A Love Letter to the Many

Arguments for Transformative Left Politics in South Africa

Series: 

Author:
Vishwas Satgar
South Africa was the hope of the world. It had an impressive and rich tradition of left politics. At the heart of post-apartheid democracy-making was a revolutionary nationalist ANC, the oldest Communist Party in Africa, the SACP, and one of the most militant labour union federations in the world, COSATU. Yet, South Africa is at a crossroads and many are deeply concerned about its future. This book explains through a political economy/ecology analysis why and how the degeneration of national liberation politics has happened, while making praxis-centered arguments for a new transformative left politics.
Copyright Year:
2024
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978-90-04-69226-8
Publication:
01 Jul 2024
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978-90-04-69075-2
Publication:
04 Jul 2024
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About MyBook
Vishwas Satgar, Ph.D (2009), University of the Witwatersrand, is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of the Witswatersrand, editor of the Democratic Marxism book series, and principal investigator for Emancipatory Futures Studies in the Anthropocene. He is an award-winning veteran activist.
Preface Writing Among, with and for the Many

Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Tables

Acronyms

Note on Texts and Terminology

Introduction

Part 1
Resisting Revolutionary Orthodoxy, Neoliberal Market Democracy and Emergent Neo-fascism
1 Contributing to a Democratic Imaginary in the sacp
1 Workplace Forums and Autonomous Self-management from Below

2 The Visible Hand of Development Planning in India: Lessons for South Africa

3 Cooperative Banks in South Africa: A Brief Survey

4 Militarisation in Southern Africa: Trade Unions and the Prospects for Peace

5 Worker Owned Cooperatives, Development and Neo-liberal Economic Adjustment

6 Be Partisan for Peace

7 Socialism and Sustainable Local Economic Development

8 In Defence of the sacp and the Struggle for Socialism in South Africa: A Response to the Committee Document


2 Rejecting the Fraud of the National Democratic Revolution
1 A Critique of Government’s Macro-economic Strategy: Growth, Employment and Redistribution

2 Neoliberalised South Africa: Labour and the Roots of Passive Revolution

3 Global Capitalism and the Neo-liberalisation of Africa

4 The Marikana Massacre and the South African State’s Low Intensity War against the People

5 Beyond Marikana: The Post-apartheid South African State

6 Epidemiological Neoliberalism in South Africa


3 Opposing Zumafication in the sacp and Outside
1 Reflections: The Age of Barbarism

2 We Need a Truly Transformative Democracy

3 ‘No!’ Tells the anc Enough Is Enough

4 Protests Mustn’t Harm Our Future

5 Fees Protests: History Shows True Revolution Lies Not in Violence

6 Its Up to Us to Make Sure Zuma Goes

7 The eff’s Wrecking Ball Politics Is Fascist Rather than Left

8 Zuma’s Cabinet Reshuffle Inaugurates South Africa’s Zimbabwe Moment

9 South Africa Must Resist Another Captured President, This Time by the Markets

10 Trump May Be Gone, but Neo-fascism Remains Alive and Kicking in Mainstream American Society

11 South Africa Is Turning on Itself

12 International Mandela Day – Respondent to Keynote Address of President Cyril Ramaphosa, 18 July, 2021

13 Without a Serious Challenge from the Left, the Political Field in South Africa Could See the Emergence of an Extreme Right


4 The Challenge of Left Renewal in the Context of Worsening Capitalist Crisis
1 The Left Project and Post-national Liberation Politics

2 There Is a Democratic Left Response to the Global Crisis

3 Occupying the Economy

4 Reclaiming a Vision of Hope and a Life of Dignity

5 Numsa Moment Leads Left Renewal

6 Between Crisis and Renewal: Where to for South Africa’s Left?


Part 2
Decolonial Critique of Eco-cidal Capitalism
5 Perspectives on Eco-cide
1 Marx and the International

2 Polanyi, Nature and the International: The Missing Dimension of Imperial Ecocide

3 Seven Theses on Radical Non-racialism, the Climate Crisis and Deep Just Transitions: From the National Question to the Eco-cide Question

4 The Coloniality of the Scientific Anthropocene

5 Crises, Socio-ecological Reproduction and Intersectionality: Challenges for Emancipatory Feminism


Part 3
Building Mass Resistance to Climate Injustic
6 For People and Worker Driven Climate Politics
1 The World Social Forum and the Battle for cop17

2 The Climate Is Ripe for Social Change

3 Trade Union Approach to Climate Justice: The Campaign Strategy of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa

4 Worsening Climate Crisis and the Challenge of Red-Green Alliances for Labour: Introducing the Climate Justice Charter Alternative in South Africa

5 The Geopolitics of Vaccine Apartheid


7 Raising the Alarm Louder against Climate Injustice
1 Light a Fire Under sa’s Climate Policy

2 South Africa’s Carbon Democracy Is Going Over the Cliff

3 Open Letter: Call For a UN Treaty to End Fossil Fuels

4 covid-19, the Climate Crisis and Lockdown – An Opportunity to End the War with Nature

5 Where Have All the Flowers Gone? A Final Climate Crisis Warning

6 Party Politicians Fiddle about with Climate Change While sa Burns

7 sa the Climate Pariah Needs to Change Its Ways

8 An Open Letter to Hosken Consolidated Investments and Minister Gwede Mantashe: A Beginner’s Guide to Poppycock

9 US, Russia and Ukraine – The Death Trap beyond the New Cold War and World War 3

10 The anc Needs a Wake Up Call on the Urgency of the Climate Crisis


Part 4
For a Democratic Eco-Socialist South Africa and World
8 Democratic Eco-socialism through Democratic Systemic Reforms
1 The Climate Crisis and Systemic Alternatives

2 Climate Ecocide and Democratic Eco-socialism in South Africa

3 Why Ecosocialism: For a Red-Green Future

4 After Capitalism: Democratic Eco-socialism?

5 Marx, the Commons and Democratic Eco-socialism

6 End Ecocidal Capitalism or Exterminate Life on Planet Earth: A South African Contribution to Ecosocialist Strategy


9 Transformative Politics and the New Global Left Imaginary
1 Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalisation


10 Cooperative Development and Worker Cooperatives
1 Num Worker Co-ops Are Dead! Long Live Worker Co-ops?

2 Cooperatives and Nation Building in Post-apartheid South Africa: Contradictions and Challenges

3 A Cooperative Movement Response to the Crisis of Civilisation: Choosing to Sustain Life!

4 From National Liberation Struggle to Fingerprint Worker Cooperative


11 Solidarity Economy
1 With, against and Beyond the State: A Solidarity Economy through a Movement of Movements


12 Food Sovereignty
1 Break the Food Chain to Build Our Humanity

2 South Africa’s Food System in Dire Straits

3 Food Sovereignty: The Viable Alternative to anc and eff Land Solutions

4 Civil Society: The State Has Failed and Cannot Be Trusted, Let Us Help Solve the Hunger Crisis


13 Universal Basic Income/Grant
1 The South African Precariat, covid-19 and #Bignow


14 The Climate Justice Charter Pluri-vision
1 No Short Cuts for a Deep Just Transition: Towards a Climate Justice Charter for South Africa


Annexure: Additional Activist Resources for Transformative Activism

Index

This volume will be of special interest to reading publics, academics, students and specialists interested in South Africa, pitfalls of national liberation politics, crises of market democracy, renewal of left politics, decolonial perspectives, climate justice, and democratic eco-socialism.
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