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Arabica Robusta

Egypt's revolution won't end with the presidential election - Mail & Guardian Online - 0 views

mg.co.za/...with-the-presidential-election

social movements arab multinational corporations mncs egypt intervention mubarak human rights development corporate africa industry

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 May 12 - No Cached
  • The apartment blocks on my street in downtown Cairo have accommodated many cycles of Egypt’s political tumult in the past 18 months. A stone’s throw from Tahrir Square, they have been enveloped in teargas, pockmarked by Molotov cocktails, pressed into use as urban barricades by both revolutionaries and pro-Mubarak militias and provided the backdrop for some of the post-Mubarak military generals’ most violent assaults on the citizens they swore to protect.
  • There are a million empirical holes that could be picked in this chronicle – the only results we have so far (from Egyptians voting abroad) put Moussa and Shafiq in fourth and fifth places respectively while the lazy insistence of characterising Aboul Fotouh as an unreconstructed Islamist (and hence automatically anti-Tahrir) bears little relation to the substance of his support on the ground.
  • Two misapprehensions underpin much of the discussion about the revolution.
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  • The first is that the metric of revolutionary success lies solely in the formal arena of institutional politics and the development of democratic mechanisms within it. The second is that Tahrir, along with the ludicrously titled “Facebook youth” who populated the square in January and February last year, is the only alternative space in which pressure on the formal arena is thrashed out.
  • And it’s that energy, that those who benefit from the status quo, from western governments to multinational corporations, really fear. Little wonder that there has been a rush by the world’s most powerful entities – from Hilary Clinton and David Cameron to Morgan Chase and General Electric – to simultaneously venerate Tahrir (as long as the demands voiced within it don’t overstep the mark), echo the generals’ calls for “stability” (shutting down broader discourses of dissent in the process) and form links with the largely neoliberal Muslim Brotherhood (whose policies, despite anguished op-eds in Washington think-tank journals, pose little threat to American interests, and indeed offer up many opportunities).
  • What they’re less keen to acknowledge – because it carries the revolution out of its sheltered borders – are the other trenches that are increasingly being etched at the margins of Egyptian society, dividing those who have reaped pharaonic-esque riches as a result of 20-odd years of “structural adjustment” from those left behind in zones of neoliberal exclusion.
  • Forget Shafiq’s advertising hoardings – the revolution is everywhere and it is potent.
  • As the sociologist Asef Bayat has argued, actions that appear to be individualistic strategies for survival and not explicitly political attempts to bring down elites can, in the right circumstances, become unstoppable and interlinked channels of mass rejection, a struggle for real agency in an era of globalised corporate cosmopolitanism that strives to deny it to so many.
Arabica Robusta

http://www.ecprnet.eu/MyECPR/proposals/reykjavik/uploads/papers/2277.pdf - 0 views

www.ecprnet.eu/...2277.pdf

shared by Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12 - No Cached
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      The panel of social cyber-activists analyzed in the aforementioned research indicates  that leftist organizations did not act in coordination with the counterinformation  networks (such as the Nodo50 platform, which had already shown potential on 13M and  in subsequent calls by the MRH) and the campaigning strategies of left-wing parties.  This was not the case for the conservative axis, which the cyber-activists interviewed  felt was "more instrumental in electoral terms and  more effective in their combined  strategies through conventional media, politics and e-politics." (Sampedro, 2010:25).  
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      In 2004, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt launched their vision of a "multitude  project" based on the possibility of a global democratic society, open and inclusive,  promoted by multitudes fighting for justice and a free world. Perhaps we are currently  witnessing its first steps, and the nature of the demonstrations that take place all over  the world may are proof of that. The authors point  that analyzing the nature and  conditions of crowds helps to "identify the real creative forces that are emerging with  the potential to create a new world" (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 95). This new world will  be built over current scenario, the contemporary post-industrial world, which the  theorist Manuel Castells defines as network society, a concept that replaces that of  information (or knowledge) society. 
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      However, above their deliberation potential, ICTs have created a new category of social  movement that is characterized by network organization, coordination and action, as  well as decentralization, flexibility and collective action. New social movements have  managed to mobilize the multitudes (Negri and Hardt, 2004) and have characteristics  that differentiate them markedly from previous social movements.
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    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      As previously pointed out, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri propose the concept of multitude in 2004 and define it as the manifestation of collective intelligence that Lévy  predicted on the fringes of cyberspace in 1995: "The development of computer-assisted  communication and global digital networks appears to be the realization of a more or  less well-formulated project to deliberately create new forms of collective intelligence,  which are more flexible and democratic and based on reciprocity and respect for singularities. In this sense, we could define collective intelligence as a fully distributed  intelligence that is continuously enhanced and synergized in real-time" (Lèvy, 1999:76).  However, Negri and Hardt's concept of multitudes transcends virtual profiles and asserts  its presence in public spaces and offline arenas. It differs from the traditional category  of people in that the people is homogeneous whereas the multitude is plural (2004: 16),  it is not an identity and, in contrast with the homogeneous, irresponsible and easily  manipulated mass, the multitude is plural and highly rational. "The common ground of a  multitude is not discovered, it is built" (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 17).  
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      The area of action in the 13 March 2004 protests was clearly offline, as the streets of  Madrid became spaces for public discussion and hundreds of citizens gathered in  peaceful civil disobedience. This kind of political action lifestyle-based: "Everybody  mistrusted mainstream media and career politicians. To one degree or another, everyone  debated and coordinated the protests in their own name and using their own means. (…)  They positioned themselves in the transformative left or, at the very least, in a state of  vigilant citizenship" (Sampedro, 2005:291-292).  
Arabica Robusta

Uprising in Burkina Faso: Why no cameras? - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...72927

social movements intervention human rights development corporate africa industry burkina faso pambazuka

shared by Arabica Robusta on 22 May 11 - No Cached
  • Some would be inclined to argue that Burkina Faso has been forgotten because the international media is biased towards representation of Africa south of the Sahara, and the ignoring or misrepresentation of the Rwanda genocide is the most cited example. But perhaps it is more complex than a simple Africa south of the Sahara bias; it's a bias against or in favour of certain African countries that has been constructed through namely, a country's geo-political and economic importance to the West and also through a history of colonial relations in which reader and viewer familiarity and association with former colonies is generated.
  • Even Côte d'Ivoire was at one point was rightly dubbed 'the forgotten war'. It did not fit the media template of a sexy, tech-savvy, populist revolution, as that which had been constructed of Egypt. Instead Côte d'Ivoire had the uncomfortable but familiar look and feel of a Rwanda genocide-lite. It was a messy, bloody struggle for power between rebel and patriot factions in a country most educated people outside of Africa would struggle to find on a map.
  • On 20 February, in an industrial town called Koudougo, bigger than Sidi Bouzid, a student named Justin Zongo was taken into police custody after an alleged dispute with a female classmate. A few days later, Zongo was pronounced dead and according to official police reports, the cause of death was meningitis. His family and friends rejected this and claimed Zongo's death was due to police brutality.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - African world view on revolutionary ruptures and pace of change in 2012 - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...79610

movements social arab multinational mncs corporations intervention egypt mubarak africa pambazuka

shared by Arabica Robusta on 04 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • There is a lot to be learnt from the last capitalist depression during the 1930s when some economists and political leaders believed, that militarism and investment in military capital could resolve the crisis. Indeed, some economists today credit the militarism of the German society with ending the crisis without mention of the huge price paid by humans in the Second World War.
  • Anti-imperialist and progressive forces on the ground in Kenya and even those involved in the political game will have to be strategic in their planning, just as our forces have been strategic in Nigeria. There is a reason why we interred Tajudeen Abdul Raheem in Funtua, in the North of Nigeria. Tajudeen had worked tirelessly against the manipulation of religious differences and we should be publicising the book of the writings of Tajudeen in this revolutionary moment. We must keep his ideas alive as one part of our arsenal.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Nigeria: Was it a 14-day dream? - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...79406

social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry africa pambazuka nigeria labor union cooptation

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Then Nigeria’s thoroughly compromised labour movement hijacked the revolt, lulled the people into a false sense of solidarity and finally extinguished the revolutionary fire that was burning down the foundations of Nigeria’s ruling elite....The Nigerian Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress didn’t join the mass protests until at least three days after the fact. They were obviously drafted by President Jonathan
Arabica Robusta

Emir Sader, "Ravens and Vultures" - 0 views

mrzine.monthlyreview.org/...sader251011.html

social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry africa pambazuka

shared by Arabica Robusta on 12 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 12 Nov 11
     
    Did you notice that there are people who say they are of the Left but who seem to only criticize people of the Left? Never against the Right, whatever it does. They specialize in pouring gasoline on any little fire within the Left.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Samir Amin: A titan of radical thought - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...76102

samir amin capitalism theory africa social movements

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • In the 1980s and 1990s African institutions of higher education came under Western influence to the extent that universities, like African economies, have had to prostitute themselves for research funding from foreign donors as kleptocratic African governments failed to fund universities whilst they prioritized military expenditure instead.
Arabica Robusta

The Year in Revolts: A South American Perspective of the Arab Spring - 0 views

upsidedownworld.org/...perspective-of-the-arab-spring

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry pambazuka latin america

shared by Arabica Robusta on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Beyond their diverse circumstances, the Tahrir Square and Puerta del Sol movements in Cairo and in Madrid, form part of the genealogy of “All of them must go!” declared in the 2001 Argentinian revolt, the 2000 Cochabamba Water War, the 2003 and 2005 Bolivian Gas Wars and the 2006 Oaxaca commune, to mention only the urban cases. These movements all share two characteristics: the curbing of those in power and the opening of spaces for direct democracy and collective participation without representatives.
  • Beyond their diverse circumstances, the Tahrir Square and Puerta del Sol movements in Cairo and in Madrid, form part of the genealogy of “All of them must go!” declared in the 2001 Argentinian revolt, the 2000 Cochabamba Water War, the 2003 and 2005 Bolivian Gas Wars and the 2006 Oaxaca commune, to mention only the urban cases. These movements all share two characteristics: the curbing of those in power and the opening of spaces for direct democracy and collective participation without representatives.
  • We live in societies that are “variegated”, an interesting concept developed by the Bolivian René Zavaleta Mercado to describe social relations in his country. These are societies in which many different types of traditional and modern social relations co-exist. The best example of this is the Andean market, or the urban market in the peripheries of cities like Buenos Aires. These are spaces in which many families live together in a small area, with various businesses that combine production and sales in different fields, with diverse modes of employment – familial, salaried, in kind, commissioned – that is, a “variegated” mode that implies diverse and complex social relations that are interwoven and combined. In this way, if one of these relationships is modified, the rest are as well...
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  • I don't believe in virtual spaces, spaces are always material as well as symbolic. It's another matter to speak of virtual media of communication among people in movement.... For me, territories are those places in which life is lived in an integral sense, they are settlements, as we say in Latin America. These have existed for a long time in rural areas: indigenous communities or settlements of Brazil's Landless Movement, ancestral lands or lands recuperated in the struggle.
  • I don't believe in virtual spaces, spaces are always material as well as symbolic. It's another matter to speak of virtual media of communication among people in movement.... For me, territories are those places in which life is lived in an integral sense, they are settlements, as we say in Latin America. These have existed for a long time in rural areas: indigenous communities or settlements of Brazil's Landless Movement, ancestral lands or lands recuperated in the struggle.
  • more that 70% of urban land, and therefore of households, are illegal yet legitimate occupations. In some cases, this marks the beginning of another type of social organization, in which semi-craftwork production – including urban gardens – is combined with popular markets and informal modes of distribution. In the decisive moments of struggles against the State or at times of profound crisis, these territories become “resistor territories,”
  • In some cities, more that 70% of urban land, and therefore of households, are illegal yet legitimate occupations. In some cases, this marks the beginning of another type of social organization, in which semi-craftwork production – including urban gardens – is combined with popular markets and informal modes of distribution. In the decisive moments of struggles against the State or at times of profound crisis, these territories become “resistor territories,”
  • In some cities, more that 70% of urban land, and therefore of households, are illegal yet legitimate occupations. In some cases, this marks the beginning of another type of social organization, in which semi-craftwork production – including urban gardens – is combined with popular markets and informal modes of distribution. In the decisive moments of struggles against the State or at times of profound crisis, these territories become “resistor territories,”
  • Social movement is a Eurocentric concept that has been useful in describing what happens in homogeneous societies that revolve around the capitalist market, in which there is one basic form of social relations. In Latin America, the concept has and is used by academic intellectuals whose perspective is external to popular sector organization.
  • The people in the street are a spanner in the works in the accumulation of capital, which is why one of the first “measures” taken by the military after Mubarak left was to demand that citizens abandon the street and return to work. But if those in power cannot co-exist with the streets and occupied squares, those below – who have learned to topple Pharaohs – have not yet learned how to jam the flows and movements of capital.
  • The Middle East brings together some of the most brutal contradictions of the contemporary world. Firstly, there are determined efforts to sustain an outdated unilateralism. Secondly, it is the region where the principal tendency of the contemporary world is most visible: the brutal concentration of power and wealth....
Arabica Robusta

Like Water for Gold in El Salvador | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...water-gold-el-salvador

mining news mine gold rare miner environment earth latin america newmont social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry

shared by Arabica Robusta on 17 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • ADES (the Social and Economic Development Association), where local people talked with us late into the night about how they had come to oppose mining. ADES organizer Vidalina Morales acknowledged that “initially, we thought mining was good and it was going to help us out of poverty…through jobs and development.”
  • He talked about watching the river near his farm dry up: “This was very strange, as it had never done this before. So we walked up the river to see why…. And then I found a pump from Pacific Rim that was pumping water for exploratory wells. All of us began to wonder, if they are using this much water in the exploration stage, how much will they use if they actually start mining?”
  • As the anti-mining coalition strengthened with support from leaders in the Catholic Church, small businesses and the general public (a 2007 national poll showed that 62.4 percent opposed mining), tensions within Cabañas grew.
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  • Three people recounted how a Pacific Rim official boasted that cyanide was so safe that the official was willing to drink a glass of a favorite local beverage laced with the chemical. The official, we were told, backed down when community members insisted on authentication of the cyanide. “The company thought we’re just ignorant farmers with big hats who don’t know what we’re doing,” Miguel said. “But they’re the ones who are lying.”
  • Along one wall is the Salvadoran version of the US Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in this case etched with the names of about 30,000 of the roughly 75,000 killed in the civil war. Thousands of them, including the dozens killed in the Lempa River massacre of 1981, were victims of massacres perpetrated by the US-backed—often US-trained—government forces and the death squads associated with them.
  • Anti-mining sentiment was already so strong in 2009 that both the reigning ARENA president and the successful FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes, came out against mining during the campaign.
  • We pushed further, trying to understand how a technical analysis could decide a matter with such high stakes. On the one hand, we posed to Duarte, gold’s price has skyrocketed from less than $300 an ounce a decade ago to more than $1,500 an ounce today, increasing the temptation in a nation of deep poverty to consider mining. We quoted former Salvadoran finance minister and Pacific Rim economic adviser Manuel Hinds, who said, “Renouncing gold mining would be unjustifiable and globally unprecedented.” On the other hand, we quoted the head of the human rights group and Roundtable member FESPAD, Maria Silvia Guillen: “El Salvador is a small beach with a big river that runs through it. If the river dies, the entire country dies.”
  • While he hoped this process would produce a consensus, Duarte admitted it was more likely the government and the firm would have to lay out “the interests of the majority,” after which the two ministries would then make their policy recommendation.
  • Oscar Luna, a former law professor and fierce defender of human rights—for which he too has received death threats. We asked Luna if he agreed with allegations that the killings in Cabañas were “assassinations organized and protected by economic and social powers.” Luna replied with his own phrasing: “There is still a climate of impunity in this country that we are trying to end.” He is pressing El Salvador’s attorney general to conduct investigations into the “intellectual” authors of the killings.
  • Our interactions in Cabañas and San Salvador left us appreciative of the new democratic space that strong citizen movements and a progressive presidential victory have opened up, yet aware of the fragility and complexities that abound. The government faces an epic decision about mining, amid deep divisions and with institutions of democracy that are still quite young. As Vidalina reminded us when we parted, the “complications” are even greater than what we found in Cabañas or in San Salvador, because even if the ban’s proponents eventually win, “these decisions could still get trumped in Washington.”
  • The brief methodically lays out how Canada-headquartered Pacific Rim first incorporated in the Cayman Islands to escape taxes, then brazenly lobbied Salvadoran officials to shape policies to benefit the firm, and only after that failed, in 2007 reincorporated one of its subsidiaries in the United States to use CAFTA to sue El Salvador.
  • Dozens of human rights, environmental and fair-trade groups across North America, from U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities and the Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador (CISPES) to Oxfam, Public Citizen, Mining Watch and the Institute for Policy Studies, are pressuring Pacific Rim to withdraw the case.
Arabica Robusta

Civil Society Unifies Position Ahead of Aid Summit - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

ipsnews.net/news.asp

social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry cambodia civil society

shared by Arabica Robusta on 11 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • In the past, McCausland said, a group like ActionAid may have jumped into income generation projects that were effective initially, but were ultimately unsustainable over the long term. Such strategies carry the danger of fostering an over-dependency on NGOs. That perspective has changed to one where the emphasis is placed on organising aid recipients to demand - for themselves - that authorities fulfil their responsibilities in financing services.
  • But preparations for Busan may be leaning heavily on donors’ needs and giving short shrift to CSOs. Early drafts of outcome documents for Busan, McCausland said, "lend an ear only to donors’ needs."
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Time to bury the IMF - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...73741

shared by Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • From ordinary folks in Bamako in Mali to the shack dwellers of South Africa, there are social forces opposing the looting of African resources and calling on the working poor to ‘fight against all manifestations of injustices, and protect their human dignity by direct action.’ Scholars who have been theorising the interconnections between gender, care and economics have been able to shatter neo-classical, Marxist and liberal understanding of economic relations that excluded the labour power of women.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 11
       
      "able to shatter neo-classical, Marxist and liberal understanding of economic relations that excluded the labour power of women."
  • Economists, financiers, journalists, policymakers, politicians and speculators draw attention to the fact that the entire international financial system is now in its death throes.
  • These warnings from mainstream commentators seek to divert attention from those in the oppressed South who are calling for the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system and plan for increased taxation of the bankers, especially in the short run with a financial transaction tax.
Arabica Robusta

Spain's Icelandic revolt | Presseurop (English) - 0 views

www.presseurop.eu/...663631-spains-icelandic-revolt

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry pambazuka spain

shared by Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The demonstrations have broadened spontaneously, as was the case for those who rallied under the umbrellas of the "alternative globalisation" movements, and have evolved, one decade after the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on a more modest stage than the one demonstrators faced in the past at the World Economic Forum of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland.
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