Amandla Publishers

By Brian Raftopoulos, Director of Research Solidarity Peace Trust.

After yet another contested general and presidential election on 2008, the Zimbabwe crisis persists with ever deepening symptoms of political and economic decline. Not unlike other elections in Africa, and most recently in Kenya at the end of 2007, the 2008 Zimbabwean elections, because of the serious deficiencies in the electoral system and the debilitating effects of widespread state-sponsored violence, have both aggravated the social tensions and exacerbated the fragility of the country's political fabric. For the purpose of the elections, as elsewhere on the continent, was not to democratize political spaces but to construct and contrive a renewed ‘electoral legitimacy' through the combination of violence and skewed electoral processes, for a regime that has come to depend increasingly on coercion and limited patronage for its survival.

Food crisis a crisis of capitalism

This issue of Amandla! focuses on the food crisis gripping most parts of the world. This comes close on the heels of the financial and energy crises that Amandla! has previously focused on. However, when one considers the numbers, at least from one side of the equation, we can ask, food crisis – what crisis?

Monsanto, makers of seeds and herbicides saw its profits more than double in the first quarter of 2008, grain trader Cargill's net earnings up 86% while Deere, manufactures of agricultural equipment, posted a 55% increase in earnings. South African company Tiger Brands, a major grain-processing company found guilty in the bread price-fixing scandal, reported pre-tax profits of R2.4 billion in 2006. Food retailer Pick 'n Pay recorded a turnover for the second half of 2007 of R21 billion. Furthermore, study after study indicates that global food production grows faster than population growth. According to the Food First Institute, abundance not scarcity best describes the supply of food in the world today. So, there is no food crisis. What there is, is a crisis of capital, with the commodification of food being amongst the most inhumane consequence of a system whose hallmark is placing profits before people.

A series of reports in the international media have drawn attention to the role of professional speculators and hedge funds in driving up the price of basic commodities—in particular, foodstuffs. The sharp increase in food prices in recent months has led to protests and riots in a number of countries across the globe.  Over the next few weeks the Amandla website will continue to post articles discussing the rapid rise of food prices, not only in South Africa, but internationally.

The devastating effects of biofuels

Heavily promoted by Bush and Blair as a carbon neutral alternative to fossil fuels, biofuels are now being questioned over their environmental impact on rain forests and on food supplies. Huge tracts of rainforest are being cleared to produce biofuels and millions of poor people are suffering from switching land use from food crops to biofuels. Leah Jones exposes the limitations of this 'green alternative'.

The push to be eco-friendly has prompted many companies and governments to research and invest in biofuels. Biofuel generally refers to liquid and gaseous fuels produced from biomass, the classic example of which is wood, but the biomass can be any combustible organic material. Many crops can be and are grown especially for this purpose, for example: soybeans, corn, wheat, rapeseed, sugar beet and sugar cane. All sorts of industrial wastes can be used too, providing they are biodegradable, such as timber, manure, food waste and sewage.Biofuels classify as renewable energy as the things they are made of can easily be re-created; trees and crops can be regrown, biodegradable waste piles up all the time. Biofuels are also potentially eco-friendly because they work within the carbon cycle. The organic material they are produced from takes in carbon from the atmosphere when it is growing. The carbon produced when biofuels are burnt then replaces the carbon taken, so does not add to greenhouse gas emissions.

Amandla Colloquium
Please watch this space.
We will be posting papers delivered at the colloquium, powerpoint presentations, audio and video files  as they become available.

THE AUDIO(MP3) FILES OF INPUTS AND DISCUSSIONS HAVE NOW BEEN ADDED

  Climate change is both a threat and an opportunity to bring about the long postponed social and economic reforms that had been derailed or sabotaged in previous era.

By Walden Bello

There is now a solid consensus in the scientific community that if the change in global mean temperature in the 21st century exceeds 2.4 degrees Celsius, changes in the planet.s climate will be large-scale, irreversible and disastrous. Moreover, the window of opportunity for action that will make a difference is narrow . that is, the next 10 to 15 years. Throughout the North, however, there is strong resistance to changing the systems of consumption and production that have created the problem in the first place and a preference for .techno-fixes,. such as .clean. coal,carbon sequestration and storage, industrial-scale biofuels, and nuclear
energy.

Globally, transnational corporations and other private actors resist government-imposed measures such as mandatory caps, preferring to use market mechanisms like the buying and selling of .carbon credits,. which critics say simply amounts to a licence for corporate polluters to keep on polluting. In the South, there is little willingness on the part of the southern elite to depart from the high-growth, high-consumption model inherited from the North, and a self-interested conviction that the North must first adjust and bear the brunt of adjustment before the South takes any serious
step towards limiting its greenhouse gas emissions.

Grabbing the opportunity of the climate change crisis, the nuclear industry has presented itself as a carbon-free energy source. There are a number of arguments against this: first, there is not enough uranium on the planet to fuel a big enough nuclear industry to make a difference to climate change; second, the mining and enrichment of nuclear fuel remains energy intensive; and third, nuclear energy is still dangerous to life around, without a solution to its growing waste problems and a threat to a democratic society.

As this article goes to press, two nuclear greenwash events are spinning through our country. The loud event is the hosting of discredited ex-Greenpeace activist, now timber magnate Patrick Moore, by the nuclear industry to sing its praises. The other is the settling, quietly and behind closed doors to avoid more public attention, of a legal dispute in which the nuclear industry had tried to shut down the indigenous documentary “Uranium Road”, which is critical of the nuclear industry. Together they show an industry keen to publicise support for itself while trying to silence criticism. 

It's not merely policy; it is the political conditions that set the stage

Presentation  by Mazibuko K. Jara
To the Critical Dialogue Forum: The ANC in the aftermath of Polokwane, implications for policy and governance.
Durban, 25 February 2008 Hosted by the Centre for Public Participation and Democracy Development Programme.

1. Introduction: fluidity, opportunities and dangers

In the two months since 20 December 2007, when Jacob Zuma was elected in Polokwane as the President of the African National Congress (ANC), the buzzword, “after Polokwane”, has been heard everywhere: at funerals, shebeens, taxis, trains, football matches, radio talk-shows, diplomatic circles, government corridors, research seminars, and on the pages of the liberal press. Why are South Africans concerned with the post-Polokwane ANC? Why are all manner of questions being asked about this new reality? Is it a new reality? Who is asking questions? Which questions are being asked? Which ones are not being asked?  By presenting this short talk, I hope to contribute to the re-building of the confidence of progressive forces in our society in order that they may rise to the task at hand: the complicated challenge of strategically and ingeniously building a social agency, programmatic perspectives and vehicle for anti-systemic change that transcends the limits of liberal democracy and the free market system.

By Antony Otieno Ong'ayo

As Zimbabwe threatens to pull a 'Kenya', this is a good time to consider the implications of the Annan mediated power-sharing deal. Antony Otieno Ong'ayo dissects and weighs the Kenya power sharing deal.

While the tensions and apprehension as a result of the post election violence in Kenya subsides, focus is now placed on the newfound relationship between the antagonists during the 2007 elections. More important are the hopes of thousands who have been since the onset of electoral violence, displaced and still live in degrading conditions in various camps in the country. Business in various parts of the country seem to return to “normal” although large sections of the population are not sure of what will come next? Commentators have pointed to the optimism about the peace agreement between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki; however, less attention is being given to the implications of the deal for governance and state restructuring.

In the recent past, two positions have defined the discussion about power in Kenyan politics. This begun with the commencement of the Bomas constitutional review process, where one position has been against devolution of powers, arguing that two centres of power is not workable. The other view is that devolution of powers is possible within a framework that provides for accountability in the highest office in the land. However interest-ridden views and adversarial approach hijacked the debate hence, a stalemate in finding a best alternative. Proponents of centralised power, failed to justify that position, except for suggestions that doing so is likely to lead into chaos and disunity. They did not state what benefits the country has enjoyed under such a system since independence. Their arguments seem to ignore the historical injustices caused by a presidential system with concentrated powers, a system that took the country through decades of authoritarianism and dictatorship.

"Culture and Tradition are used to deny women their rights and to justify treating them with disdain"

Last year, following the 'Reed Dance' festival, gender and human rights activists, responding to comments made at this annual event, criticized 'Virginity Testing.' Leading proponents of this dehumanizing practice, mainly men, claiming the cultural/African high ground, dismissed the criticism as 'Eurocentric', 'anti Zulu', 'anti-African' and 'racist', amongst other things. "It is our culture and tradition", they indignantly asserted. This argument, informed by the widespread misperception that culture, described by Social Scientists as a 'people's whole way of life', is static, is marred by serious contradictions and startling hypocrisy. Moreover, the notion that the solution to the ravaging Aids pandemic and teenage pregnancy is the promotion of virginity amongst young girls ignores the many socio-economic factors behind the spread of the disease and fails to realise why young girls are engaging in sexual intercourse.

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