[DEBATE] : Maybe it is time for the ANC 'to replaceitentiregeneration of leaders'

[peter waterman]

Doug:

I don't know what POV is. Should I? And maybe the Zapatistas are not too 
decent to contest for state power but don't want to become like the 
Brazilian PT, the SAfrican ANC and the [fill this space]?

Your pessimism of the whatever, here, reminds me of that cartoon, of two 
office workers arguing over the copying machine: OW1: I've been trying to do 
this for umpteen years and it just doesn't work.
OW2: Well why don't we try doing it my way?
OW!: But what if it doesn't work?

The notion of 'capturing power' makes even less sense today when 
parliaments, ruling parties and even nation states are increasingly losing 
this. So the power captured is less than it used to be. Case in point: South 
Africa?

The other notion, of liberating places and spaces, or creating news ones, at 
the expense of capital, state, empire, patriarchy, etc, may look like an old 
social reformist one. But 1) the social reformists have long abandoned it 
and 2) it would today be informed by much more sophisticated understandings 
and relationships.

Moreover, this is a self-educating experience (Lenin came to this notion, in 
his 'On Cooperation', I think, just before he died). So one rather has to 
look at what has changed in Chiapas, in areas of Zapatista presence, at 
'participatory budgeting', at all those cases in which old rights have been 
defended or wrested back, and all those possible areas of relative freedom 
(Cyberia).

Further: this is a much disputed strategy. I suspect that accounts of 
participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre were written wearing rose-coloured 
spectacles. And, as I suggested, there are many different views on how to do 
this - and how to engage with the state - without being swallowed up. You 
probably know the authors better than I do: Holloway, Hardt and Negri, 
Hillary Wainright, Michael Albert, Ezequiel Adamovsky, Boaventura de Sousa 
Santos.

Best,

Peter W.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
To: "debate: SA discussion list " <debate at lists.kabissa.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 8:01 PM
Subject: Re: [DEBATE] : Maybe it is time for the ANC 'to 
replaceitentiregeneration of leaders'


>
> On Nov 8, 2007, at 1:55 PM, peter waterman wrote:
>
>> It has to do with the left's archaic notion that power is at the
>> centre and the top, and that mass empowerment can lead to a change
>> in control of that power, after which the role of the mass is to
>> applaud those of their previous leaders or simple comrades who now
>> exercise that power.
>
> What exactly do you have to show for that POV? To get more precise,
> what do the Zapatistas have to show for 13 years of being too decent
> to contest for state power?
>
> Doug
>


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