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TAKING POWER SERIOUSLY South Africa’s new progressive magazine standing for social justice. ISSUE NO. 63 APRIL 2019 WILL YOU BE VOTING IN THE DARK? ANC EFF SRWP ??? RSA 22 R25 incl. VAT The struggle is to socialise Eskom | Preventing civil war and US intervention in Venezuela FEMINISM FOR THE 99 PERCENT CALLS ON ALL RADICAL MOVEMENTS TO JOIN TOGETHER IN A COMMON ANTICAPITALIST INSURGENCY Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser Unaffordable housing, poverty wages, healthcare, climate change, border policing; not the issues you ordinarily hear feminists talking about. But don’t these issues impact the vast majority of women globally? Taking as its inspiration the new wave of feminist militancy that has erupted globally, this Manifesto makes a simple but powerful case: Feminism shouldn’t start—or stop—with seeing women represented at the top of society. It must start with those at the bottom, and fight for the world they deserve. And that means targeting capitalism. Feminism must be anti-capitalist, eco- socialist and anti-racist. This is a manifesto for the 99%. ISBN: 9781788734424 Extent: 96 pages Format: Paperback SA Release date: May 2019 RRP: R210 For any queries, please contact Blue Weaver Marketing and Distribution via email [email protected] or phone (021) 701 4477 contents 02 | Eskom, climate change and the just transition Editorial Labour 02 |Eskom, climate change and 24 | Rebuilding the workers’ movement the just transition for counter-power, justice and self- management: a contribution to the debate News Briefs and Social Media What do we mean by? 04 | News Briefs 26 | What is fascism and how 05 | Social Media do we ght it today? Feature: Elections 08 Elections promise rural people; International the elected forget them. 06 | Election time again 28 | Gilets Jaunes movement: the lasting French revolt 08 |Elections promise rural people; the elected forget them 30 | Preventing civil war and US intervention in Venezuela 10 |Searching for just one party for a just transition 12 |Québec Solidaire: New politics a movement with a parliamentary wing? 34 | Internationalism: a culture 14 |To vote or not to vote: that is the question and a commitment 16 |Nigeria’s nightmare Eskom and the economy 24 Rebuilding the workers’ movement 18 |Budget balancing close to panic 20 |The struggle is to socialise Eskom 22 |Energy democracy and public ownership 30 Preventing civil war and US intervention in Venezuela We welcome feedback Email your comments to [email protected] or visit www.amandla.org.za for additional articles, news and views. Tweet us @AmandlaMedia // Facebook amandla! media // Subscribe to Amandla! website at www.amandla.org.za // To post material on the website, contact [email protected] Tropical Cyclone Idai. Thousands of people have been killed and tens of thousands are still on roofs and in trees, without food or water, desperately hoping that help will arrive in time. The city of Beira in Mozambique, where more than half a million lived, is destroyed. Eskom, climate change and the just transition hoping that help will arrive in time. e behind only death and destruction. e Eskom, is the city of Beira in Mozambique, where more schools, our office, the hospitals that thousand dollar than half a million lived, is destroyed. have remained standing have become question? is Nelson Moda was in Beira when the refuge of hundreds of families should actually read Tropical Cyclone Idai hit. He recounts who have lost everything. e roof the billion rand what happened: of the hospital in Beira has fallen and Wquestion - that will be Eskom’s debt in newborns from the neonatal ward just three years, at current projections. “It was my son’s birthday on March have died. Another people have Load shedding, Eskom’s extreme financial and we were all at home. In the died in the facility…We have only eaten crisis, total mismanagement, corruption, morning this strong storm started oranges and avocados for days and we state capture and cronyism, as well as its and it was moving the city, the trees, ration drinking water.” addiction to coal, have led many to throw and the houses. It was like a war. It up their hands and give up on Eskom. was horrific. e children were crying e coal-dependent electricity sector and we were hiding in the bathroom. I isolated “natural disaster”. Look at the is responsible for almost of total could see people dying and the house second half of : greenhouse gas emissions. South Africa where I live has been destroyed. ere • In August, in the Southern Indian has become, per capita, one of the most are children who now have no father, State of Kerala, people died carbon intensive polluters in the world. no mother, and no home. I saw the city and one million were displaced in where I grew up being destroyed with devastating floods. Climate change and my naked eyes. In Beira, there are no • In October, when Hurricane Michael Cyclone Idai basic services and people don’t know made landfall on the North Florida what they’re going to eat or where coast, it was the third strongest economy, ’s emission profile is at a they’re going to sleep. I haven’t been hurricane in history, edging out similar level to Germany or Britain. So, able to sleep since that night.” Hurricane Katrina which devastated when considering what to do with Eskom, New Orleans in . we cannot ignore the problem of climate , • In November, the ironically named change. Only the extremely ignorant and Fabrizio Graglia describes the town of “Paradise”, home to , callous could suggest this is not a key impact of Idai: people, disappeared in the deadliest fire issue when our neighbours are suffering in California’s history. people died. the worst climate change disaster ever to “Idai massacred Sofala that ursday • In South Africa, some parts of the be inflicted on the Southern Hemisphere. night. Since that day we are without country are still suffering one of ousands of people have been killed and electric power, communication, fuel, the longest and severest droughts tens of thousands are still on roofs and in food, drinking water, road connections, experienced. e taps have even run dry trees, without food or water, desperately ATMs and banks. is cyclone has left in several Eastern Cape towns. Amandla! Issue No.63 2 APRIL 2019 How much more devastation must there is is unfortunate. It robs the labour classes and the poor who are at climate be? How many more people must die? movement of a powerful tool in building change’s coal-face. ey live under the an anti-capitalist consciousness. Capital most vulnerable conditions and are South Africa and the state are constrained by their least capable of adapting to its impact. - need to defend profit, so they will not People living in informal settlements climate change. While recognising the undertake the massive investments and in low lying areas with poor housing carbon intensity of our economy, it is necessary. Without raising the issue of are at extreme risk from floods and intent on rebuilding the Minerals Energy climate change, the few occasions when severe storms. And during periods Complex. It is searching for foreign they talk of the need for socially owned of drought, access to water becomes investment in mining and more coal-fired renewable energy and for a just transition even more precarious. Dependence on electricity plants. For the government, sound hollow. ey look like a fig leaf complimentary forms of livelihoods this equals economic growth and rising for the defence of coal and coal-based (food gardens, subsistence farming etc.) , which in turn means greater foreign industrialisation. collapse. investor and business confidence, more e labour movement is correct Yet, we remain largely in denial. state revenue, declining debt levels, less to critique and oppose the privatised Media reports fail to link these disasters pressure from the credit rating agencies independent power producer renewable with climate change. But they are the and more scope for empowerment energy programme. But it must also outcome of global warming, of pumping deals. According to the government’s support unequivocally a just transition millions of tons of greenhouse gases commitment to combating climate based on socially owned renewable into the atmosphere. And as the earth change, it sees in the short term an energy. It is not enough to talk in abstract warms, the intensity and frequency of increase in the carbon intensity of the terms of an energy mix. these weather events will get Such a just transition worse. According to the would entail the planned Intergovernmental Panel on phase out of coal-fired power Climate Change () recent stations and the protection report, it is critical to do of the affected workers and everything in our collective communities. We currently power to limit global warming have a good example of how to just . degrees centigrade, not to do it. e failure to plan to avoid unprecedented for the decline of gold mining disasters of nature. e report has created ghost towns. It is finds that limiting global mineworkers who have been warming to .°C would require made to bear the cost through “rapid and far-reaching” their unemployment. transitions in land, energy, Clear demands must be industry, buildings, transport, refined around reskilling, and cities. Global net human- no job losses, guarantees of caused emissions of carbon state-supported income for dioxide () would need to displaced workers, economic fall by about percent from support for communities levels by , reaching The coal-dependent electricity sector is responsible for almost 60% of total affected by mine and power “net zero” around .