[WSF-Discuss] Fwd: [DEBATE] : Hands off the CCS!
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
Mon Aug 11 05:06:17 UCT 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Friends on the CEOS list, as well as on the WSFDiscuss and Social
Movements lists (and with apologies for cross-postings)
This is a belated posting about an important issue of
open space… The threatened closure of the CCS – the Centre for Civil
Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban. My apologies
for this delay on my / our part, at CACIM.
This is all the more important given that it was the CCS
that co-organised with us at CACIM the Seminar on open space at the
Nairobi Forum back in January 2007 where / following which this list
was set up (see http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-index.php?
page=CEOSProcessIntroLetter).
I am forwarding to you here the most recent posting on
this issue on the Debate list – which I urge you to also register
for, to follow the developments in this area and to intervene in the
debate – which also gives two other recent postings on the issue; and
I am also taking the liberty of pasting on at the end, the first
article on this issue, by Patrick Bond and Dennis Brutus.
Best, and in solidarity,
JS, for CACIM
fwd
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Berend Schuitema" <okhela at iafrica.com>
> Date: August 9 2008 10:04:19 PM GMT+05:30
> To: "'debate: SA discussion list '" <debate at debate.kabissa.org>
> Subject: RE: [DEBATE] : Hands off the CCS!
> Reply-To: "debate: SA discussion list " <debate at debate.kabissa.org>
>
>
> There are no shortage of cries of protest. Where is the action?
>
> Maybe it is time to seize the political opportunity to do something
> about
> it. And in this instance I do not think it would be tactically wise to
> expect a hands on, leadership role by the academics concerned. They
> are
> stuck and any move at open criticism could only worsen their
> position with
> the "managers" they have to deal with. Remember, these bastards
> hold all the
> cards, and close to the chest it seems to me. Alone the effected
> comrades
> can do nothing, not overtly in any case.
>
> The3 agency role, it seems to me, are the ultimate losers. Of what
> should be
> a free academic institution research9ing the causes of human
> insecurity we
> find that is the needs of people, the struggling and the poor, who
> ultimately come out short changed.
>
> We need above all, like Professor Williams has done, survey the
> sort of
> battlefield we are in. This is a first rank war for moral high
> ground, to
> move poplar thinking on the basis of the reasons we can attach and
> agitate
> around for why the probable closure is so absolutely wrong and out
> of order.
> Remember, today it's the CCS. Tomorrow who knows who is next? Never
> mind
> which forefront institutions have already gone to the corporate
> gallows!
>
> Maybe a conference on the impact of neo-liberalism on the
> institutions of
> learning is apt? And more specifically, the undermining of human
> values that
> need to be cleansed from these modern day behemoths to produce and
> exploit,
> in partnership with corporations, a new class of splintered working
> class.
> Or let me say, deeper and ongoing splintering in a social factory
> in which
> every nook and cranny is reeking of consumerism, of bondage to lumpen
> capital including the roof over our heads.
>
> This attack on free and open space learning, bridging the gap between
> academic and activist, is one of the most serious imaginable! Berend.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: debate-bounces at debate.kabissa.org
> [mailto:debate-bounces at debate.kabissa.org] On Behalf Of John J.
> Williams
> Sent: 09 August 2008 04:30 PM
> To: trevor_ngwane at yahoo.co.uk; 'debate: SA discussion list '
> Subject: RE: [DEBATE] : Hands off the CCS!
>
> Dear Debaters
>
> As an academic and somebody researching "social change", I can do
> no less
> than adding my voice to the storm of protest against the apparent
> threat to
> close the CSS! As mentioned in a flurry of responses to this news, not
> merely is this intention to shut down the CSS extremely
> reactionary, it is
> also profoundly short-sighted! I guess that this decision itself,
> paradoxically, is a very clear indication of the relevance of CSS
> research
> and it activist scholarship, qualities that seemingly are not
> welcome by
> some members of the UKZN Management and the South African ruling
> elite!
> Viva the CSS!
>
> Comradely yours
>
> Prof John J Williams, Ph D (Illinois, USA) Chair of Research &
> Study Leave
> Committee: Faculty of Economic & Management Sciences
> Professor: Governance & Development Planning School of Government
> University
> of the Western Cape Private Bag X17 Bellville 7535 South Africa
> Tel: (+2721) 959 3807 (work)
> Tel: (+2721 558 3648 (home)
> Tel: (+2783) 456 2247 (mobile)
> Fax: (+2721) 959 3826 (work)
> Fax: (+2721) 558 3649 (home)
> E-mail:jjwilliams at uwc.ac.za (work)
> E-mail: jayjayconslt at telkomsa.net (home)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: debate-bounces at debate.kabissa.org
> [mailto:debate-bounces at debate.kabissa.org] On Behalf Of Trevor Ngwane
> Sent: 08 August 2008 12:02 PM
> To: Patrick Bond; debate lists left
> Subject: [DEBATE] : Hands off the CCS!
>
> Dear University of KwaZulu Natal authorities
>
> On behalf of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, an affiliate
> of the
> Anti-Privatisation Forum, I would like to put on record our shock and
> feeling of outrage at the news that you are planning to close down the
> Centre for Civil Society. From what we have gathered on this
> matter and our
> own experience of working with this institute we strongly believe
> that this
> is a politically motivated attack on progressive and relevant
> scholarship.
> What a shame! What is happening to our country? At a time when South
> African society finds itself in a crisis of legitimacy, leadership,
> socio-economic security and political stability, we need clear-headed,
> relevant and committed scholarship that will shed light on the
> issues and
> suggest viable and just solutions. Instead the UKZN management is
> deciding
> to unilaterally close down one of the few remaining centres of
> committed and
> progressive scholarship in the country.
>
> CCS has over the years given grassroots organisations such as ours
> support
> and hope that the academic establishment can and sometimes does
> contribute
> to the struggle to stop the rich richer and the poor poorer; and
> taht it can
> and sometimes does conduct research aimed at improving the lives of
> the
> poorest of the poor. CCS's work indicated to us that academic
> institutions
> are not mere ivory towers conducting work that benefits the ruling
> class and
> the rich. For example, the CCS's Prof Patrick Bond made expert
> submissions
> in the recent court case to assure water for all. The community of
> Phiri,
> organised by our organisation, and getting support from the Coalition
> Against Water Privatisation, won the court case against pre-paid water
> meters. Judge Moroa Tsoka ruled that pre-paid water meters are
> unlawful and
> unconstitutional and are a violation of human rights. CCS has also
> given
> crucial support to communities around Durban under attack from oil-
> producing
> companies which are intent on making profits at great cost to the
> environment and threatening people's lives. CCS has also organised
> ground
> breaking research into social movements such as ours, the Treatment
> Action
> Campaign and others, research that helped our organisations to
> understand
> themselves and the context in which we operate thus helping us in
> strengthening our struggles.
>
> We urge you to reconsider your decision of closing down the CCS.
> We see
> this as nothing else but an attack on the struggle to better the
> lives of
> the working class and the poor through research. We also see it as an
> attempt to divorce academic scholarship from the problems faced by
> millions
> and millions of ordinary people ground by the pro-big business
> neoliberal
> policies of the government. We say: Hands off the CCS!
>
> Thank you.
>
> Yours in struggle
>
> Trevor Ngwane
> Organiser of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee
>
>
On Aug 06 08, at 11:55 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
> http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4544608
>
>
>
> The Mercury
>
>
>
> UKZN may snuff out its left brain
>
> What's next for Durban's best-known institute of social and
> environmental justice?
>
>
>
> August 06, 2008 Edition 1
>
>
>
> By Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond
>
> Eye on Civil Society Column
>
>
>
> University of KwaZulu-Natal vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba is
> expected to deliver an edict that the Centre for Civil Society will
> close on December 31.
>
>
>
> The reason given by dean Donal McCracken to a sceptical School of
> Development Studies (where the centre is housed) is that staff do
> not have "permanent" funding.
>
>
>
> But neither do most of the university's research units, and there
> is money in centre reserves for at least a couple of years, plus
> ongoing donor support for many of our projects.
>
>
>
> Hence this "execution" will be doggedly resisted in the Memorial
> Tower Building, because UKZN still has many staff and students who
> remember the struggle for non-racial democracy and don't mind
> speaking out to challenge misguided decisions.
>
>
>
> As the two most senior academics in the centre, holding an honorary
> professorship and tenured research chair, respectively, we will
> resist, despite what a UKZN internal report recorded - an
> environment of "intimidation and bullying", in which management
> "deploys power rather than intellect", as Rhodes professor Jimi
> Adesina put it.
>
>
>
> The decision is misguided for many reasons, not least for
> overturning the official recommendation of a five-month University
> Research Review finalised in February, which advocated
> strengthening the centre and giving it more autonomy: "Closing down
> or removing the centre from UKZN does not appear to be an option as
> it was rejected by all interviewees and panel members. Through its
> international recognition and standing, the centre has put UKZN on
> a world map in social science, a position the university dare not
> risk to lose."
>
>
>
> Newsmakers
>
>
>
> On the local map, the centre has offered nearly 100 free events a
> year, including seminars, conferences, micro film festivals,
> literary celebrations and the Harold Wolpe Lecture, Durban's main
> lecture series.
>
>
>
> In Howard College, several hundred community residents join
> academics on the last Thursday of each month to debate newsmakers
> and intellectuals, global and local - such as, this year,
> commentator Xolela Mangcu, Soweto activist Trevor Ngwane, filmmaker
> John Pilger, Kenyan feminist Eunice Sahle and Zimbabwe democracy
> activists Judith Todd and Joy Mabengwe, as well as local anti-
> xenophobia campaigners Baruti Amisi, Pierre Matate and Orlean Naidoo.
>
>
>
> Among our inspirations is Fatima Meer, whom we host this Sunday in
> Chatsworth in celebration of her 80 years of commitment and wisdom,
> as well as her decade of support to the "new social movements" in
> the original Concerned Citizens Forum which in 1998 helped renew
> urban justice advocacy across South Africa.
>
>
>
> Meer's Wolpe lecture last year called for a progressive, post-
> nationalist liberatory politics to emerge from the grassroots, like
> the creative spark generated in 2001 when the World Social Forum in
> Brazil rose against the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
>
>
>
> With our centre's assistance, the Social Movement Indaba network
> and Diakonia Council of Churches hosted a local equivalent in
> January, drawing 400 community and labour leaders.
>
>
>
> Among those present were many who resisted Inanda Dam displacement,
> Treatment Action Campaigners and Congolese inner-city traders who
> hang in against all odds.
>
>
>
> Evidence of abuse in the authorities' diktat to shut the centre
> ranges from a flawed process, to extreme race and gender
> implications, since contract termination affects a dozen black
> staff, most of whom are working-class. The only paid staffer who
> should retain his job, McCracken told us, is the sole white
> expatriate (a writer of this article, Bond, whose government
> research subsidies more than pay his salary).
>
>
>
> In addition to UKZN's threat to this centre and a generation of new
> critical scholars, a great deal of concrete research activity is
> now at risk.
>
>
>
> UKZN claims it has South Africa's "second best" research profile
> (after the University of Pretoria).
>
>
>
> A modest contribution comes from our centre staff's peer-reviewed
> articles, chapters and books - 58 in 2007 with an average 50 a year
> since 2005 (and no, these fortnightly Mercury columns don't count)
> - which rank us at the top of the university, measured per academic
> employee.
>
>
>
> High productivity arises from documenting and interrogating the
> social laboratories of Durban, South Africa, Africa and the world,
> where contradictions generated by globalisation and the flawed
> character of post-colonial politics create conflict.
>
>
>
> We have sought sites and research areas - climate, energy, water/
> sanitation, global and national political economy, survival
> strategies and community philanthropy, the rise of social movements
> in Africa - where these contradictions tell us more about society,
> politics, economy, gender, race, environment and other social
> relations than we would normally get from our academic armchairs.
>
>
>
> Conflicts
>
>
>
> Beyond merely trying to understand the conflicts, serious scholars
> will contribute to addressing them in a non-violent manner, such as
> through international legal strategies that the other writer of
> this article, Brutus, contributes to.
>
>
>
> He does this with the Jubilee and the Khulumani Support Group,
> aiming for $400 billion (R2 951billion) in reparations to be paid
> by apartheid-era US and EU corporations - which hopefully will
> frighten them enough to think twice about their next investment in
> the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and the like.
>
>
>
> The danger of the centre's approach to knowledge production,
> "praxis", is that the research generated sometimes threatens the
> privileges of power.
>
>
>
> Two years ago, the same authorities banned Ashwin Desai from
> continuing employment at the centre and at UKZN, amidst a haze of
> confusion and weak excuses.
>
>
>
> We lost a major Human Sciences Research Council "Race and Redress"
> grant as a result of this interference.
>
>
>
> In 2003, the US Agency for International Development retracted a
> multimillion-rand donation after centre founder Adam Habib spoke
> out against the Iraq war.
>
>
>
> That sort of style the centre encouraged from the outset: honest
> and courageous, combining the left brain's love of rigorous detail,
> and the left side of the body's beating heart.
>
>
>
> UKZN management has stabbed this centre, but it cannot be allowed
> to die.
>
>
>
> So this is really all about politics, and whether a university can
> host a critical mass of professional academics and community
> scholars devoted to social justice.
>
>
>
> # If you have testimonials about the wisdom of closing CCS, for or
> against, please let us know, at dennisbrutus2002 at yahoo.com and
> pbond at mail.ngo.za - or fax to 260 2052 - and these will be posted
> at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________
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>
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______________________________
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
CACIM, A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
www.cacim.net
Ph : +91-11-4155 1521, 4155 0963 - PLEASE NOTE NEW SECOND NUMBER !
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