Archive for the 'Africa' Category

Solidarity Economy and South Africa’s ‘Red October’ Campaign

by Editors @ Monday, October 3rd, 2011. Filed under Africa, Economic Democracy, Labor Movement, Marxism, Organizing, Solidarity Economy
Speech by SACP General Secretary Cde Blade Nzimande at the Launch of the Red October Campaign, October 2 2011:

Together Let Us Build Working

Class Power in our Communities:

The 2011 Launch of the

SACP Red October Campaign

We are in that time of the year when the SACP launches its popular Red October Campaign. Our Red October Campaign is inspired and seeks to take forward the spirit and the victories of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia - ushering in the first workers' government in the 20th century.

The Red October campaign has been an important platform in building and strengthening the SACP over the last 11 years. Through our Red October Campaign we have built an SACP that is closer to the workers and the poor of our country. Through this campaign we say to the workers and the poor of our country, take up struggles to change your lives for the better and be the masters of your own destinies. It is only the workers and the poor themselves, in struggle and in solidarity with all other progressive forces that will consolidate and deepen our national democratic revolution, and advance the struggle for socialism in our country.

Through these campaigns we have also exposed the failures of the capitalist system to address the needs of the overwhelming majority of our people, and particularly also the failures of the neo-liberal macro-economic policies pursued since 1996. Our Red October Campaign has also been an important organising tool to recruit more and more members to the SACP. The Red October Campaign has also been an important platform for the ideological development of SACP members, and generally to conscientise and mobilise the workers and the poor to be the makers of their own history.

Since its launch twelve years ago, the Red October Campaign has been an important campaigning platform led by the SACP, and has notched some important victories, including:

a. the roll out of banking services to the poor via Umzansi account

b. the transformation of the financial sector as a whole

c. The passage of the Co-operatives and Co-operative Banks legislation

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Class Struggle in Tunisian Cyberspace Helps Mass Revolt

by Editors @ Sunday, January 16th, 2011. Filed under Africa, Organizing, Youth

Tweeting Tyrants Out of Tunisia:

The Global Internet at Its Best

Solidarityeconomy.net via Wired Magazine


Even yesterday, it would have been too much to say that blogger, tweeters, Facebook users, Anonymous and Wikileaks had “brought down” the Tunisian government, but with today’s news that the country’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has fled the country, it becomes a more plausible claim to make.

Of course there was more to such demonstrations than some new technology. An individual act of desperation set off the last month of rioting, as a college-educated young man set himself on fire after police confiscated his unlicensed fruit and vegetable cart. Tunisia’s high unemployment rate, rampant corruption and rising food prices added to the anger at Ben Ali’s 20-plus-year rule.

People risked their lives in the street, with some getting a bullet for their troubles, but the internet played a significant role in organizing these protests and in disseminating news and pictures of them to the world.

After the worst unrest in his reign, Ben Ali this week promised not to run for “election” again and to give the country a free press and the right to assemble. He fired his cabinet. It wasn’t enough. Protestors sensed weakness, and today they forced Ben Ali from Tunisia. He fled ignominiously with his family for any state that would have him.

Here’s a guide to the part of this battle fought in cyberspace over the last month.

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What Shape Will 2007 Take?

by Kayode Komolafe @ Thursday, January 4th, 2007. Filed under Africa, Global Justice
Emissions from a natural gas pipeline in the Niger Delta catch fireBy Kayode Komolafe, Nigeria
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. - Famous American Futurologist, Alvin Toffler.
One may not need the specialist knowledge of the world famous futurist, Alvin Toffler, to make reasonable projections about what will happen to Nigeria this year. (more...)

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