Khanya Annual Winter School 2009

Crisis and Resistance

The 11th Khanya College Annual Winter School took place from 30 July to 9 August 2009 in Johannesburg. The school brought together 400 social justice activists and development practitioners, and over 1000 members of the public from South and Southern Africa for ten days in different venues in Johannesburg.

The theme of Winter School 2009 was Crisis and Resistance, and focused on analysing the current economic crisis that has dealt a devastating blow to the international legitimacy of the capitalist system, and on developing political strategies of resistance to any reconfiguration of this system.

The education festival sought to provide a platform for the analysis of the current context, and to debate and discuss appropriate strategies to build and strengthen mass organisations of the working class, and therefore the realization of social justice by the social movements.

Context, Theme and Objectives

As with previous Khanya Annual Winter Schools, the 2009 edition sought to respond to the immediate context within which activists, communities and social movements are taking up the challenge of building a social justice movement aimed at improving the lives of the working people, and at transforming the power relations that lie at the root of the present cycle of poverty. Winter School 2009, however, went further than just respond to the context within which it is taking place. It also tried to do this in a manner that reaches a much broader audience than previous schools.
The festival took place against the background of the most profound crisis of the international economy since the 1930. For some, this crisis may prove to be even graver than the global economic crisis of the 1930s. The crisis comes against the background of a period of the growth of neoliberal capitalism, and of its unchallenged ideological sway for close to 40 years. During that period, notwithstanding the growing impoverishment of millions around the world, notwithstanding growing inequality around the world, the system of neoliberal capitalism was celebrated as the best humanity has ever devised, or at worst as the “the best worst system” for humanity. All this has now changed. Millions are out of work and millions more will loose work. The millions will loose their jobs in the context of the collapse of social safety nets around the world. The crisis will trigger major shifts in migration patters around the world, as workers are ‘sent back home’ and governments become ‘protectionist’ and fan xenophobia. An ecology already under stress from intense exploitation by an expanding neoliberal capitalism, will face stress from an industrial wasteland generated by the crisis, and from a scorched earth policy of corporations trying to squeeze the last ounce of profit from their operations.

The crisis of the global economic system has proceeded from a crisis of finance, to a crisis of production, to the crisis of the system itself. This progression has open up debate on the future of the system, and on economic alternatives in ways not heard since the debates of the 1960s on the ‘new economic order’. Views have ranged from arguments that the whole system needs to be abandoned and a new system founded, to arguments that the financial system simply needs to be re-regulated and the world economic will soon re-emerge from the crisis, to those who argue that the crisis is simply a ‘self-correction’ mechanism by the system and thus the system will soon get back into equilibrium. Whatever the view, the undeniable fact is that a space for debate on the future of the world economy has opened up.

Within South Africa and the region, the global economic threatens to put an end to the meager improvements in the living conditions of the people that had been held up as proof that the system works. South Africa has gone into “official” recession after month of accelerated job losses and stagnating incomes. To the extent that South Africa makes up 75% of the region, the southern Africa region has also gone into “official” recession.

While the fact of the crisis has opened spaces for debate, there is the equally important fact that if the social justice movement fails to enter the public debate, if it fails to influence public opinion towards socially just and egalitarian solutions, then the working class and the poor will carry the burden of the crisis. The Winter School therefore sought to provide the space for the social justice movement and the wider public to debate the nature and sources of the current global economic crisis, and to exchange views on egalitarian alternatives to the present world economic system.

Format of the Winter School 2009

Khanya Annual Winter School in 2009 took the form of an education festival, including conferences, sectoral networks of resistance meetings, skills for resistance workshops, an NGO fair, a book fair and cultural interventions such as a film festival, a theatre festival, a spoken word festival, and public seminars.

The previous 10 editions of the Winter School brought together more than 1 500 social justice activists from across the regions to debate the challenges facing civil society in its struggle for social justice in various countries in the region. The school’s format, however, has had a number of limitations which meant that new ways had to be found to advance the aims of the schools and to realize the on a broader scale. Thus, the format of the school as a 5 day conference or workshop had to be changed to meet new challenges. The present format seeks to provide a space for participation by a larger number of activists, and by an even larger public audience. Further, the present format seeks to resolve an inherent limitation of the old format, which provided limited space for next working, and for showcasing the work of various NGOs, social movements and CBOs. The NGO fair, and the book fair provide spaces not only for these organizations to profile themselves, but progressive networks to re-emerge within civil society.

The following activities of the Winter School 2009 aimed at realizing the objectives of providing spaces for debate: spaces for developing alternatives, spaces for networking, spaces for building skills and spaces for broader involvement by Khanya programmes and staff in the life and work of the Winter School.

These activities included:
Conference of Radical Political Economy
The 2-day conference invited activists and progressive intellectuals to discuss the current global economic crisis and analyse its implications. As part of Khanya College’s development of economic research and popularization, the conference was a first step in creating a space for left debate on radical economic analysis. The conference is planned as a regular feature of the Winter School, which includes the publication of the conference's proceedings.

Keynote Address – Crisis and Resistance
This public event features a keynote lecture focusing on the current global economic crisis and how various working class movement have responded to the crisis. The aim of this event was to raise the issues in debate with the broader public.

Cultural Interventions:
Poetry Festival: “Words in Action”
Art Exhibition: “Eyes in Action"
Film Festival
Theatre Festival

The aim of these interventions, which ran parallel to the Winter School, was to use poetry, creative writing, music, visual art, film and theatre as popular education media; to provide space for local artists outside the mainstream to showcase their work; to provide a platform for linkages between progressive artists and the social movements; to contribute to the emergence of a progressive and radical cultural movement; and to build a broad radical social justice movement.
 

Networks of Resistance meetings
Meetings of regional and local networks of the various sectors of the global justice movement which ran parallel for two days. These included farmworkers, independent unions, resource centres, publishers, solidarity networks, community museums and heritage institutions, environment and other meetings. The primary aim of these meetings of networks and prospective networks was to build national movements of activists. In turn, these networks will contribute to the building of a radical social justice movement.

Skills for Resistance workshops
These parallel 2-day workshops on various practical skills for resistance included silk-screening, community radio, writing and publishing, photography, popular education, public speaking, banner making, theatre in education, public spaces, and others. The primary aim of these workshops was to develop the capacity of activists to use various skills for the purposes of organizing for social justice. The workshops dealt with

• the role of the particular skill in conscientisation and popular education;
• the political-pedagogical issues associated with each of these areas of skill; and
• technical training in the particular area.

NGO fair
Against the background of the crisis facing NGOs, this fair aimed at providing a space for various NGOs to profile their work, and to network with other NGOs that work in similar fields or who supplement the work they do. It also affords the NGOs the opportunity to profile their work with the broader public.

Jozi Book Fair
The aim of the Book Fair is to stimulate the development of progressive publishing in the country, the development of a reading culture within the working class in general and the social movements in particular, and to stimulate the growth of writing within the working class and the movements more specifically. The fair took place during the last two days of the Winter School.

Media and Publications
Imbila Yesu, the daily Khanya Annual Winter School newsletter, was produced during the course of the school. The newspaper covered the discussions at the school, as well as profiles and organising strategies and tactics of the participating organisations. The newspaper was produced by a group of Khanya-trained media activists from the communities, thereby providing these activists the space to practice their skills.

Radio broadcasts
The media activists trained by Khanya also produced content for radio programmes for broadcast by university and community radio stations. This activity provided the media activists the space to practice their skills and gain experience in content editing and production, which can then be used in their communities. The radio broadcasts also ensured that the Winter school is placed in the public domain, and accessible to a wider audience.

Khanya Journal on Crisis and Resistance
The third edition of the Khanya Journal for Activists for 2009 will be a Winter School edition, and will focus on the discussions, debates, and activities of the school. This edition serves as an in-depth report of the school.