African Struggles Today: Social Movements Since Independence

by Peter Dwyer, Leo Zeilig

Overview

Three leading Africa scholars investigate the social forces driving the democratic transformation of postcolonial states across southern Africa. Extensive research and interviews with civil society organizers in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, and Swaziland inform this analysis of the challenges faced by non-governmental organizations in relating both to the attendant inequality of globalization and to grassroots struggles for social justice.

Peter Dwyer is a tutor in economics at Ruskin College in Oxford.

Leo Zeilig Lecturer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608461202
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	08/07/2012
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.88(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter Dwyer: Peter Dwyer is a tutor in economics at Ruskin College in Oxford. As a lifelong trade union member, he has been involved as a researcher and campaigner in a variety of social movement campaigns in both in the UK and South Africa. He has written extensively on political change in South Africa.

Dr Leo Zeilig is a lecturer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. He has written widely on student movements and radical politics in Africa. He is the author of Revolt and Protest: Student Politics and Activism in sub-Saharan Africa I.B. Tauris (London & New York, 2007) and Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa (Haymarket Books, 2008).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction 1

2 Social Movements and the Working Class in Africa 18

3 An Epoch of Uprisings: Social Movements in Postcolonial Africa, 1945-98 50

4 Cracks in the Monolith: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa 92

5 Social Movements after the Transition: Choiceless Democracies? 129

6 Frustrated Transitions: Social Movements, Protest, and Repression in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland 166

7 Social Forums and the World Social Forum in Africa 204

8 Conclusion 237

List of Acronyms 255

Notes 258

Index 285

Editorial Reviews

"[The] experience of explosive movements for change therefore has to be set against their limitations - including the question of political leadership and organisation and the ideological underpinning of the revolts. Such questions are not of importance for Africans or people who are interested in African politics alone: they concern questions that face activists everywhere. Therefore this history and analysis deserves much wider circulation. Readers who may have knowledge of one part of Africa will gain from the detailed analysis of countries that they are less familiar with."
—Charlie Kimber, Socialist Review


"[The] experience of explosive movements for change therefore has to be set against their limitations - including the question of political leadership and organisation and the ideological underpinning of the revolts. Such questions are not of importance for Africans or people who are interested in African politics alone: they concern questions that face activists everywhere. Therefore this history and analysis deserves much wider circulation. Readers who may have knowledge of one part of Africa will gain from the detailed analysis of countries that they are less familiar with."
—Charlie Kimber, Socialist Review

From the Publisher