Building a new Eskom: Fully Public and Serving the People with Daniel Chavez, Sean Sweeney and Brian Ashley 

The crisis at ESKOM must not be used to further liberalise and privatise the energy sector. The proposal to break-up ESKOM into different companies WILL lead to greater privatisation of the energy sector. Electricity will become more expensive and jobs will be lost. Another strategy is possible and necessary. A “New Eskom” is necessary. Eskom must remain publicly owned, but it must be radically transformed and the process of corporatization and marketization that began in the late 1980s must be reversed. AIDC together with NUMSA, NUM and other trade unions, supported by Trade Unions for Energy Democracy and Transnational Institute are developing proposals for addressing the crisis of ESKOM in ways that enhance energy democracy and a just transition to a low carbon development path.  

With inputs from Daniel Chavez (TNI), Sean Sweeney(TUED) and Brian Ashley (AIDC)

"The on-going calls for ‘radical economic transformation’ as well as arguments about how lack of ‘economic freedom’ undermines political independence, sharply raise questions about the nature of the ideology that drove the liberation struggle, African nationalism. As we examine African nationalism, it is vital to reflect on nationalism that developed in other parts of the global South. India is good case study to consider. Emerging in the 1880s, Indian nationalism drove the struggle against British colonial rule and anchored the mass movement that won political independence in 1947."

At a joint Amandla, Tshisimani and IFAA Forum on 2017 Vivek Chibber presented a lecture on Indian nationalism from the days of the Bombay Plan, which advocated strong economic planning measures, to the turn to neoliberalism. Chibber also touched on contemporary right-wing and ethnic nationalism in India.

Chibber is an American-based academic, Marxist theorist and Professor of Sociology at New York University. He is the author of Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India (2003) and Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (2013). 

Gramsci is now a "star in the firmament" of humanities.

Can his fame help us to better understand his thought or does it risk producing a misinterpretation of his thought?

We will try to answer this question by focusing on the idea of hegemony, likely Gramsci's most famous analytical category

"In this period where activists have begun to expose the pervasive nature of patriarchy and misogny in activist spaces - this is a period where the labour movement needs to authentically and genuinely deal with the pervasiveness of patriarchy and misogyny in the workplace but also in the unions that are meant to protect workers. What we find in the labour movement is an entrenched culture of patriarchy and sexism with many womxn and queer people not being in leadership roles within the unions, many people being sexually harassed and violated and being told not to say anything as it will cause fragmentation and divisions with in the unions and that all policies that unions have developed around gender have not substantially been implemented and they are relegated to gender desks with limited or no power.   

If the labour movement in South Africa is actually committed to the liberation of workers from capitalist exploitation then how do we deal with this pervasive culture of sexism in the labour movement in order for all workers to be truly liberated." 

With guest speaker Prakashnee Govender

 On Friday the 14th of June, Brazil witnessed one of the largest general strikes in recent years. Workers from various sectors joined the General Strike against the Pension Reform, in defense of Education and by jobs. Segments in the transport sector, public servants, education professionals, metallurgists, bankers, construction workers, petroleum worker's and traders joined the day of struggle against the Jair Bolsonaro government's attacks on social security rights, employment and education cuts. 

South Africa’s distorted distribution of wealth is one of the biggest challenges facing the country’s economy, with unemployment sitting at an unsustainable 27.7%. In terms of wealth, the top percentile households hold 70.9% while the bottom 60% holds a mere 7%. 76% of South Africans face an imminent threat of falling below the poverty line. With such statistics, the inequality crisis in this country is at a desperate level and strategies to remedy this challenge seem shallow and lack urgency.

In this context, the Institute for African Alternatives has brought together a series of papers written by eminent South African academics and policymakers to serve as a catalyst to finally confront and resolve inequality. With papers from former Public Prosecutor Thuli Madonsela, Ben Turok and former President Kgalema Motlanthe, this book provides a guide to how the nation can confront and resolve the inequality plaguing the country. The nation is headed to the polls later this year and books such as this are vital for providing a strong guide on how those in power can address South Africa’s biggest economic crisis.

A great contribution to the current political discourse, the book both confronts the issue and provides strategies on how to remedy inequality.

The twentieth century has brought considerable political, social, and economic change for South Africa. While many would choose to focus only on the issues of race, segregation, and apartheid, this book tries to capture another facet: its drive towards modernisation and industrialisation. While considering the achievements and failures of that drive, as well as how it related to ethnic and racial policy making, Bill Freund makes the economic data come alive by highlighting people and places. He proposes that South Africa in the twentieth century can actually be understood as a nascent developmental state, with economic development acting as a key motivating factor. As a unique history of South Africa in the twentieth century, this will appeal to anyone interested in a new interpretation of modern South African economic development or those in development studies searching for striking historical examples.

How do class, race and gender impact on the production of knowledge? Is it enough to include those who have been excluded from advanced knowledge? Or has knowledge itself been tainted by the exclusions of class, race, gender and colonial conquest? How to proceed with such realisations? How do we decolonise our minds and our universities? Should we repudiate existing knowledge and start again at zero? Or should we return to the indigenous knowledge of our ancestors? Or should we engage in a radical and critical transformation? How has Rhodes Must Fall dramatised these dilemmas? What does Marxism have to offer in working through these issues? 

About the Speaker:

Professor Helena Sheehan is emeritus professor at Dublin City University where she taught history of ideas. Her books include: Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History, Irish Television Drama: A Society and Its Stories, The Syriza Wave and Navigating the Zeitgeist. Her publications also include many journal articles, book chapters and conference papers. Her most recent articles have appeared in Monthly Review and Jacobin. She has lectured in many countries, from the US to the USSR, from Ireland to South Africa. She has come to South Africa five times previously, including two sabbaticals, to study transformation in higher education. She has been active on the left for many years, beginning with the US new left in the 1960s and persisting through many campaigns, movements and parties. She believes that Marxism is the unsurpassed philosophy of our times.