The presence of heavily armed police and security guards at the University of Witwatersrand seems to have put paid to any chance of stakeholders coming together to seek a solution to the ongoing funding crisis. Instead the struggle has been characterised by terrifyingly violent running battles with police in the past week, which have left some students battered, and no time at all for the round table.

There was a large police presence at Wits on Tuesday, with the SAPS cracking down on any potential protests (Photo: Greg Nicolson)

Daily Maverick
Bheki C. Simelane
17 Oct 2016

“It doesn’t feel like campus any more, it feels like a military base. It’s frightening,” first year Bachelor of Science student Tshegofatso Magano told Daily Maverick. Magano was speaking from the Wits West Campus last Thursday as running battles between police and students continued.

Magano said, “I was appalled and shocked to experience for the first time police shoot at students.” The 19-year-old Magano said he had never participated in a protest in his entire young life and the sight of heavily armed police on campus scared the daylights out of him. “It’s hectic.” Magano said as he inspected a rubber bullet wound to his leg from last Monday’s violence.

Many Wits students are young middle-class individuals who have never participated in protests, let alone violent ones. There is no guessing what the violence incubated by the prolonged presence of the heavily armed new guard at Wits (police) is doing to the psychology of these students.

“How many police do you think are here?” one female student asked on Thursday. “All of them I think.”

While she and her colleagues burst out in laughter, they might also have realised that this view was not far-fetched.

When being shot at, students capture the emotions in their songs. As shot after shot rang last Monday afternoon after the violence had spilled onto the streets of Braamfontein, occupants of Diamond House, some of whom are Wits students, started singing students’ favourite struggle anthem, Solomon Mahlangu. The song captured the mood, but also spurred students on.

Hanging from almost every window, occupants of nearby buildings joined in the singing of the song, much to the delight of students. It was sung beautifully.

Throughout last week, Wits students showed resentment for three names, – police, Adam Habib and Blade Nzimande. Police for “indiscriminately shooting at us unprovoked and taking over our campus.” Habib for ‘playing double standards and neglecting students’ interests’, and Blade for ‘pleading ignorance and reneging on the Government’s promise of free education’.

Last Monday just before the violence spilled into Braamfontein, some 200 students ended trapped in one of the halls. Everyone in the room was teary, choking from tear gas fumes. At this point police would have shot at a shadow, while a police chopper hovered low above the building, occasionally and conveniently ejecting more tear gas and ensuring that no one left the building.

Frightened and apparently shaken female students huddled along the passages, gasping, amid a litter of condoms. There is a belief among students that apart from curtailing the spread of HIV, condoms also contain the effects of tear gas fumes in the eyes.

“Have some,” said one female student as she handed a handful of condoms to an international journalist. “Thanks, I only use condoms for one thing,” he said while tears trickled down his cheeks. He had stopped complaining about the absence of local journalists to capture the scenes of choking students.

Fear was written all over students’ faces when they finally got a chance to leave the room. They sped off hurriedly with their hands blocking their ears.

“Shooting at us gets me so agitated that I want to fight back. I just want to retaliate,” Wits BA Law student Rashaad Yusuf Dadoo said. Dadoo was unlucky. Trapped in the hall with other students, Dadoo had a rubber bullet repel off his left elbow while he struggled to see and breathe because of teargas fumes. He was on the verge of collapsing. Trapped with students were also some SRC members, among them Wits SRC Deputy General Secretary Fasiha Hassan, who tried to move Dadoo around to try to protect him from further tear gas inhalation, but the fumes were everywhere.

Speaking from the West Campus on Thursday, first year Bachelor of Science student, 18-year-old Raheel Walljee said she no longer trusts the police. Walljee and her three friends had been attending class but chose to join a meeting at the West Campus on Thursday during break. As student leaders were explaining how students should conduct themselves during protesting, almost out of the blue police started firing rubber bullets.

“I don’t trust the police, not any more. They must leave. They are intimidating and scary. I have never been involved in a protest, let alone one characterised by so much violence. It’s a truly traumatic experience. We are here for a purpose but considering the state of affairs, we should be forgiven to think that we are better off in the safety of our homes,” Walljee said.

Students and journalists have all been treated to dramatic scenes of violence during the 2016 fees protests at Wits. On Monday 10th, students watched in shock as a police officer attacked student activist Mcebo Dlamini. The momentum felled both and a struggle ensued as Dlamini tried to break free. The moment was widely captured. Dlamini’s gesture indicating which direction students should march, aggravated the officer. The students were to march through a heavy police guard, and the officer felt Dlamini’s gesture in that direction undermined his authority. This played out on the steps of the Great Hall. (Dlamini was reportedly arrested regarding this incident over the weekend.)

The sight of angry students throwing themselves at armed guards lashing away with their batons instantly blurred the line between bullets and books, war and peace, between guardian and foe, hooligan and student. Both police and security guards constantly resorted to action which agitated students. The police shot at students while guards denied them entry into the Great Hall, sparking more chaos.

And apart from the fact that police drove students onto the streets of Braamfontein – a fortress of Johannesburg’s haves and have-nots – it became difficult to tell whether students or Johannesburg junkies perpetrated the violence that played out on the Jorissen/ Melle intersection where a bus was also torched.

Police presence was not only beefed up towards the end of last week, but the operations and directions of senior officers on campus were more sophisticated. Protesting students were swiftly combated by police. Gatherings were closely monitored, forcing students to change their strategy and protest overnight.

Many first year students who said they had never participated in protests were of the view that the strike was not yielding any positives except being reduced to daily running battles with police.

“These running battles will not take us anywhere, we need either a plan or a solution,” one student said. The students argued that authorities would not take the call for free education seriously if there were divisions or they disagreed.

South African students’ call for free education also has a demand that education be decolonised. Students’ demands would be better supported if they remembered that while free education for all might be achieved in a single announcement, decolonising the system might take a while. Currently most South Africans would like to believe that so far students have been reasonable in their demands for free decolonised education.

Wits University said learning will continue on Monday, while some students vowed to continue with the shutdown. Meanwhile a heavy police presence continues to haunt students and cause discomfort for many more while negotiations drag on. D

Related posts:

1. South African student protests and re-emergence of people’s power
2. Kolkata, India: Reflections on the Jadavpur Protests
3. Spring Comes to JNU: Love, Laughter and Rage

Western Sahara serves as a powerful and timely reminder to the world that colonialism has not ended in Africa. It continues in the form of what the Sahrawi (the indigenous people of Western Sahara) activist Maty Mohamed-Fadel referred to as “the global shame” that is the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.

Africa is a Country
Aubrey Bloomfield*
16 Oct 2016

The majority of Western Sahara has been under occupation by Morocco for decades, following incomplete decolonization by Spain in 1975 when the territory was split between Morocco and Mauritania. A bitter war between the Polisario (the Sahrawi resistance movement) and Moroccan and Mauritanian forces ended in a ceasefire in 1991, and left Morocco in control of most of the territory. Polisario controls a small liberated zone, while hundreds of thousands of Sahrawi refugees live in camps in neighboring Algeria. Life for the Sahrawi people has effectively been on hold since then, as they continue waiting for their right to self-determination through a referendum on independence that was meant to take place in 1992.

Despite the ongoing, and often brutal Moroccan occupation, and the lack of international attention paid to the situation, the Sahrawi are not idly waiting for things to change. A new documentary film, Life is Waiting, directed by Iara Lee, is a celebration of Sahrawi strength and resistance, which is clearly alive and well amongst those living in Western Sahara and those in the refugee camps or in exile in other parts of the world.

The film opens with vibrant scenes of exiled Sahrawi engaging in an annual nonviolent demonstration in Madrid, Spain intercut with an overview of the history of the territory. It then goes on to vividly portray the constant struggle of the Sahrawi to assert their identity in the face of the everyday violence of the occupation.

We see Sahrawi poets, musicians, dancers, singers, media activists, athletes, and filmmakers all engaging in non-violent acts of resistance from graffiti, raising the Western Sahara flag (which is illegal), and watch as Lee covertly films police brutality in the occupied territory. Refugees also host an international marathon, international art festival, and an international film festival in the camps. Popular Sahrawi singer, Mariem Hassan (to whom the film is dedicated), describes the importance of using art to show the strength of the Sahrawi people. Even the structure of the refugee camps in Algeria is a symbolic act of resistance, with different areas deliberately named after parts of the occupied territory in order to reproduce and sustain the connection to it.

Lee largely eschews the use of narration and the opportunity to interview officials from the United Nations, Morocco, or even the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which controls the liberated territory. Instead she simply lets the Sahrawi people tell their story in their own voices (although some international activists are also interviewed). This gives a platform to the ordinary, perhaps the extraordinary people who are directly affected by the occupation, and the highlights variety of ways in which they continue to resist it.

The chance to be at the center of the narrative is one that the Sahrawi rarely get. Despite the fact that no state recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and more than 80 states have at various times recognized SADR’s claims to the territory, the world continues to remain largely indifferent to the situation. As Mohamed Laabied, director of RASD-TV, the Sahrawi TV station headquartered in the refugee camps laments: the lack of attention paid to the occupation by international media and Moroccan censorship efforts “hurts, it really hurts … without the media there is nothing.”

The dangers of international indifference and the perpetuation of the status quo, which one Sahrawi describes as a “situation of neither war nor peace,” are evident in the film when a number of young Sahrawi, who have grown up knowing only occupation or exile, raise the possibility of a return to war, saying that it cannot be worse than a life of exile or living in a refugee camp. But the overwhelming majority of Sahrawi in the film, young and old, are in favor of using non-violent resistance and talk of their songs or films as the new weapons in the struggle.

Recently, the Polisario has warned that tensions with Morocco are coming close to devolving into a military confrontation. This highlights how unsustainable the current situation is. Watching this film serves as a timely reminder that it should not take a return to war to bring attention to the issue. The ongoing failure to advance a political solution and the warning from the Polisario makes the Sahrawi commitment to non-violent resistance even more remarkable. Towards the end of the film, the British human rights activist, Keith Lomax, emphasizes the need to find peaceful ways to give visibility to the conflict. The Sahrawi people are clearly doing this already and it is up to the rest of the world to do its part.

Watching and sharing Life is Waiting is an excellent start. Another step, as Lomax points out, is to support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against companies complicit in the Moroccan occupation (for instance through the exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources) like the one that targeted apartheid South Africa or the one targeting Israel for its violation of international law and Palestinian rights.

*Aubrey Bloomfield is a graduate student at The New School in New York City and has written on occupations in Western Sahara and Palestine.

Related posts:

1. Asylum seekers in Denmark: Manifesto – For the right to have rights
2. Africans unite against xenophobia in South Africa
3. Legitimacy and Justice over “Legality”: How the Peoples´ Tribunal on Transnational Corporations is giving hope to affected communities

Sharit Bhowmik, sociologist well known for his studies in labor and especially on the informal sector, passed away September 8 in Bangkok.

eSocialSciences
9 Sep 2016

He was in a coma for some time, having collapsed as complication of undiagnosed pneumonia in his hotel room. His wife and partner, Meenakshi, and his family were with him.

Bhowmik received his MA from Mumbai University and earned his doctorate from the Delhi University. His early work was on plantation labor in West Bengal. Subsequently he consolidated his work in the area of labor studies focusing on informal labor and labor rights.

Ever an activist, Sharit’s scholarly positions on labor issues never wavered. He interacted closely with workers’ leaders and was never an ‘outsider’ in its sociological sense, to workers organizations, their core issues and the movement. He wrote extensively on workers’ cooperatives and workers’ organizations. While a supporter of the working class causes, he was also sharply critical of the functioning of trade unions, especially in recent times.

His career spanned a number of universities and institutions: He retired from the School of Labour and Management Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Before that he was at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai; Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi; Indian Institute of Management Calcutta; University of North Bengal, Darjeeling District, West Bengal. Currently he was National Fellow with the Indian Council for Social Sciences.

His most important work, both in the scholarly world and as an activist, was his massive contribution to and leadership in the formalization of a policy on street vendors, which came about as a follow-through of his work on informal labor which began at a time when few labor scholars were focusing on this sector. Sharit wrote extensively, both in the academic press and in the media. For a time he co-edited with Professor Datta, the Labour Studies supplement of the Economic and Political Weekly. He had no hesitation in calling a spade a spade regardless of the fallout that it may prompt. Because of this, he was highly respected by his peers and labor leaders and activists, across the spectrum. Regardless of affiliations, he was always available to political, social and civil society activists.

Sharit was, more than anything else, a role model of a new generation sociologist who combined activism and scholarship seamlessly and effectively. He is mourned by his many students, whom he nurtured actively and sustainedly through their early careers; his colleagues and fellow workers who shared his space and vision, by the vast numbers of labor activists and workers whom he befriended and worked alongside. He will be sorely missed, especially in an environment that needs the broad-based, progressive vision, scholarship and activism of those like Sharit Bhowmik.

Sharit Bhowmik took part of ALICE Project as well. See below the ALICE Interview and the ALICE Advanced Seminar with him.

Related posts:

1. National Consultation – Mine Labour Protection Campaign (MLPC) in India
2. UPMS Workshop Harare Zimbabwe 2016 – Boaventura de Sousa Santos – Statement
3. UPMS Workshop Harare Zimbabwe 2016 – Walter Chambati – Statement

The first African People´s Tribunal on Transnational Corporations, that recently took place on 16th and 17th August in Manzini, Swaziland, was perhaps the most counter-hegemonic and brave event to bring some hope to mining affected communities in Southern Africa.

Pambazuka
Boaventura Monjane*
02 Sep 2016

Community members in Tete Province, Mozambique, presenting their case (Photo: Anabela Lemos)

Held in the context of the SADC Peoples´ Summit – an alternative popular gathering in parallel to the official Heads of States and Government summit, the Tribunal brought together activists and community members from rural areas where Transnational Corporations (TNCs) extract various minerals in Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Swaziland.

One of the strongest points about this Tribunal session was the opportunity that affected community members had to raise their voices and speak for themselves, about their own lives and the hardships they endure daily, exposing to a physically present jury, the atrocities and injustices perpetuated by Transnational mining Companies.

In addition, after days of overland journeys under arduous circumstances, including bureaucratic embarrassments at the boarders – as was the case of the Zambian and Zimbabwean community members – being at the same place in session with other people who have been equally affected by the extractive industries, created an environment of compassion and built a strong sense of comradeship, which will certainly strengthen mutual solidarity among the affected. The emotional tones through which the affected presented their cases demonstrated exasperation but also some kind of hope that the situation could be reversed.

Although the jury of this Tribunal was not expected to give any legally binding verdicts upon the evidences of the cases submitted and presented by the offended witnesses, a final pronouncement or positioning statement of the “judges” will perhaps be a crucial missing element for the affected people to get that strong confidence that destructive TNCs actions in their communities – and the industrial mining sector as a whole – can in fact face legal action and corporate impunity can in fact be stopped. They may be more certain in believing that those disastrous actions are wrong and unjust, and therefore must be opposed. As Gianni Tognoli stated in the opening of the Manzini session, the affected peoples presented their cases “not just as victims, but most importantly as the principal subjects of law”.

In their presentations, the affected community members announced demands to both the mining companies and their governments. There were similarities on the negative impacts caused by the mining activities (pollution, health problems, destruction of water and soils, displacements, etc.) and the demands were also clear: supported relocation of the communities, participation of the communities in decision-making, compensations of material losses (houses, contamination of water…) and more.

Gaining a slice of the cake or leaving the coal in the hole?

The argument that “leaving the oil in the soil and the coal in the hole” is predominantly promoted by experts and academics – and not necessarily a demand from workers and local poor communities – was clearly denied at the Peoples´ Tribunal in Swaziland. From the cases presented in Manzini it was clear to see that indeed, negatively affected communities by mining demand immediate “reparation” since the damage is already done and the impacts are already happening. However, it was equally clear to notice that there is a growing understanding, by local communities, that the narrative of development through extractivism is a myth – more and more they are seeing that mining is in reality an escalating looting of their resources and results in a deepening of poverty, food insecurity and water pollution. “We prefer to see the mine closed”, demanded a community member from Tete province in Mozambique.

The case of Xolobeni (Kwa-Zulu Natal province, South Africa) that was presented at the Tribunal, showed that local community in Pondoland Wild Coast is struggling to prevent Australian firm, Mineral Commodities (MRC), from extracting titanium in sand dunes in the Amadiba traditional area. This resistance has already caused the assassination of an anti-mining activist Mr. Sikhosiphi Bazooka Rhadebe in March 2016.

Threats and discouragement of organized struggles that resist mining is escalating everywhere, but there is also a determination not to give up: “We are not going be intimidated. MRC will never mine in our land”, said Nonhle Mbuthuma of Amadiba Crisis Committee as she finished her testimony at the tribunal.

The next session of the People´s Tribunal will take place in May 2017 in South Africa.

______

*Boaventura Monjane is a Mozambican activist and journalist. He is a PhD student at the Centre for Social Studies/Faculty of Economics at the University of Coimbra and researcher at the Centre for Civil Society, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal

Related posts:

1. 2016 SADC Peoples’ Summit – The Manzini Peoples’ Declaration
2. Popular University of Social Movements Workshop in Zimbabwe – Final Statement
3. Vale e Jindal julgadas na Swazilândia por danos ambientais e violação de Direitos Humanos

An intersectional battle for a just transition. On Thursday, August 11, 2016, the highly-anticipated Grand Conference Change the System, not the Climate ! at the Marie Gérin-Lajoie room at UQAM. There was so much excitement that a crowd of participants of the WSF was unfortunately unable to take part. Amongst the speakers: Naomi Klein, Anne-Céline Guyon, Maité Llanos, Tadzio Muller and Clayton Thomas-Muller.

WSF2016
12 August 2016

This evening was presented by Alternatives and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung New York Foundation and had the defense of the rights of nature and environmental justice as themes. The speakers addressed more concretely the urgent necessity to transform the current system, said to be productive, based on the massive exploitation of fossil energies and marked by major social inequalities. They each shared their vision concerning the situation and the path to privilege to allow a just transition to happen. Popular movements are at the heart of every deep societal change, precious keys have been shared to participants to initiate a transition towards an economic model that is free of carbon, socially just and bearer of a sustainable societal project.

Naomi Klein: alter-globalization activist and author of No Logo and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Canada)

For Naomi Klein, the problematics that are currently met are all connected together. The neoliberal model will never address the ecological crisis. As it based on growth at any price, its reforms and policies will always remain superficial. No real and profound change will ever take place in such circumstances. Neoliberalism is able to charm the population with an ecological speech, yet this does not serve any purpose if the policies and the governmental actions do not hold water. All neoliberalist barriers must be put down and the old models of growth must be rejected in order to hope to get out of such a risky situation. Klein calls for action in this era of change. Awareness of the mischiefs of capitalism is globalized, and it is time now more than ever to gather around together to create a new model, a culture where we take care of each other and of the Earth, an economy of care.

Anne-Céline Guyon : spokesperson of Stop Oléoducs on Quebec’s civic mobilization against the Energy Est Pipeline project (Canada)

Guyon denounced the extractivist model which ignores the right of people to dispose of themselves by going against any industrial projects and that denies the existence of climate change. She exposed the case of the Energy Est Pipeline project to demonstrate an example of massive mobilization of civil society having a real impact on the development of an industrial project. The more the people are aware of the project, the more they oppose it. This enterprise is becoming, little by little, in the collective imaginary a symbol of the impacts on human rights and on aboriginal communities. Finally, although it is necessary to fight back, it is also important to put forward new paths for a world with climate and social justice.

Maité Llanos : union activist and member of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy on the link between trade and the environment (Argentina)

Miss Llanos estimates that opening the debate on climate change in a neoliberal society will only grant a bigger space to the capitalist enterprises to develop a field of action that is ” acceptable “. Thus, talking about climate is a mistake if we wish to change the system. If a just transition is implemented, it needs to be directed by and for the people and not by and for the corporations. And then, trade agreements that grant too much attention to corporations need to be dismantled. We need to continue to create alliances, to extend mobilization in order to take down the system, the government and the corporations, and then to build a resistance and alternative front to globalized capitalism.

Tadzio Muller : representative of Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Germany and co-animator of Coalition Climat 21 on mobilization against coal-fired power stations in Germany (Germany)

” It is power that counts. ” For Tadzio Muller, the battle for climate change concerns capitalism and this battle is the one of civil society. Civil society will need to mobilize itself to see things change concretely by developing its own project, its own vision. Social movements are at the source of big societal change, not governmental policies. We need to mobilize as there is still time, before a declaration of rights for capitalist enterprises becomes greater in their field of action. Their access to a greater amount of powers will call for the end of the power of citizens, of the impact of their mobilization.

Clayton Thomas-Muller : previous spokesperson for Idle No More and responsible of the 350.org campaign on the importance of stopping oil sands and to counter extractivism (Canada)

Clayton Thomas-Muller explains the ecological crisis as a disconnection of humanity in its sacred relationship with Mother Earth. The current economic model encourages us to fill the void left by the disconnection of nature due to over consumption in order to satisfy our greed. As long as we do not become aware of this vicious circle, we will never be able to find sustainable solutions, Thomas-Muller adds that by talking about climate change, it is important to address the themes of colonialism and of reconciliation, especially in a First Nations perspective. These two themes will allow us to remember the models that we should not reproduce (total expropriation, delocalization, assimilation) and to heal the wounds of the past to build new bases.

Related posts:

1. World Social Forum 2016 in Montreal (Canada): Call to mobilization
2. 2016 SADC Peoples’ Summit – The Manzini Peoples’ Declaration
3. Where Have All the Seasons Gone? Current Impacts of Climate Change in Gujarat

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has appointed a Zimbabwean organic farming proponent and campaigner, Elizabeth Mpofu, as special ambassador for the International Year of Pulses (IYP).

The Southern Times
Tichaona Kurewa
29 Jul 2016

Mpofu is currently the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF). “Agro-ecological farmer and activist, Elizabeth has dedicated her life to working tirelessly for the betterment of smallholder farmers and the rights of women,” FAO says.

“Elizabeth helped establish the Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF), and helped found the Eastern Southern Smallholder Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF),” says FAO.

Mpofu recently told The Southern Times that, “This came as a surprise to me and not even recalling any day I dreamt of such a great position in my life. But this is now showing up in my opinion that whatever you do there are people who are watching.”

The 68th UN General Assembly declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses and FAO has been nominated to facilitate the implementation of the year in collaboration with governments, relevant organisations, non-governmental organisations and all other relevant stakeholders.

The IYP 2016 aims to heighten public awareness on the nutritional benefits of pulses, as part of sustainable food production aimed towards food security and nutrition.

The year will create a unique opportunity to encourage connections throughout the food chain that would better utilise pulse-based proteins, further global production of pulses, better utilise crop rotations and address the challenges in the trade of pulses.

According to FAO, pulses are annual leguminous crops yielding between one and 12 grains or seeds of variable size, shape and colour within a pod, used for both food and feed.

“The term ‘pulses’ is limited to crops harvested solely for dry grain, thereby excluding crops harvested green for food, which are classified as vegetable crops, as well as those crops used mainly for oil extraction and leguminous crops that are used exclusively for sowing purposes,” says FAO.

FAO says pulse crops such as lentils, beans, peas and chickpeas are a critical part of the general food basket.

Pulses are a vital source of plant-based proteins and amino acids for people around the globe and should be eaten as part of a healthy diet to address obesity, as well as to prevent and help manage chronic diseases such as diabetes, coronary conditions and cancer; they are also an important source of plant-based protein for animals.

Related posts:

1. UPMS Workshop Harare Zimbabwe 2016 – Elizabeth Mpofu – Statement
2. Popular University of Social Movements gathers in Harare: social movements and academics to dialogue on the state of land, seeds and food in SADC
3. UPMS Workshop Harare Zimbabwe 2016 – Walter Chambati – Statement

Over the past 15 years, Zimbabwe’s fast track land reform programme has redressed colonial land inequalities and now provides lessons for its neighbours on how to democratise land ownership and broaden economic participation.

Pambazuka
Nyoni Ndabezinhle
12 Jul 2016

(Harare, July 11, 2016) – From July 12-15, various social movements and academics from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Ghana, Spain and Portugal will gather in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare to discuss and debate the state of land, seeds, food, climate and people in Southern Africa. The event is being held under the banner/auspices of Portugal’s Popular University of Social Movements, known by its Portuguese acronym, UPMS.

Social movements have powerfully influenced Zimbabwe’s land reform, and movements’ role in pressuring governments for land reform is today more important than ever. The Southern African region’s food deficit has risen in the past five years. Changes to seed laws and the growing impacts of climate change are also shaping regional food security.

What can the rest of the region learn from Zimbabwe’s land reform process? How can we understand regional policies regarding land, seeds, food and water? What responses can we collectively push for to address the challenges facing Zimbabwe and the wider region on the issues of food, land, seeds, water and climate? These are some of the key points that will be debated at this UPMS workshop.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, director of the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, said, “This UPMS workshop brings together academics and leaders of peasants’ movements, women’s movements and housing movements to focus on land, seeds and food, one of the most urgent and important topics in a time of savage neoliberal capitalism, land grabbing, finance speculation on commodities and land.”

Building alliances among social movements is the only way to develop an effective resistance against such powerful interests, he added.

The Popular University of Social Movements’ workshops are designed to promote the sharing of knowledge born out of experiences of both academic research and struggles on the ground. It is a process of broadening, articulating and enhancing forms of struggle against neoliberal globalization, capitalism, colonialism, sexism and other relations of domination and oppression; a process of rethinking and renew knowledge for political and social struggles, and developing new paradigms of social transformation from the Global South.

According to Elizabeth Mpofu, chairperson of Zimbabwe Organic Smallholder Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF),”This event is happening at the appropriate time. We are confronted by various social, economic and political challenges. It is the right time to sit down and analyze how far we have walked since 2000 and what is the reality in our neighboring countries.”

Thandiwe Chidavarume, from the Rural Women’s Assembly in Zimbabwe said, “Rural women farmers demand climate justice, participation in decision making and recognition of their immense contribution to food security and food sovereignty. This event provides a space to learn from and share with others experiences relevant to shaping solutions to these issues.”

Walter Chambati, deputy executive director of Sam Moyo African Institute of Agrarian Studies sees this workshop as a space that “presents an opportunity to reflect on Zimbabwe’s land reform successes and constraints. There can’t be a better platform for social movements from the global south to meet and share experiences on issues related to land, food and climate justice in the interests of promoting food sovereignty”.

The Harare UPMS workshop is co-hosted by Zimbabwe Organic Smallholder Farmers Forum, the Sam Moyo African Institute of Agrarian Studies, the Rural Women’s Assembly and the ALICE Project of the Centre for Social Studies.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
https://upmsharare2016.wordpress.com/
Email: nyoni.ndabezinhle@viacampesina.org | boa.monjane@gmail.com
Phone: +263772441909

Related posts:

1. World Social Forum TV Tunis 2015: Boaventura da Sousa Santos
2. Land, Dignity & Democracy: South Africa’s Constitution Does Allow for Expropriation
3. Suren Pillay: Decolonizing the University

Intolerance Tracker is an online platform to collect, aggregate, and map stories of intolerance across South Asia. These stories cover instances of discrimination that individuals or communities face based on their affiliation with a group or identity. Perpetrators include other individuals, groups or states.

Justice Adda
18 Feb 2016

The map is a response to the rising incidence of prejudice and discrimination, often against communities that have also been historically marginalised, and also against those who protest these forms of discrimination. Through consolidating these events on a single platform, we hope to chart their spread over time and space, as well as draw similarities and contrasts between different regions of South Asia.

Click on image to access Intolerance Tracker

It can be explored at: www.intolerancetracker.com

Intolerance Tracker is a project developed in collaboration with the Cambridge South Asia Watch, Justice Adda and Timescape.

Related posts:

1. Africans unite against xenophobia in South Africa
2. Book Discussion on ‘What Fanon Said’, by Lewis Gordon
3. South Africa: Voices of widows of the Marikana Massacre

February is a beautiful time of the year in Delhi. It inaugurates Basant, spring, the season for love. And it is made more beautiful by an incandescent, insurgent spirit, that spreads in the air like a loving contagion, especially around what the Hindu Right rehearses for months on end to spoil – the new found festival of Valentine’s Day.

Kafila
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
15 Feb 2016

Public Meeting, JNU, 13th February

Traditionally (or at least since as long ago as the late twentieth century CE), on Valentine’s Day, the loony Hindu right goes looking for lovers in the parks of Delhi and tries to ply its own line in the extortion trade. This time, they have been joined by some big guns. The Delhi police descended on some young people belonging to a theatre group who had stepped out to have tea during a poetry reading at the IGNCA on the grounds that they ‘looked like they were JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) students’. Meanwhile, their boss, the Honorable Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh (who deserves a Bharat Ratna all by himself for skills as a performance artist) regaled a press conference with a poker faced comic act – his revelation of the Lashkar e Taiba’s links to the JNU protests on the basis of the discovery of a fake twitter handle. The fact that Rajnath Singh still has his job is because his boss Narendra Modi, our ‘dear leader’, is the chief architect of the ‘Fake in India’ campaign.

One needs love, and laughter, plenty of laughter, to survive these times, and the antics of these men. Over the last two days, it is love, laughter, sorrow and rage, in equal proportion that have been most evident in the JNU campus in Delhi. Their signs were evident again, appropriately, yesterday, on Valentine’s Day. A student population of thousands has been able to transform its rage at the capitulation of the recently appointed vice-chancellor and his cronies to the diktats of an incompetent home minister and his minions in the Delhi Police apparatus into a deep and abiding sense of good humoured solidarity. This is demonstrated by the support that they have readily offered Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of their students union, who is currently detained, facing ridiculous charges of sedition, and several other students, including some JNUSU office bearers, who the police are still reportedly hunting for. The hashtag #StandwithJNU has gone viral, spreading, connecting, bringing people together like the sudden awakening of spring after a cruel winter. What better way can there be of celebrating Valentine’s Day than to declare, en masse, a love for liberty, and for learning?

Within a day of the police raid in JNU that resulted in the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar on the 12th of February, the campus was able to shake off the sense of shock at the invasive presence of the police and gather in very large numbers, setting an example of peaceful, dignified and disciplined protest, despite the many provocations that they have had thrown at them from a venal regime and its corrupt clients in the mainstream media.

On the evening of the 13th of February, there was a massive public meeting in front of the administration block in JNU. This was addressed by several political personalities, D. Raja of the CPI, Sitaram Yechuri of the CPI(M), Kavita Krishnan (former JNUSU president and from the CPI-ML-Liberation), Anand Sharma, Ajay Maken and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress. While the irony of the fat cats of the erstwhile Congress regime that actually hung Afzal Guru offering solidarity to students in JNU who are under attack from the BJP for being accused of mourning his execution was not lost on me, it was still an impressive show of force, at least for a few teflon television moments.

Meanwhile, at one margin of the immense crowd, a token number of ABVP goons shouted themselves hoarse – offering ‘peaceful’ slogans such as – ’Naxaliyon ka Kabar Khudega JNU ke Dharti Pe’, (The Graves of Naxalites will be dug on JNU’s soil), ‘Jo Afzal ki Baat Karega, Woh Afzal ki Maut Marega’ (He who talks about Afzal Guru will die his death) and ‘Desh Hai Pukarta, Pukarti Maa Bharati, Khoon se Tilak Karo, Goliyon Se Aarti’ (The Country is Calling, Mother India is Calling, Anoint Yourselves with Blood, And Worship with Bullets).

Naturally, calls for violence by self-certified Indian nationalists in the present circumstances can never be thought of by television anchors and the powers that be as disruptive of peace. This is the way the national fabric is maintained by its current custodians. ‘Make in India’ happens by breaking Indians, especially those who are young and vulnerable. But the young are resilient. They have stamina. They have love and laughter on their side. And it is better to rely on love and laughter than it is to depend even on the fickle attentions of princes and patriots, however charming they may be.

The prince was charming, (as princes tend to be, when in opposition). He said some basic, useful and necessary things about Adolf Hitler, the 1930s in Germany, intolerance and other such matters. He asked the students not to let themselves be bullied, and then left as suddenly as he had arrived, to the relief and bewilderment of the ABVP, who now could give their tired voices some rest.

It was left to Kavita Krishnan, former JNUSU General Secretary, to rescue the meeting from the thicket of rhetorical platitudes that the meeting had seemingly found itself waylaid into.

Kavita Krishnan reminded the students of the tradition that JNU has of dealing with difficult questions through dialogue, and the importance that this democratic, questioning spirit had in the formation of the character JNU students. While unequivocally condemning the irresponsible sloganeering by a minuscule fraction of those assembled for the ‘Country Without a Post Office’ event on the 9th of February organized by some JNU students, she insisted that these situations could have, and have been in the past, been dealt with dialogue and debate, not through detentions, charges of sedition and police action.

What impressed me most about the 13th evening were not so much the speeches as the evident resolve of the students. Their patient, orderly, serene presence, their respectful attention to when they were being addressed, their utter disregard for the lumpen presence of the ABVP, and their palpable love for each other and for their teachers, and their pride in their university.

In a remarkable demonstration of inter-generational solidarity, the students of JNU have found their strongest allies amongst their teachers. On the evening of 13th February, a chain of professors formed a protective cordon between their patient, impeccably disciplined JNU students and the unruly circus of ABVP thugs. The JNU administration played its comic part, appearing briefly, at the beginning of the programme, to disconnect the microphone. This is what Vice Chancellors have become reduced to these days – to becoming the obedient orderlies who switch off the power supply to their universities.

Undeterred, a student produced a battery operated microphone connected to a portable amplifier. Both devices had seen better days. And the voice they rendered was tinny, barely audible. And yet, the thousands of students gathered to listen gave everyone a patient hearing, alternating between what teaches in Indian class rooms like to call ‘pin drop silence’ (a much valued commodity in our noisy land) and regular bouts of wild, exultant, celebratory cheering, or cries of ‘shame’ when a speaker pointed out a particular foible of the government or the university administration, or when the ABVP got a little too noisy for their own good.

As is usual in these cases, the Television Crews had more time and energy at their disposal for Prince Charming and his retinue than they had for the remarkable sight of thousands of peaceful students assembled to express their anger. Nothing will change the ways of paid for TV. But that is another sad story.

The next day, I was at JNU at four in the afternoon, to witness a press conference addressed by JNUTA (JNU Teachers Association) office bearers, and representatives of the Federation of Cullege and University Teachers Associations (FEDCUTA), Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) and the Ambedkar University of Delhi Teachers Association (AUDTA). Each speaker talked about the increasing incidence of assaults on university autonomy in the BJP regime, attacks on students and teachers. Once again, a majority of TV correspondents interrogated the teachers speaking to them as if they were intelligence bureau operatives or special branch officials

Public Meeting, JNU, 13th February

At around five pm, the assembly dispersed, to gather again and take the form of what was described as massive human chain, (perhaps one should stop calling such gatherings ‘chains’ and call them human garlands instead), so lets say, a human garland, that stretched several kilometers long from ‘Ganga Dhaba’ (not far from the JNU main gate) to Chandrabhaga Hostel (deep within the interiors of the campus). This alive, ebullient thread of people, mainly young, some older (alumni, teachers, friends), was like a river in spate. I could not help thinking as I passed the hostels with their beautiful riverine names – Ganga, Sutlej, Kaveri, Mahi-Mandavi, Lohit and Chandrabhaga – that we, all of us assembled were like a tidal bore, surging upstream from the ocean to deep inland territories, irrigating wastelands, laying the foundations of a new civilization, a new civility that the RSS-ABVP hordes will never be able to come to terms with. The ebb and flow of this mighty river carried the evening.

Finally, we reached a confluence, again the administration block. Students sat once again, quickly, with a profound sense of internalized order. Once again there was no microphone. Once again there were calls for silence, and a hush descended on the students like a gentle protective blanket.

Then the gentle, exhausted but firm voice of Shehla Rashid Shora, the Vice President of JNUSU found a way of reaching way into the back of the crowd. She spoke of what it means to be in an inclusive, open, public university and why that is so terrifying to the regime in power. She spoke of the university as a space of dissent, of the celebration of doubt and thought. She spoke of the way in which the BJP government seems paranoid about the young and their spaces. She spoke of the defamation, the lies, that are being peddled by the government and sections of the media about students everywhere. She spoke of the desperate circumstances that drove Rohith Vemula to suicide because of an ABVP led witch hunt. She spoke at length about the ‘Occupy UGC’, formed as a response to the BJP regime’s planned assault on democratic and equitable access to higher education. She spoke about how there is an increasing intensity of discrimination based on caste, religion, gender and sexual preferences. She spoke of the intense desire that young people all over feel for freedom – azaadi – of freedom from patriarchy, from capital, from draconian laws like the AFSPA, from Khaps and Casteism and from all forms of humiliation and indignity, She spoke, not once, but several times about ‘desh-prem‘, about what it means to love a land and the many kinds of people who inhabit it, and how that was different from the hatred that the regime purveyed through what it defined as nationalism. She declared that the students have resolved not to co-operate with the inquiry committee set up by the University Administration on the incidents of February 9th because it has shown its biases by having already declared a number of students ‘guilty’ and has suspended their academic rights and privileges even before an investigation has had a chance to begin. She declared that (today) Monday, the 15th of February will be observed as a strike throughout the university.

Something has changed in our city. Ever since the terrible rape of Jyoti Singh on the 16th of December, 2012 brought thousands of young people out into the streets of Delhi, something fundamental has shifted in our sense of who we are as citizens, and as political actors. This was palpable in the mobilizations by the young workers of the Maruti-Suzuki factory. It was evident in the ‘Occupy UGC’ movement, and in the continuing protests in solidarity with Rohith Vemula, and the spontaneous marches on the RSS headquarters, (as part of the ‘Kiss of Love’ protests, and more recently, to express anger at the RSS-ABVP’s abetment of Rohith Vemula’s suicide). This stupid government thinks that it can arrest this momentum by scaring students in JNU with a dose of shock treatment, or workers at the Maruti factory with a spell in prison. It has no idea how much it has damaged itself by presuming that it could frighten students, and more generally, the young. If this government thinks that it can solve the mounting social crises that it is itself generating by putting workers and students in prisons, then, it really has no idea of the kind of bonds that it is helping to form in what it thinks are spaces of confinement between a new generation of, and new kinds of political prisoners and their friends, comrades, families and allies. The state and its thugs have fresh blood on its hands, the blood of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad, and a young man called Danish, and a young woman called Shaista Hamid, (both unarmed civilians) in Pulwama, Kashmir. It has the growing weight of prisoners chains around its neck.

Now it is Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani’s turn to be terrified.

They have awakened a tsunami of anger in the young. In the coming days, this wave of connections, between what is happening, and is likely to happen next, in Hyderabad, Delhi, Kashmir and elsewhere, like the dance and collision of the wounded cores of of distant stars meeting in deep space, (of the kind that Rohith Vemula loved to think about) may well transform itself into a massive gravitational force that can alter the structure of our social universe. And because we know this, February has once again become a beautiful time of the year. It’s time for love, laughter and rage.

Related posts:

1. Why I Love Being Black: The Laughter of Protest
2. Rebellion as contagion: What the High Court possibly meant when it spoke of an infection
3. A Turkish Spring? Over 1,000 Injured as Anti-Government Protests Spread Outside of Istanbul

Elalab is a small community located in an area of difficult access on the north coast of Guinea-Bissau.

It has 435 inhabitants living from fishing and rice production. For Felupes people – Elalab’s main ethnic group – this cereal represents wealth and autonomous livelihood.

Bagabaga Studios
Dez 2015

Zé wants to know why from Bagabaga Studios on Vimeo.

In recent years, with the rainfall decrease and sea level rise, rice fields in Elalab have been flooded with salt water, threatening the soil fertility and the subsistence of people.



Zé is one of the characters of this village.


He never heard of global warming but he easily points out changes to the seasons and how it affects his everyday life.


He doesn’t understand why all this is happening. And so he asks us: “Why did it once rain so much and now it doesn’t?”

————— // —————
production: Bagabaga Studios
promoted by: Monte – Organização Não Governamental para o Desenvolvimento
partners: AD / IBAP
sponsors: European Union // Camões – Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua

#ozequersaberporque #zewantstoknowwhy #COP21 #climate2015

Related posts:

1. The Lesson from Davos: No Connection to Reality
2. The Indigenous fight against colonial veganism
3. Ask Boaventura #27 – Descolonizar la relación del ser humano con la naturaleza