From 25th to 27th January 2013, ELAOPA returned to the city of its birth to commemorate ten years of the difficult but necessary journey to building people’s power in Latin America. It seeks to “maintain its independence in the face of political parties, the state and its governments, NGOs, companies and all those that, with authoritarian structures distant from our realities, come to tell us what we have to do.” read full story / add a comment

Dans cette interview, réalisée entre août et octobre de 2010, la Fédération Anarchiste de Rio de Janeiro (Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro – FARJ) évoque son interprétation de concepts tels que le spécifisme (especifismo), le dualisme organisationnel, l’insertion sociale et le rôle de l'organisation politique anarchiste par rapport aux mouvements sociaux et à la lutte de classe. Il s’agit aussi de parler de l'entrée récente de la FARJ dans le Forum de l'Anarchisme Organisé (Fórum do Anarquismo Organisado – FAO) et des conséquences sociales du choix de Rio de Janeiro comme une Ville Hôte de la FIFA 2014, aussi bien que des questions quelquefois difficiles, telles que la nécessité de trouver un équilibre entre les niveaux d'unité théorique et stratégique et du besoin de croître comme organisation. La Fédération Anarchiste de Rio de Janeiro (Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (FARJ) est une organisation anarchiste spécifique de la ville de Rio de Janeiro, le Brésil. [Português] [English] read full story / add a comment

This document, first published in Portuguese under the title Anarquismo Social e Organização and adopted at the first Congress of the Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro in August 2008, seeks to map out the FARJ’s theoretical conception of an organised, class struggle anarchism and, “More than a purely theoretical document, [...] reflects the conclusions realised after five years of practical application of anarchism in the social struggles of our people”. read full story / add a comment

Failures of democracy have been a big part of the history of the DLF. We in the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) have had to raise such challenges several times (see “DLF structure: concerns and proposals” by ZACF). We have long been troubled by the lack of proper democratic structures, by a leadership that consists far more of middle-class intellectuals than of grassroots militants, and by a programme that seems to be determined in advance by the academic and NGO interests of these intellectuals instead of by the immediate needs of the workers and the poor. read full story / add a comment

Le porte-parole militaire avait raison - Mustafa est mort parce qu'il jetait des pierres, il est mort parce qu'il avait osé parler d'une vérité, avec ses mains, dans un endroit où elle est interdite. [Hebrew] [English] [Italiano] [Castellano] read full story / add a comment

Il portavoce dell'esercito ha ragione... Mustafa è morto perché lanciava sassi; è morto perché osava dire una verità - con le sue mani - in un luogo dove la verità è vietata. [English] read full story / add a comment

El portavoz del ejército tenía razón - Mustafá murió porque tiraba piedras; murió porque se atrevió a expresar una verdad, con sus manos, en un lugar donde la verdad está prohibida. read full story / add a comment

The army spokesman was right - Mustafa died because he threw stones; he died because he dared to speak a truth, with his hands, in a place where the truth is forbidden. [Italiano] [Castellano] read full story / add a comment

It was recently reported by various newspapers that ‘a “notorious gang of anarchists” with links to cash heists is attempting to destabilise the Gauteng ANC’. Newspaper articles [*] quoted ANC provincial secretary David Makhura as saying that an ANC investigation would ‘expose the hidden hand of business people who are fuelling and financing activities that seek to disrupt the functioning of the ANC’. The claims came after a group of disgruntled party members allegedly held an unofficial parallel election to decide the party’s Tshwane leader. According to Makhura the parallel gathering ‘was organised by a notorious gang of anarchists, most of whom have disciplinary cases’. read full story / add a comment

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front, or ZACF – Zabalaza meaning ‘struggle’ in isiZulu and isiXhosa – is a specific anarchist political organisation based in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a unitary organisation – or federation of individuals, as opposed to a federation of collectives – whereby membership is on an individual basis, by invitation only. This is because we have seen – through our own experience, as well as that of global anarchism historically – that we can accomplish more as an organisation, and be more effective, when our members share a certain level of theoretical and strategic unity, and collective responsibility.
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Across South America there is a growing movement – assuming different forms and characteristics, but with similar origins, demands and objectives – that, despite it being located at a strategically important intersection between two critical social issues – class struggle and ecology – seems to me to have received little attention in South African academic and activist circles. And this is true despite the fact that the social and economic conditions that gave rise to this movement prevail in South Africa, as they did – and continue to – in many South American countries. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this movement concerns people largely marginalised by industrial society and so-called ‘brown’ ecological issues – such as the pollution and contamination of rivers and dams surrounding poor communities, most acutely effecting the workers and poor – as opposed to the much more sanitary ‘green’ ecological issues – such as conservation and animal welfare – often associated, in South Africa at least, with liberal white activists from the middle and upper classes [1]. This is the movement of the catadores, as they are known in Brazil, and clasificadores in Uruguay; the recyclable waste pickers and sorters who, similarly to South Africa, constitute a growing informal sector in the industrial production cycle. This includes all people – not formally employed by public or private waste management services – who collect, transport, classify and sell recyclable waste for a living – or ‘work with scrap’ – thus “reducing demand for natural resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions” [2]. A category of work which, according to the World Bank, is performed by 15 million people globally – or one percent of the world population [3] – and has become increasingly common in South Africa in recent years. read full story / add a comment

The promise of safe, reliable and affordable public transport comes as welcome news for the majority of working class and poor South Africans and immigrants to the country. The segregated town planning left behind by the system of racialised capitalism known as apartheid has meant that the majority of the population – also those who can least afford it – are often the ones who have the furthest to travel to work, schools, hospitals and so on.

This article looks at the Bus Rapid Transit system, what BRT really is, how our so-called leaders plan to implement it – since, as usual, there has been very little popular involvement – and whether our leaders, or BRT, can serve the needs of the poor and working class read full story / add a comment

Only 14 years after the end of apartheid some say that this is a new apartheid. Only 14 years after the genocide in Rwanda some say that this is a genocide South African style. But this time it is not just about the still existing economic gap between South Africans of different skin colours, nor about a war between different ethnopolitical groups like in Rwanda. It is about nationality and the fight between those who have the minimum security of being born in South Africa, and the unlucky ones who have no such security – who have, in many cases, had to flee to South Africa from violence or starvation elsewhere. The events of May 2008 show a deep xenophobic sentiment in South Africa that is largely due to social and economic circumstances. It is a poisonous cocktail of nationalism mixed with lack of service delivery. [Italiano] read full story / add a comment