Climate debt owed to Africa: What to demand and how to collect?
By Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond
Will IMF neoliberalism make a comeback in Africa via Tunisia?
The neoliberal government of Ben Ali was overthrown by popular rebellion in 2010. Can the IMF co-opt the Arab Spring?
By Patrick Bond and Khadija Sharife
February 2, 2012 – Links international Journal of Socialist Renewal -- With International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde in Tunisia today, the stage is set for ideological war over the progress of democratic revolutions.
Until 27-year-old fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi committed suicide by immolation in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia was packaged as an IMF success story. In 2008, dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was embraced by Lagarde’s predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn: "Economic policy adopted here is a sound policy and is the best model for many emerging countries.”
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'Uneven and combined Marxism' within South Africa’s urban social movements
A protest by Kliptown Concerned Residents and the Anti Privatisation Forum.
By Patrick Bond, Ashwin Desai and Trevor Ngwane
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The contradictions of Ronnie Kasrils: The leftist spy who came in from cold Pretoria
Ronnie Kasrils speaks out against Israel's apartheid policies, March 5, 2009.
By Patrick Bond, Durban
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Promise-breaking at the World Bank: Why Jim Yong Kim will be a heartbreaker
Jim Yong Kim is also known for his rapping and dancing with talented Dartmouth College kids.
By Patrick Bond
‘Closing the doors of learning’ to the Israeli state opens the doors of freedom
By Patrick Bond and Muhammed Desai
South Africa: Who will surf the protest wave?
Johannesburg's Orange Farm revolts against local elites.
By Patrick Bond
July 17, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The recent surge of unconnected community protests across South Africa confirms the country’s profound social, economic and environmental contradictions. But if activists fall before a new hail of police bullets, or if they lack an overarching, unifying political strategy, won’t their demonstrations simply pop up and quickly fall back down again – deserving the curse words "popcorn protests" – as they simply run out of steam, or worse, get channelled by opportunists into a new round of xenophobic attacks?
It’s been a hot winter, and we’re just halfway through July (the Centre for Civil Society’s Social Protest Observatory keeps tabs at http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za). Consider evidence from just the past two weeks, for example, in Johannesburg’s distant Orange Farm township south of Soweto, where residents rose up against city councillors and national electricity officials because of the unaffordable $250 installation charged for hated pre-payment (i.e. self-disconnection) meters, not to mention a 130% increase in electricity prices.
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South Africa: Dying for growth -- World Bank's role in Marikana massacre mine, carbon pollution
More than 3000 mineworkers take part in a march at Lonmin's Marikana mine in South Africa on September 5, 2012. Photograph by Mike Hutchings/REUTERS.
For more on the Marikana mine massacre, click HERE.
By Patrick Bond
September 5, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- “One of the things you learn as an anthropologist, you don’t come in and change the culture”, Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim told wealthy alumni when contemplating the institution’s notorious hazing practices, prior to US President Barack Obama’s request last February that he move to the World Bank.
Kim’s Harvard doctorate and medical degree, his founding of the heroic NGO Partners in Health and his directorship of the World Health Organization’s AIDS division make him the best-educated, most humane World Bank president yet. A decade ago, he co-edited the book, Dying for Growth, pointing out that "Washington Consensus" policies and projects had a sharply adverse impact on health.
Washington in Africa, 2012: Who will Obama ‘whack’ next?
Graphic from the Economist.
By Patrick Bond
[Address to the Muslim Youth Movement 40th Anniversary Conference, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, September 30, 2012. Posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission.]
At a time when popular revolutions are sweeping the globe, the United States should be strengthening, not weakening, basic rules of law and principles of justice enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends. – Former US president Jimmy Carter, 25 June 2012, New York Times
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South Africa's political economy after the Marikana massacre
Marikana miners protest against the August 16, 2012, massacre by police.
For more on the Marikana mine massacre, click HERE.
By Patrick Bond, Durban
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