Revolutionary Hope vs Free Market Fantasies: Keeping the Southern Africa Liberation Struggle Alive. Theory, Practice, Contexts

333 Pages·2021·3.703 MB·English

by  John S. Saul

Revolutionary
HOPE
vs.
Free Market
-
FANTASIES
Keeping the Southern Africa
Liberation Struggle Alive:
Theory, Practice, Contexts
John S. Saul
Both detailed and illuminating, this is a theoretically and historically
grounded work from a veteran Marxist scholar on the major challenges
facing the struggle for the genuine liberation of Africa. Of vast scope
and deep analysis, it needs to be read and debated by all Africa-oriented
activists.
— Karim F Hirji, Tanzanian professor and scholar-activist,
author of Growing Up With Tanzania, and chief author of
Cheche: Reminiscences of a Radical Magazine
The second in John Saul’s trilogy of books examining what he terms the
Thirty Years War for liberation in southern Africa, Volume 2 shifts the f ocus
from global solidarity movements to the five theatres of war in the region.
Saul’s unique lens reveals the interconnected nature of the struggles in
the contiguous countries in the region. Eschewing nationalist accounts
boundaried by colonial borders, Saul connects race, gender and environ-
ment to capital and class. A tour de force from a scholar who exemplifies
the value of praxis, in this volume John Saul encourages us as always to
face grim realities while inspiring us to hope. Also: a cracking good read!
— Shireen Hassim, Canada Research Chair, Carleton
University, Ottawa, Canada and formerly of the University
of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), she is author of
Women’s organizations and democracy in South Africa:
Contesting authority
In his careful re-historicizing of so many political personalities and move-
ments, past and present, John Saul has again demonstrated the essence
of his prodigious career: more than six decades of a deeply reflected
life of public intellectual activism and committed and brilliant Africanist
scholar ship. On Building a Social Movement is essential reading for those
who want to know about the histories of the various southern African
liberation struggles and about the ways in which an ethical, theoretically
pellucid Marxist political economy can positively embrace changing inter-
sectionalities ...with race and environmental concerns, among other things.
Equally, it is the important for those who want to understand the nature of
generosity, comradeship, and of just what the principled embrace of social
movement solidarity can achieve.
— Pablo Idahosa, Professor of African Studies and
International Development Studies, York University,
Toronto, and author of The Populist Dimension to African
Political Thought: Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral,
Julius Nyerere
John Saul’s Revolutionary Hope vs Free-Market Fantasies is far more than
a collection of observations and analyses. It represents a framework, or a
set of eyeglasses, through which to look at the revolutionary and non-rev-
olutionary experiences in Southern Africa in the struggle for freedom.  The
opening chapter, along with the collection of essays, offers a brilliant exami-
nation of the challenges in prosecuting a struggle for consistent democracy,
liberation and transformation.  This is not a book to rush through, but one
to savor as one would a fine wine.  The relevance of the analyses goes far
beyond Southern Africa, and beyond Africa, but leads one to consider the
dimensions and challenges faced by a 21st-century emancipatory project.
— Bill Fletcher, Jr., trade union activist and former president
of TransAfrica Forum and co-editor of Claim No Easy
Victories: The Legacy  of Amilcar Cabral, among other books

In this long-awaited second volume of his Southern African Liberation
Trilogy, veteran scholar and activist John Saul provides a fascinating
account of the ideas that drove his life-long commitment to the Southern
African struggle. Rich in insights drawn from his close engagement with the
key actors and events during what he calls a “thirty-year war,” he concludes
reluctantly that Southern Africa has been recolonized by global capital. It’s a
sobering, n uanced and deeply worrying assessment but underlying the disap-
pointment are signs of hope that a more expansive liberation is still p ossible.
— Eddie Webster, Distinguished Research Professor,
Southern Center for Inequality Studies (SCIS) University
of the Witwatersrand, activist and co-author, most
recently, of Grounding Globalization: Labor in an
Age of Insecurity
This immensely erudite yet highly readable volume of John Saul’s trilogy
reflects a lifetime commitment to building a better world. A true interna-
tionalist with a deep knowledge of Southern Africa, he pulls no punches in
analyzing what went wrong with the movements for liberation in Southern
Africa, or in recognizing the malevolent power of global capital as it pur-
sues its recolonization mission. And yet. Saul sees revolutionary hope in
contemporary alliances between socialists and feminists, environmental-
ists, anti-racists, activists around issues of sexual orientation and bearers
of a whole range of identit ies joining up, alongside workers and precarians,
within a broader left community-in-the-making. This is a book for all who
strive and hope for an egalitarian and democratic future.
— Katherine Salahi, one of the ANC’s ‘London Recruits’
in the anti-apartheid days (when she was also labeled a
‘gun runner’!) plus writer, publisher and a founding editor
of the Review of African Political Economy/ROAPE
Revolutionary Hope
vs
Free-Market Fantasies

i
Revolutionary Hope vs Free-Market Fantasies
ii
By Way of an Introduction
Revolutionary Hope
vs
Free-Market Fantasies
Keeping the Southern Africa Liberation
Struggle Alive: Theory, Practice, Contexts
by John S. Saul
iii
Revolutionary Hope vs Free-Market Fantasies
Published by
Daraja Press
https://darajapress.com
Published in East Africa by
Zand Graphics Ltd
https://zandgraphics.com/
Revolutionary Hope vs Free Market Fantasies:
Keeping the Southern Africa Liberation Struggle Alive
Theory, Practice, Contexts
ISBN 978-1-988832-91-3
© 2021 John S Saul
All rights reserved
Cover design & typesetting: Kate McDonnell
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Revolutionary hope vs. free-market fantasies : keeping the southern African
liberation
struggle alive : theory, practice, contexts / John S Saul.
Names: Saul, John S., author.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210181508 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210181613 | ISBN
9781988832913
(softcover) | ISBN 9781988832920 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: National liberation movements—Africa, Southern. | LCSH: Africa,
Southern—Economic
policy. | LCSH: Africa, Southern—Politics and government—1975-1994.
Classification: LCC DT1165 .S385 2021 | DDC 320.968—dc23
iv
By Way of an Introduction
To the memory of Murray MacInness,
Mike Carr and Jim Kirkwood,
and
with love to Jo and Nick
v
Revolutionary Hope vs Free-Market Fantasies
Previous Books by the Author
Tanzania: The Silent Class Struggle, edited by Dick Urban Vestbro and
co‑authored with Issa G. Shivji, Walter Rodney and Thomas Szentes
(Lund, Sweden: Zenit, 1971).
Socialism in Tanzania: Vol. 1, Politics, co‑edited with Lionel Cliffe
(Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishing House, 1972).
Socialism in Tanzania: Vol. 1, Policies, co‑edited with Lionel Cliffe
(Nairobi, Kenya: East African Publishing House, 1973).
Essays on the Political Economy of Africa, co‑authored with Giovanni
Arrighi (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1973).
Socialism and Participation: Tanzania’s 1970 National Election,
co‑edited as a member the Electoral Studies Committee, University
of Dar es Salaam (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1974).
Canada and Mozambique (Toronto: DEC/TCLPAC, 1974).
Rural Cooperation in Tanzania, co‑edited with Lionel Cliffe and others
(Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1975).
Words and Deeds: Canada, Portugal and Africa, co‑authored with
the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa
(Toronto: TCLSAC, 1976).
The State and Revolution in Eastern Africa (London, Nairobi, Ibadan,
Lusaka: Monthly Review Press, New York and Heinemann Educational
Books, 1979).
The Crisis in South Africa, co-authored with Stephen Gelb (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1981) and, in a second expanded edition
(New York and London: Monthly Review Press and Zed Press, 1986).
O Marxismo-Leninismo no Contexto Moçambicano
(Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane Press, 1983).
A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique, edited by
John S. Saul (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1985).
Socialist Ideology and the Struggle for Southern Africa (Trenton, N.J.:
Africa World Press, 1990).
Recolonization and Resistance: Southern Africa in the 1990s (Toronto and
Trenton, N.J.: Between The Lines and Africa World Press, 1994).
Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword, co‑authored/
co‑edited with Colin Leys (London, Athens, Ohio and Cape Town, S.A.:
James Currey, Ohio University Press, and David Phillip, 1995).
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By Way of an Introduction
Millennial Africa: Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy (2001)
(Lawrenceville, N. J./ Asmara: Africa World Press, 2001)
The Next Liberation Struggle: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
in Southern Africa (Toronto, London, New York and Durban/
Pietermaritzburg: Between The Lines, Merlin Press, Monthly Review
Press and University of Kwazulu/Natal Press, 2001).
Development after Globalization: Theory and Practice for the Embattled
South in a New Imperial Age (Delhi, London & New York, Halifax
and Durban/Pietermaritzburg: Three Essays Collective, Zed Press,
Fernwood Press and University of KwaZulu‑Natal Press, 2006).
Decolonization and Empire: Contesting the Rhetoric and Reality of
Resubordination in Southern Africa and Beyond (Delhi, London &
New York and Johannesburg: Three Essays Collective, Merlin Press
and University of Witwatersrand Press, 2007).
Revolutionary Traveller: Freeze-Frames from a Life (Winnipeg, Canada:
Arbeiter‑Ring, 2009)
Liberation Lite: The Roots of Recolonization in Southern Africa (Delhi and
Trenton, N. J.: Three Essays Collective and Africa World Press, 2011).
The Present as History – South Africa: From Mrs Ples to Marikana and
Mandela, with Patrick Bond (Oxford and Johannesburg: James Currey
and Jacana Press, 20110.
A Flawed Freedom: Rethinking Southern African Liberation (London,
Toronto and Cape Town: Pluto Books, Between the Lines,
and Juta/University of Cape Town Press, 2014).
The “Rethinking Southern African Liberation” Trilogy:
On Building a Social Movement: The North American Campaign for
Southern African Liberation Revisited (Trenton, N. J./Cape Town
and Halifax and Winnipeg: African World Press and Fernwood
Publishing, 2017).
Revolutionary Hope vs Free-Market Fantasies – Keeping the Southern
Africa Liberation Struggle Alive: Theory, Practice, Contexts
(the present book).
The Thirty Years War for Southern African Liberation, 1960-1994:
A History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
[in preparation for 2020/21])
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