Two Articles on NGOs & Social Movements

This article notes that in South Africa the relationship between grassroots organisations and NGOs has often been fractious – to the point that there have been a number of rebellions against NGOs on the part of grassroots organisations. It also notes that NGOs have sometimes reacted in a plainly authoritarian manner to grassroots critiques. And, more positively, it also notes that some NGOs have developed positive and valued relationships with grassroots organisations. However it cautions that an NGO’s position on economic questions i.e. whether it is broadly liberal or socialist - offers no a priori indication of its approach to praxis. The article argues that praxis, in the sense of thinking through and working out how NGOs can relate to grassroots organisations in an enabling manner, needs to be taken seriously and that constructive discussion in this regard should be encouraged rather than suppressed.

Sunday, 24 March 2013
Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement

The Unemployed People’s Movement will not be Participating in the So-Called ‘People’s Space’ at the BRICS Meeting in Durban

The Unemployed People’s Movement will not be participating in the so-called ‘People’s Space’ at the BRICS meeting in Durban.

Our Umlazi branch received a phone call recently informing us that buses were being provided for us to send our members to the so-called ‘People’s Space’ at the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN. We were instructed to mobilise to fill the buses.

http://www.citypress.co.za/columnists/time-of-the-signs-feminism-by-any-other-name%E2%80%89-%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8A/

Time of the signs: Feminism, by any other name

by Nokulinda Mkhize

Our pages have been filled with news and stories of statistics regarding ­gender-based violence and the abuse, assault and violation of women and girls. One that received great prominence was the case of Anene Booysens.

Men in her community, who were known to her, violently assaulted and raped her. She sustained heinous injuries and later died.

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-20-apolitical-truth-about-civil-disobedience

Apolitical truth about civil disobedience

Cape Town shack dwellers' anger is about a lack of service delivery and is not politically motivated.

Over much of this past winter, communities in shack settlements across Cape Town took to the streets in some of South Africa's most active civil-disobedience protests since 1994.

The protests gave rise to a great deal of commentary and finger-pointing. I was disturbed by the double standard of the political rhetoric of politicians and some nongovernmental organisations in the way they expected the protesters to react in response to the violence the state and police subjects them to on a daily basis.

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-21-the-politics-of-protests-in-cape-town

The politics of protest

by Jared Sacks, The Mail & Guardian (There is a longer version of this piece at the Amandla Blog).

Protests have plagued Cape Town for years, but now they've begun to bleed out of township boundaries and into spaces that affect the middle class.

http://www.indypendent.org/2011/12/09/the-climate-change-revolution-will-not-be-funded/

The Climate Change Revolution Will Not Be Funded

Jared Sacks

This past week, world leaders, technocrats, and NGOs descended upon Durban for the 17th Conference of Parties (dubbed Conference of Polluters by its critics). After 17 years of meetings to address climate change, the lack of action from world leaders clearly shows that the biggest polluting nations not only lack the political will to address the issue, but also seem to be actively carrying out the anti-environmental agenda of the largest corporations on this planet.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/68797

The revolution will not be funded
The role of donors in the movement for social justice in Africa
Hakima Abbas
2010-11-17, Issue 505

The recently concluded mid-term elections in the United States, which quite appropriately came on the heels of their Halloween celebrations, scary as they were, starkly highlighted the buckling of western power among the contradictions of liberal democracy and super-capitalism. The reduction of western aid, induced by the ‘global’ financial crisis, will challenge the perceived dependency between the global North and South. And, with the rise of the economic and political clout of so-called ‘emerging’ powers in the South, the globe is expected to see significant, if not permanent, shifts in societal order.