription:
>>>
>>>NAME:____________________________________
>>>_________________________________________
>>>ADDRESS:_________________________________
>>>_________________________________________
>>>____________________POSTAL CODE:_________
>>>TELEPHONE:_______________________________
>>>OCCUPATION:______________________________
>>>PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT/STUDY:_______________
>>>_________________________________________
>>>
>>>The DEBATE Editorial Collective is made by:
>>>
>>>Franco Barchiesi, Heinrich Bohmke, Patrick Bond, Ashwin Desai,
>>>Rehad Desai, Leonard Gentle, Matthew Ginsburg, David Hemson,
>>>Darrell Moellendorf, Greg Ruiters, Frank Wilderson.
>>>
>>> --Lead Editorial--
>>>
>>> WHAT DEBATE?
>>>
>>> One delegate [of the Washington-based Institute of International
>>> Finance] said he will advise his clients that South Africa is safe
>>> as an investment destination for a time horizon of eight months...
>>> The three-year perspective is terrible and the five-year perspective
>>> is impossible.
>>> Ben van Rensburg, chief economist
>>> South African Chamber of Business
>>> (speaking to a parliamentary committee, 3 June 1996)
>>>Since around the time of the first democratic election, the South African
>>>left (however we define ourselves) have been starved of good written
>>>debates about left theory, strategies and tactics. That was the moment
>>>not only when many of our leading thinkers migrated into government,
>>>and an apparently indefinite future of self-censureship.
>>>
>>>It was also the point at which Work in Progress, a non-sectarian
>>>monthly, suddenly died. Other useful periodicals continue, of course, and
>>>on a quarterly or semi-annual basis progressive readers can satisfy their
>>>hunger for arguments that flow from particular political parties (African
>>>Communist), policy wonks (Transformation), social scientists (Social
>>>Dynamics), political philosophers (Theoria), feminists (Agenda),
>>>urbanists (Urban Forum) and so on. But dissatisfaction is also in the air,
>>>and for many of us the existing material sometimes means a hard trek
>>>through orthodox or simply flat and uninvigorating material.
>>>
>>>The strategists and intellectuals of social movements, labour, left parties
>>>and the academy have traditionally thrived on debate, particularly during
>>>lulls in the broader struggle. And South Africa's transition to democracy
>>>has, regrettably, paralysed much of what is considered to be the formal
>>>left.
>>>
>>>But it has also thrown up myriad contradictions and has begun to
>>>restructure class, race and even gender relations in significant ways. It
>>>is time, many of us now conclude, to get a better handle on all of
>>>this. It is time to revisit classical controversies in political
>>>economy, politics and culture, and apply new arguments that are more
>>>sensitive to environment, race, identity, gender and generational
>>>concerns than the left has generally managed.
>>>
>>>Such debate is not merely of intellectual importance. Although the
>>>democratic breakthrough has surpassed most of our expectations -- had
>>>we been asked what would happen a decade ago -- it has been
>>>profoundly flawed, by all accounts. Masses of black South Africans
>>>continue to confront the residues of apartheid at so many levels. South
>>>Africa's social inequalities are amongst the most extreme in the world.
>>>And the government has faltered enormously in delivering even the
>>>simplest goods and services.
>>>
>>>The debate that finally seems to be emerging over such realities also
>>>reflects the fact that traditions of social struggle are very much alive.
>>>Striking nurses, autoworkers, civil servants and Cosatu's ability to
>>>coordinate a national strike show the durability of worker confidence.
>>>Land invasions and student demonstrations exhibit the hunger and will
>>>for radical change.
>>>
>>>Are these just ongoing exhibitions of atomistic civil society, or instead the
>>>
>>>seeds of the next large movement-wide push for a true transformation
>>>toward democracy, egalitarianism and sustainability (especially since
>>>such words themselves have been poisoned by their use in so many
>>>World Bank documents)? Are all the challenges to capital and state
>>>power worth supporting? What is an appropriate evaluation of local
>>>militancy today? What strategies and tactics would we want to see
>>>becoming more generalised within the organisations of poor and working
>>>people?
>>>
>>>Answering such practical questions depends upon us correctly
>>>assessing the possibilities of change at this conjuncture. We are
>>>presented in the bourgeois press with only the logic of neo-liberalism,
>>>perhaps augmented by a few social democratic components here and
>>>there.
>>>If experiences elsewhere are any guide, this means that most of South
>>>Africa will probably taste the fruit of liberation not mainly via political
>>>democratisation but instead in the form of dramatically declining living
>>>standards. And that, we are informed, is our lot, because of the need to
>>>invite foreign investors and soothe international financial markets.
>>>Are there alternatives for South African political economy? How should
>>>the left handle ourselves in economic debate with neo-liberal technocrats
>>>within the state, and indeed how should we respond to the policy
>>>discourses and economic logic of global capital more generally? What
>>>new political configurations -- breaking some alliances, making others --
>>>are needed? How, in the process, do we anticipate stronger black
>>>intellectual leadership, a more decisive role for women comrades, a
>>>growing environmental consciousness, the expansion of the cultural
>>>resources of the left?
>>>We hope, in this new journal, to give the broad, pluralistic left of South
>>>Africa a voice through debates over these and many other questions.
>>>We seek not ideological homogeneity but instead to enhance the best
>>>existing traditions of debate, and the introduction of new ideas that open
>>>our eyes to things we all have in common.
>>>Along these lines, and acknowledging our glaring failure to achieve
>>>gender diversity or content, this issue of Debate gets us off to a
hopeful beginning. Our theme this time -- "developmentalism" -- is very much
in question at the moment given the crash of the RDP. We lead with a
>>>challenging article by Franco Barchiesi, who dissects the
>>>"developmentalist" state and the rise of market ideology. Barchiesi and
>>>Matthew Ginsburg then interview Immanuel Wallerstein so as to continue
>>>to draw up a global accounting of the conjuncture. Next, in an important
>>>paper that has been circulated widely within the SACP, three Party
>>>militants (Langa Zita, Vishwas Satgar and Dale Mckinley) make the links
>>>between global forces and government's 14 June macroeconomic
>>>strategy document.
>>>
>>>What soon becomes clear is that behind every developmental project lies
>>>a struggle over ideology. We hope that the classical debate on social
>>>democracy and revolution taken forward here between Oupa Lehlulere,
>>>Eddie Webster, Rehad Desai and Barchiesi inspires further
>>>intervention.We follow this with an excerpt from the preface to
>>>Mzwanele Mayekiso's new book on development struggles in Alexandra.
>>>Greg Ruiters then rebukes Mayekiso's notion of "working-class civil
>>>society."
>>>
>>>As a grand finale, Frank Wilderson deconstructs the Makgoba Affair at
>>>Wits University, with all that it implies for intellectual challenges to
the emerging order. We are also proud to intersperse our debates with
>>>poetry by Sandile Dikani.
>>>Debate aims to spread across South Africa, perhaps into the region as
>>>well. We request that you send your own work to us as soon as you
>>>feel it is ready to publish, and that you subscribe, read and promote
>>>dialogue on the South African left.
>>>For if the three year perspective is terrible and the five-year perspective
>>>is impossible from the standpoint of the Institute of International Finance
>>>and SACOB, it is critical for us to gear up both our debating and our
>>>movement-building to take advantage of the situation. The momentum of
>>>liberation appears to have reversed, but that does not mean we cannot
>>>help reverse it yet again.
>>>Franco Barchiesi
>>>Sociology of Work Unit
>>>Dept of Sociology
>>>Private Bag 3
>>>University of the Witwatersrand
>>>PO Wits 2050
>>>Johannesburg
>>>South Africa
>>>Tel. (++27 11) 716.2908
>>>Fax (++27 11) 716.3781
>>>E-Mail 029frb@cosmos.wits.ac.za
>>>http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html
>>>http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~mshalev/direct.htm