C:\My Documents\PFI\Nigel Gibson Seminar.Wpd
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Nigel Gibson – Background from Wikipedia Gibson Was Born in London and Was an Active Militant in the 1984–1985 Miners' Strike
Nigel Gibson – background from Wikipedia Gibson was born in London and was an active militant in the 1984–1985 Miners' Strike. While in London he also met South African exiles from the Black Consciousness Movement and, in conversation with the exiles, developed some influential academic work on the movement. He later moved to the United States where he worked with Raya Dunayevskaya in the Marxist Humanism movement, studied with Raymond Geuss and Edward Said and became an important theorist of Frantz Fanon on whom he has written extensively. Along with Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Slavoj Zizek, and others, Gibson endorsed the statement in support of the South African shack dweller organization, Abahlali baseMjondolo, against state violence. He was previously the Assistant Director of African Studies at Columbia University and a Research Associate in African-American Studies at Harvard University. He is currently Associate Professor at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson College (Boston, MA) and ... a member of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa. Books he has published include: Rethinking Fanon: The Continuing Legacy Humanity Books, 1999. Contested Terrains and Constructed Categories: Contemporary Africa in Focus (with George C. Bond) Westview, 2002. Adorno: A Critical Reader (with Andrew N. Rubin) Blackwell, 2002. Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination Polity, 2003. Challenging Hegemony: Social Movements and the Quest for a New Humanism in Post-Apartheid South Africa Africa World Press, 2006. Biko Lives: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (with Andile Mngxitama and Amanda Alexander) Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo UKZN Press and Palgrave MacMillan, 2011 Living Fanon: Global Perspectives Palgrave MacMillan, 2011 Frantz Fanon, Psychiatry and Politics (with Roberto Beneduce) Roman and Littlefield International and Wits UP, 2017. -
Fanonian Practices in South Africa from Steve Biko to Abahlali Basemjondolo
Fanonian practices in South Africa From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo Nigel C. Gibson i First published in 2011 in South Africa by University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Private Bag X01 Scottsville, 3209 South Africa Email: [email protected] Website: www.ukznpress.co.za © 2011 Nigel C. Gibson All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN: 978-1-86914-197-4 (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press) Managing editor: Sally Hines Editor: Mary Ralphs Typesetter: Patricia Comrie Proofreader: Lisa Compton Indexer: Abdul Bemath Cover design: publicide Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holder of the photograph of Frantz Fanon reproduced on the cover of this book. First edition: 2011 Printed and bound by Interpak Books, Pietermaritzburg Published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States – a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. ISBN: 978-0-230-11784-6 (Palgrave Macmillan) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. -
The Limits of Black Political Empowerment Fanon, Marx, 'The Poors' and the 'New Reality of the Nation' in South Africa' Nigel Gibson
The Limits of Black Political Empowerment Fanon, Marx, 'the Poors' and the 'new reality of the nation' in South Africa' Nigel Gibson People who had given everything, wonder with their empty hands and bellies, as to the reality of their victory. — Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth In an earlier paper, written in reaction to those who argued that the African National Congress (ANC) had no alternative but to imple- ment neoliberal economic policies in the context of the 'Washington Consensus', I discussed the strategic choices and ideological pitfalls of the 'political class' who took over state power in South Africa after the end of apartheid and implemented its own homegrown structural adjustment programme (Gibson 2001). Much of this transition has been scripted by political science 'transition literature' and much of it is proactive, mapping out what should be done to establish a 'pacted', 'elite' democracy overseeing neoliberal economic policies (O'Don- nell, Schmitter & Whitehead 1986). From another vantage point, I argued that Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is perhaps one of the most perceptive critiques of the transition literature available. This paper continues the discussion. At the end of the critical chapter, 'Spontaneity, its Strengths and Weaknesses', Fanon writes, 'The people find out the iniquitous fact that exploitation can wear a blackface, or an Arab one, and they raise the cry of "Treason"! But the cry is mistaken; and the mistake must be corrected. The treason is not national but social' (Fanon 1968: 145, my emphasis). I want to consider this 'social' treason by looking at the logic of South Africa's self-limiting political transition from apartheid in light of Fanon's humanism, which poses not only a theo- retical challenge, but also, grounded in the concrete struggle of ordi- nary people, offers an ideological alternative to the existing 'white' (namely, bourgeois and elite) one that has come to 'wear a black face'.