More importantly, a clear majority of the people of the UK, including 19% of Tory voters, supported the aims of the march. This was democracy in action: there was a clear mandate and the march represented the people of Britain in all their diversity. I loved seeing the range of people: many of them dressed in their work uniforms, I saw university professors, archaeologists, hotel porters, fire fighters, nurses and many more. There was a Ghurkha contingent, and people from every community in the country.

Before we go any further, have a look at this footage. It’s nothing spectacular as it was filmed on my mobile phone, but it captures what almost all the participants experienced on the day. I didn’t see any of the violence that the news reports focused on, and neither did most people.

Also worth watching is this video from Counterfire, which gives a sense of the sheer scale of the march:

The day was crucial for trade unions: we have been declining in numbers and influence since 1979, and Thatcher’s anti-union laws have made it difficult for us to organise. We are vilified in the press – even the Guardian thinks we’re dinosaurs – while the left thinks we’re sell outs for not starting the revolution. Do I thinking marching half a million people through the streets will change anything? Probably not. But it gets us a very good base to build on.

The march shows people that cuts can be resisted, and participation is easy. This is the first time in a generation that the majority of the country has united behind the unions. And unlike the march against the Iraq war – which failed to stop the conflict – half a million marching trade unionists represent something: we are organised, all the way down to shop floor level. This wasn’t half a million individuals marching, but an expression of an organised structure that has the potential to shake the foundations of the country if it acts together.

In addition to the peaceful union march, there were several other actions. There was the UK Uncut occupation of Fortnum and Masons, an attempt to occupy Trafalgar Square, as well as generalised black bloc vandalism in Piccadilly Circus. I think the UK Uncut action was inspired, and the police dishonesty disgusting. The attempt to occupy Trafalgar Square was an interesting idea, but not worth fighting the police over. If ten thousand trade unionists had shown up, it might have been worth a go, but 150 students is just sport for the Met.

But I think throwing bricks and paint is a phenomenally stupid thing to do. I sympathise – I am angry enough to want to lob a brick through a bank window too. But as a tactic, I think it’s disastrously stupid and arrogant. The media message changed from “half a million stage peaceful protest against cuts” to “rioters battle police”. Clearly the media is complicit in this, and a handful of arrogant elitists managed to dominate the coverage – I saw a tweet that said:

RT @CharlieLexton @ns_mehdihasan a break off group of 500 protesters, 5000
photographers and 25000 journalists are staging a photo opp in Piccadilly #
March26

Rioting diverts attention from the real issues, and puts ordinary people off taking part in protest. It also associates anarchist politics with violence in most people’s minds. There were plenty of anarchists on the main march, but the red and black brigade that got stuck into the police held an entirely separate event. Clearly, ordinary trade unionists aren’t good enough for them.

The few score anarchists who think having a go at the police is the way to change society are anti-democratic. You’re ruining it for everyone. Stay at home. Your politics is driven by ressentiment rather than analysis.

The rioters counter that the unions are too passive and are looking for ways to sell people out. But if unions are not more radical, it’s because we don’t have a mandate to be more radical. Sorry, but most ordinary people are not revolutionaries. Unions are mass democracies representing ordinary working people, whose concerns are often mundane from a political perspective. The union’s role is to represent its members. Most active trade unionists are political, and we try to take our members with us an engage them in politics. It’s not easy, though. It’s already difficult to recruit in white collar workplaces because people see us as radical trouble makers.

I don’t like to make a big issue of my personal politics, but broadly I’m libertarian communist – an anarchist, in other words. However, I realise that most people aren’t, and I have to live in a world with other people. For me, this means working with and respecting majority opinions. I have no time for ultra-leftism. I am interested in bringing about actual social change, and I have no interest in politics that insists on ideological purity but represents no one. This is elitist and ineffective. To change society, we need to take the mainstream with us. Shifting the political centre ground even slightly to the left opens up tremendous organising opportunities further along the spectrum of progressive ideas.  A small victory is better than a glorious defeat.

This does not mean that I only support gradual change, or think that voting Labour will bring about a better world  - Egypt taught us that change can come quickly when people are ready for it. But you can’t force the revolution to come by throwing bricks or by shouting loudly into a megaphone.

The question, then, becomes one of tactics: will this action encourage and inspire other people to get involved, or put them off?

I am generally irritated with student calls for unions to hurry up and call a general strike. I first heard this at the trade union march in Edinburgh in October 2010: a group of students were marching with a loud hailer, and heckling speakers with the chant:

Tous ensemble, Grêve Générale!

My feeling at the time was:

• Get a job before you call for a general strike
•  Chanting in French at a Scottish demo is just pretentious

Workers have more to lose than students. Most of us have mortgages and household debt and families to support. If we strike, we lose pay – and we’ve already had a couple of years of wage restraint, so we’re feeling the pinch. Also, since a general strike would be illegal under UK labour law, we risk losing our jobs too, and our unions risk being fined for losses due to strike action. To put it simply, we can’t afford to take part in any action we might lose. By contrast, students usually have fewer responsibilities and family support to fall back on, and they can enjoy the visceral thrill of revolution with less personal cost.

(Here’s a side project for you, students: if you want to see more trade union militancy, campaign to get the UK’s regressive labour laws changed).

The unions are the most powerful political tool we have, and the most effective anti-poverty measure we have ever created. The crucial task is to build a mass movement opposed to the Tory decimation of the welfare state, by linking campaigns from civil society with the strength of organised labour – like the links betweenthe United Democratic Front and Cosatu in South Africa. If this worked to bring down apartheid, it can certainly end Cameron’s plans to carve up Britain and give it to the wealthy.

We need to build a movement. Elitist, violent side projects will distract us from this. In the end, the unions can mobilise half a million people. The anarchists can’t. They’d benefit from building links more carefully, and being part of mass democracy instead of taking the approach of trying to start the revolution on our behalf. Why not start by joining a union?

Change is in the air, brothers and sisters: Babylon is falling.

The Tarot card The Tower shows a tower struck by lightning and collapsing, with figures falling from it. It symbolises the violent destruction of a world view. This is the experience the world is going through right now: the dominant ideology has collapsed.

We need to take the opportunity to create alternatives.

While I believe it is useful to understand why we got into this mess, this is not a time for recrimination, blame or ‘I-told-you-sos’. We have a unique opportunity to reconstitute the world while it is in a rare state of flux.

For instance, it is amazing how quickly the idea of a Green New Deal has gained currency. A few months ago, it was an idea on the radical fringe: now even the most mainstream commentators are calling for it. You’ll hear more of it. It amounts to a revival of the Keynesian idea of spending our way out of the crisis, this time by creating a lot of green jobs – for instance, funding development of green technologies and insulating buildings.

It is a limited idea, designed to save capitalism and do some environmental good at the same time, without fundamentally transforming the world we live in.

But just as social democracy is a few steps short of full human liberation, but still a massive leap forward from dictatorship, this is an important step in the right direction. It should be encouraged. We live in a world of compromise: as a ‘minimum programme‘, we could do a lot worse than a Green New Deal.

Also, in other good news, Ecuador recently voted for a new constitution. It is the first constitution in the world to give the natural world the same rights as human beings:

“Natural communities and ecosystems possess the unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve within Ecuador. Those rights shall be self-executing, and it shall be the duty and right of all Ecuadorian governments, communities, and individuals to enforce those rights.”

I believe it represents a paradigm shift in the way humans interact with the planet.

So, the world is changing. Let’s make the most of it.

Change is in the air, brothers and sisters: Babylon is falling.

The Tarot card The Tower shows a tower struck by lightning and collapsing, with figures falling from it. It symbolises the violent destruction of a world view. This is the experience the world is going through right now: the dominant ideology has collapsed.

We need to take the opportunity to create alternatives.

While I believe it is useful to understand why we got into this mess, this is not a time for recrimination, blame or ‘I-told-you-sos’. We have a unique opportunity to reconstitute the world while it is in a rare state of flux.

For instance, it is amazing how quickly the idea of a Green New Deal has gained currency. A few months ago, it was an idea on the radical fringe: now even the most mainstream commentators are calling for it. You’ll hear more of it. It amounts to a revival of the Keynesian idea of spending our way out of the crisis, this time by creating a lot of green jobs – for instance, funding development of green technologies and insulating buildings.

It is a limited idea, designed to save capitalism and do some environmental good at the same time, without fundamentally transforming the world we live in.

But just as social democracy is a few steps short of full human liberation, but still a massive leap forward from dictatorship, this is an important step in the right direction. It should be encouraged. We live in a world of compromise: as a ‘minimum programme‘, we could do a lot worse than a Green New Deal.

Also, in other good news, Ecuador recently voted for a new constitution. It is the first constitution in the world to give the natural world the same rights as human beings:

“Natural communities and ecosystems possess the unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve within Ecuador. Those rights shall be self-executing, and it shall be the duty and right of all Ecuadorian governments, communities, and individuals to enforce those rights.”

I believe it represents a paradigm shift in the way humans interact with the planet.

So, the world is changing. Let’s make the most of it.

And it really looks like it’s going to happen: he’s surging ahead of that evil, elitist, war-mongering bitch Hilary in the contest for the Democratic nomination, and I really believe Americans are sick enough of Republicans to vote for a Democrat in the next election.

I think Barack Obama – if no one shoots him – is most likely to be the next president.

Now, I don’t personally have any faith in him: you don’t get to the top of a corrupt system like the US government with your integrity intact.

It’s worth having a look at this graph from the Political Compass for a look at his politics in perspective.

He’s in the authoritarian, right wing quadrant – the dark side of the Force, and quite the opposite of where I, and all my friends, are (I am the one that’s almost off the scale of left wing lunacy):

And yet.

The US is the most powerful country in the world. White supremacy is still one of the most dominant political poisons in the world. For a Black man with a Muslim name – Barack means ‘blessed’ in Arabic – to become president has got to mean something.

Sometimes leaders are men or women of their times, people who embody something greater than themselves. Maybe Obama is a symbol of real change in America.

I hope so. And I hope he wins. A Black president of the most powerful country in the world would be a real blow to racists everywhere.

So, with great reservation, allow me to join in the chorus: Go, Obama!

And it really looks like it’s going to happen: he’s surging ahead of that evil, elitist, war-mongering bitch Hilary in the contest for the Democratic nomination, and I really believe Americans are sick enough of Republicans to vote for a Democrat in the next election.

I think Barack Obama – if no one shoots him – is most likely to be the next president.

Now, I don’t personally have any faith in him: you don’t get to the top of a corrupt system like the US government with your integrity intact.

It’s worth having a look at this graph from the Political Compass for a look at his politics in perspective.

He’s in the authoritarian, right wing quadrant – the dark side of the Force, and quite the opposite of where I, and all my friends, are (I am the one that’s almost off the scale of left wing lunacy):

And yet.

The US is the most powerful country in the world. White supremacy is still one of the most dominant political poisons in the world. For a Black man with a Muslim name – Barack means ‘blessed’ in Arabic – to become president has got to mean something.

Sometimes leaders are men or women of their times, people who embody something greater than themselves. Maybe Obama is a symbol of real change in America.

I hope so. And I hope he wins. A Black president of the most powerful country in the world would be a real blow to racists everywhere.

So, with great reservation, allow me to join in the chorus: Go, Obama!

I usually enjoy reading the Socialist Unity blog, as it provides a wide range of commentary from a Left wing perspective. But the last few weeks have been dire.

This is because of the blog’s decision to chronicle, in minute detail, the implosion of the Left wing political party, Respect. They’ve taken this decision, apparently, because of the response from readers, and the unusually high stats they’ve had. I find this even more sad, that there are thousands of people out there who think that this kind of “he said, she said” bullshit has any relevance to the future of the Left.

Respect is an English party unfairly summarised by most mainstream commentators as an “uncomfortable alliance between radical Muslims and the far Left”. It isn’t. It’s essentially a single issue party, formed out of opposition to the war in Iraq. As such, it attracts support from a range of individuals, but as a strategy to draw disaffected Muslim communities into finding political representation rather than retreating into tribalism, I think the intent is sound.

The party is lead by firebrand MP George Galloway, who famously wrestled the Labour safe seat of Bethnal Green and Bow from Oona King, and who called Christopher Hitchens a “drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay” in riveting speech to a US congressional hearing – watch it here.

When I first arrived in the UK and heard about Respect, I was interested, as it appeared to be attempt to create a pluralistic political party to the Left of Labour. After a little research I discovered that the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP – in South Africa this faction is called Keep Left) were involved, and knew then that it would all end in tears, as it now has.

Trotskyism is political poison. Everything they touch turns to shit.

I won’t go into the reason for the implosion – as I said, Socialist Unity cover it in some, ahem, depth – but it involves a power struggle between Galloway and the Socialist Wankers’ Party.

(A similar attempt to create a united Left in Scotland with the SSP was impressively successful for a few years, until the usual manipulative Trot bullshit – once again orchestrated by the SWP – resulted in the embarrassing scenario of two rival far Left sects both contesting the Scottish elections on the same platform, and both losing badly).

Good riddance to bad fucking rubbish.

Now, what has this got to do with Trotskyism?

Since this blog is largely aimed at an audience that is not thoroughly steeped in the irrelevant minutiae of Left wing history, a bit of background is in order. You can skip this bit if you’re a Left wing trainspotter.

There are a number of currents within the Left, including social democracy, anarchism, autonomism, council communism and more. A prominent current is what you might call mainstream Communism, characterised by an identification with the Russian revolution and the politics of Lenin’s Bolshevik party.

This is split into two mutually hostile groups: the official Communist Parties (sometimes referred to as the Third International, or Comintern), and the oppositional Trotskyists (Fourth Internationalists), after the dissident Leon Trotsky who was murdered by Stalin.

Supporters of the official Communist Parties (including the SACP) are colloquially referred to as tankies, and generally support the idea of imposing socialism by force, from above. With the collapse of their spiritual home, the USSR, many of these people have now joined the Labour Party (and the ANC in South Africa), and have managed to combine the worst aspects of both Stalinism and freemarket capitalism in one attractive political package.

The Trots believe in socialism from below – or at least they claim to.

I agree with much of the basic analysis of the Trots. Their view on how capital divides and conquers is largely correct, as is their assertion that you can’t impose socialism from above. If it’s to mean anything, it has to be democratic, and be a genuine reflection of the desires of the majority.

The problem is they are fucking elitists. They think they know what the majority – the working class – wants better than they do. Every Trot sect thinks it is the sole possessor of political truth, and that everyone else out there is infected with ‘false consciousness’. It’s People’s Front of Judea stuff, and it’s essentially religious.

I believe in no God but the Objective March of History, and Trotsky is his prophet.

Trots famously split over everything, such as whether the Soviet Union was state capitalist, or a deformed workers’ state, and it’s all very dense, theoretical, and of no practical relevance to the burning political issues of the day.

I’m sorry if I’m boring you. It goes with the territory. But if you like this sort of thing, here’s a nice stroll down British Trotskyism’s memory lane from science fiction writer Ken MacLeod.

I was in a Trot group once. I left after being told that our organisation of three active members was ‘the nucleus of the future revolutionary mass workers’ party’.

Long odds I can deal with. Fantasy I’ve got no time for.

I know many individual Trots who are excellent people, committed to fighting for social justice. Put them together in a Party or faction, though, and they’re a fucking menace.

This is because they don’t actually believe in the value of the campaigns they take part in. If they get involved in an anti-racist campaign, for example, it’s usually to educate people about how capital uses race to divide workers, and to recruit them to the revolutionary vanguard party fighting to rid the world of capitalism.

So they enter – or start – a community campaign, with the express aim of taking control of it and moving it in a more ‘revolutionary’ direction.

Most people get involved in politics because of something that affects them directly. Instead of moaning “some one should do something”, they decide to get stuck in start a campaign. Then the Trots arrive, offering their ‘support’, well-developed analysis and campaigning experience. It seems great, and things get off to a flying start.

But then there’s a leadership struggle, and the campaign or initiative implodes. Most people become disillusioned, which is partly why their are so many disillusioned people out there who feel that they are powerless to do anything about changing the world.

What this means in practice is that the best activists leave the campaigns that drew them to politics in favour of selling Trot bollocks on street corners and outside tube stations on Saturday mornings. They quickly get burned out and leave politics: most Trot groups have a very high turn over of membership, and anyone who has been around a while is usually deeply cynical.

Trot politics is fundamentally manipulative. It uses people. The basic Trot tactic is to manipulate cadre into positions of influence and then use them to control organisations. Tactically, sometimes they hide their intent – the entryists – and other times they are more explicit.

Their attitude to the unions, for instance, is to get Trots elected as shop stewards (and they often are really good at these roles), and then get them elected onto regional councils, NECs and so on, until they have enough dominant positions in the union to turn them into revolutionary organisations.

In my union work I meet tankies and Trots who are excellent shop stewards, because they have the political analysis to understand the wider significance of what they are doing. But the role of a shop steward is to represent a group of workers, not create a revolution. Good shop stewards represent everyone, and don’t push political agendas.

The world has moved on, and the commies have been Left Behind. Official communism has failed. Trotksyism is failing, once again, as we speak. And social democracy – in the form of the world’s Labour parties – is failing as well, as these parties abandon their commitment to social justice and become the servants of capital.

We need to move to a way of organising that is non-ideological. There are good activists from all Left wing traditions, and many people from other backgrounds – including religious ones – who are committed to justice but don’t see themselves as part of the Left.

If we are to develop real Left unity, it must be around principles and campaigns, and it must respect pluralism, and the idea that no one has a monopoly on the outcome.

There is no blue print for the future. It is a work in progress.

For more on this, Kevin Williamson has an excellent analysis on the demise of traditional political parties here.

I feel I should write what people are interested in reading. This is frustrating, as it’s not always what I want to write, or even feel is helpful to write.

This is a screen shot of recent hits on my blog:

The spikes are one of two things: articles about Israel, and articles about how shit South Africa is. It seems like that’s all anyone wants to read.

Posts about Burma, posts about trade unions, and posts about other things that interest me just don’t get read or commented on.

Does this mean I have found my niche?

As an Afro-pessimist and scourge of Zionists?

Writing vitriolic diatribes against Mbeki, Blair and Olmert while drunk on single malt, late at night?

Sad.

I wrote a lot of negative stuff earlier this year about South Africa. My stats were the highest they’ve ever been, but I was criticised for it, and I took the criticism on board: I now try not to write the doom and gloom unless I can make a positive contribution as well.

The thing is, no one is interested in the positive contributions, the things that I offer that I think are unique, or different and interesting.

It’s easy to write angry posts. There’s so much to be angry about, and so much evidence to back up any assertion you wish to make that the world is going to hell in an SUV, with the benefit of SatNav. We know how this story ends.

Writing positive stuff, or any analysis that seeks to get under the surface of things, requires significantly more thought. It is easier to destroy than create.

Recently, I wrote an article about how the crime problem in South Africa isn’t one that can be solved by policing, because the rot goes all the way to the top.

In my next article, I suggested some solutions, saying we need to collectively decide what kind of country we want to be. I might be completely wrong, but I still think it’s a discussion we need to have.

Guess which article was read. It’s all in the spikes on the graph.

I am not interested in writing only angry and complaining posts. I am not that cynical yet.I am interested in looking beyond the confusion and chaos for evidence of change, of people finding innovative solutions, of signs of hope.

But people don’t want to read that. We’re addicted to doom and gloom.

I guess I have learned what newspaper editors have known all along: bad news sells.

Fortunately, I don’t have to please anyone with my writing except myself, so I don’t have to worry too much about hits. I’d rather connect with the few people who find the more thoughtful, less scandalous posts worthwhile than pander to the whims of the majority for controversy and outrage.

I feel I should write what people are interested in reading. This is frustrating, as it’s not always what I want to write, or even feel is helpful to write.

This is a screen shot of recent hits on my blog:

The spikes are one of two things: articles about Israel, and articles about how shit South Africa is. It seems like that’s all anyone wants to read.

Posts about Burma, posts about trade unions, and posts about other things that interest me just don’t get read or commented on.

Does this mean I have found my niche?

As an Afro-pessimist and scourge of Zionists?

Writing vitriolic diatribes against Mbeki, Blair and Olmert while drunk on single malt, late at night?

Sad.

I wrote a lot of negative stuff earlier this year about South Africa. My stats were the highest they’ve ever been, but I was criticised for it, and I took the criticism on board: I now try not to write the doom and gloom unless I can make a positive contribution as well.

The thing is, no one is interested in the positive contributions, the things that I offer that I think are unique, or different and interesting.

It’s easy to write angry posts. There’s so much to be angry about, and so much evidence to back up any assertion you wish to make that the world is going to hell in an SUV, with the benefit of SatNav. We know how this story ends.

Writing positive stuff, or any analysis that seeks to get under the surface of things, requires significantly more thought. It is easier to destroy than create.

Recently, I wrote an article about how the crime problem in South Africa isn’t one that can be solved by policing, because the rot goes all the way to the top.

In my next article, I suggested some solutions, saying we need to collectively decide what kind of country we want to be. I might be completely wrong, but I still think it’s a discussion we need to have.

Guess which article was read. It’s all in the spikes on the graph.

I am not interested in writing only angry and complaining posts. I am not that cynical yet.I am interested in looking beyond the confusion and chaos for evidence of change, of people finding innovative solutions, of signs of hope.

But people don’t want to read that. We’re addicted to doom and gloom.

I guess I have learned what newspaper editors have known all along: bad news sells.

Fortunately, I don’t have to please anyone with my writing except myself, so I don’t have to worry too much about hits. I’d rather connect with the few people who find the more thoughtful, less scandalous posts worthwhile than pander to the whims of the majority for controversy and outrage.

I am clearly becoming a geek. That’s because I was so excited by the pre-release version of Ubuntu Linux Gutsy Gibbon, that I installed it on Sunday.

The official version of Ubuntu 7.10 is out today, I believe.

What’s that?

It’s an alternative, free, open source operating system. You can use it instead of Windows. I have been running Ubuntu Linux for 18 months now, and it’s that good that I get excited when a new version is released.

I am not a techie and I don’t know much about computers. I know how to use a few programs, and that’s about it. None of that programming stuff.

Ubuntu is the first version of Linux to be idiot-proof enough for ordinary people like me – reared on Windows – to use.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Wired:

Gutsy Gibbon is certainly easier to install and set up than Windows Vista, and it’s very close to matching Mac OS X when it comes to making things “just work” out of the box. Wi-Fi, printing, my digital camera and even my iPod all worked immediately after installation — no drivers or other software required.

When I first started using an earlier version of Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn, finding everything was a little frustrating, because it all looked different. There’s no ‘start’ menu, for instance. But I had been using Windows for ten years, so I expected things to be a certain way. Once I opened myself up to trying something different, I was hooked.

Essentially, Windows treats you like an idiot that has to be told what to do. This is what has always infuriated me about using it: my machine ‘deciding’ to do something without me telling it to.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, treats you like an intelligent adult. It informs you of updates, and lets you make decisions. It refers you to documentation so that you can learn about what you’re doing, and teaches you to ‘go under the hood’ and type demands in the terminal window – something Windows wants you to stay well away from.

Quite apart from the fact that open source is ethically so much better than corporate software like MS, Ubuntu doesn’t crash like Windows does, and isn’t really susceptible to viruses.

Basically, Ubuntu can do anything Windows can do, for free and with better security. There are things that run better on Windows – using a program like InDesign, for instance, which doesn’t have a Linux version, is a little fiddly as you have to open up a virtual Windows OS in Linux, using a Windows simulator called wine.

But as more and more software is released in Linux versions, this will become less of a problem.

There is a tremendous amount of free software out there, and Ubuntu informs you automatically of what’s available, and of updates. My favourite is probably Amarok, a music player that integrates nicely with last.fm, and fetches lyrics and artist information off the ‘net as you play music.

For word processing, presentations and so on I use Open Office, which is fairly similar to its Microsoft counterpart. While Open Office can open Word documents fine, there is sometimes an issue with saving a document in a format that can be opened unaltered by Word – which is MS’ fault, but still irritating.

One advantage of Open Office, though, is that it can export to PDF.

There is a new version of Ubuntu every six months, and I find myself getting excited as the release date approaches.

Having been through the Ubuntu experience, I never want to use a machine running Microsoft again.

Windows users have some hard choices to make. As support is withdrawn for XP, and new computers run Vista, at some point you’ll have to upgrade. But Vista is so bad that the Dutch Consumer Council advises against using it. This is in addition to the security and data protection issues Vista has, notably that by installing it you are essentially allowing your computer to be controlled from Microsoft headquarters. Not a risk worth taking.

Maybe now is the time to switch to Ubuntu. Make it as painless as possible: if you can, install Ubuntu on an old computer you’re not using, so you can get used to using it without getting rid of what you’re used to.

I partitioned my hard drive (with the help of my tech support and Ubuntu evangelist) and installed Ubuntu on one partition, which means I can boot into either operating system. This works brilliantly, and I hardly ever use Windows, as I can access all my files on Windows through Ubuntu – but not the other way around.

Go on, give it a shot.

You know you want to.

 People were those who

           Broke for me the string.

                     Therefore,

    The place became like this to me,

                 On account of it,

Because the string was that which broke for me.

                      Therefore,

         The place does not feel to me,

       As the place used to feel to me,

                   On account of it.

                            For,

The place feels as if it stood open before me,

    Because the string has broken for me.

                       Therefore,

   The place does not feel pleasant to me,

                 On account of it.



    Dia!kwain, San People

Here are some suggestions for putting things back together.

First, we need to recognise what’s wrong:

Our main problem is that our social contract, our relationship with each other, is broken. It’s broken between black and white because of apartheid, but also between the poor and the elite, because the poor have failed to benefit from the end of apartheid.

Very few invest anything in our society – we’re all looking after our own interests, fighting against each other. Until we can forge an inclusive, common vision of the kind of country we’re going to be, we will continue the slide into violence, broken lives and gated communities: apartheid 2.0

Our social contract is broken, to put it bluntly, because white people came to Africa, stole the land and dominated the people. By doing this, they broke down traditional value systems, and family and community life. The urban poor are spiritually broken in many ways as a result of this dispossession – ironically by white settlers who had recently experienced similar dispossession and persecution in Europe: Huguenots, refugees from the Highland Clearances, the Enclosure Acts and more.

Almost all humans are victims of this dispossession at some point in our history. It just happened to Europeans before most other people, because of the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism, and we spread it as we moved across the globe.

To quote my favourite band:

Swans – God Loves America

“We came across the sea we’d fill,

With offal and disgust

And any object industry required

We bought, enslaved or we crushed

And now our minds are as naked as

the paradise we stripped

Our reward is our entropy

Our emptiness is our gift”

I believe this is the root of our culture’s disengagement from the planet and our headlong fall into environmental meltdown. The land was stolen from us, and it still hurts. We feel cut off from the earth, and feel only vaguely concerned that we are destroying it. It is a cultural psychological wound we need to first recognise and then begin to heal.

White dominance has been broken in Africa now, and the floodgates of 350 years of resentment have opened. But we haven’t found an alternative story for ourselves yet.

The experience of Zimbabwe suggests that you can’t just undo history. Removing productive white farmers from the land and giving it to disempowered black peasants may seem just, but it hasn’t made Zimbabwe a better place – largely because it was imposed from the top down, not out of an attempt to create justice, but to shield Mugabe from his political failings and buy support.

Rather than trying to undo history, we need to acknowledge it and agree on a shared future where we attempt to make right what has gone wrong. In South Africa, this is likely to include a fairly large scale redistribution of wealth, but this needs to be done in a way that is sustainable and creates real wealth – life, health and friendship – rather than bling.

There is a principle in permaculture to always use what’s in your environment. If you want to turn a blighted industrial landscape into a garden, conventional thinking would be that all the rubbish needs to be removed, the land regenerated and a garden planted. This is expensive, and creates a waste problem elsewhere.

A permaculturalist would rearrange the existing landscape as much as possible: use some of the rubbish for compost, use the old tyres as plant boxes, and old buildings to shelter vulnerable plants. While it might not have the elegance of the Tuileries, this is much cheaper, and it creates a space for nature to step in and do the work for you.

We need to take the same approach to our political landscape. We can’t make apartheid go away, pretend it isn’t there or undo it.

But we can transform the landscape we have, and create a space for nature to work. We can build a momentum of positive change.

A good starting point should be the Buddhist principle of “first, do no harm”. Our people are already poor. The government’s eviction of people from their homes is absolutely indefensible on any level. People have their water and electricity cut off for non-payment. If people could pay, they would. Cutting them off helps no one.

The next thing we need to do is rather old fashioned: we need to build the case for a functioning social democratic state as a starting point for real change.

First, we need to start by holding our elected officials to account – from shop stewards to presidents – and demand better from them: whatever our politics, we all need accountability and transparency, and false loyalty to the Congress tradition is only going to make things worse.

We need to build transparency in politics. We need to build a sustainable infrastructure: a working rail and road network, public transport, a postal system, affordable and functional telecommunications.

We need a health service, and education – including lifelong learning opportunities for people who missed out on education first time around.

This all costs money, but that’s not the real problem. We have material resources, they are just not distributed fairly. The problem is a lack of political will, a lack of commitment to creating some kind of just, shared experience in South Africa. We can work on this together, unite around a new freedom charter. There are enough of us committed to this dream to make it happen.

South Africa is the world in microcosm. We have the rich North and poor South within spitting distance of each other. The consequences of our actions are immediately apparent to us. If we can get it right, we can provide a model for the healing of Africa and other victims of imperialism.

There are many people in the developed world who are conscious of the injustice done to Africa, and they would like to help put things right. They have the resources to make a huge difference. But they need partners in Africa, not just people with open hands, but people who will use opportunities to make things better, to find locally appropriate solutions to the challenges we face.

We can be those people.

To conclude, here’s a positive perspective from Findhorn on the results of the financial crisis the world is experiencing:

The image is of the waters of globalised economic activity dropping (in the face of steadily rising energy prices) to reveal initially isolated islands but eventually whole archipelagos of islands of sustainable models that currently lie just below the water-line. These are the community-owned agriculture and renewables schemes, the farmers’ markets, the alternative currency systems, the earth-based eco-education centres, the closed-loop waste-recycling businesses and so on that folk are currently working on up and down the country.
This is a time not for despondency about powerlessness in the face of the prevailing ugliness and waste – but for excitement at the shape of the new emerging from below the waves.

There are plently of people building alternatives in South Africa – these are going to become more and more important. Let’s combine our resource, and not lose heart.

We’ve pulled off miracles before.