SEMINARS ON JUNE 21 AND JUNE 22:

Global Apartheid, Privatisation and a Socialist Alternative:
* Reportback on the Havana Conference on Marx in the 21st Century
* Strategic options for South and Southern African anti-capitalist movements

Coordinated by Trevor Ngwane and Patrick Bond, with other comrades from SA
and the region

All invited (for the sake of planning refreshments, please book now)

***

TWO SESSIONS (OF THE SAME SEMINAR):
-- 21 June: BRAAMFONTEIN: Jubilee South Africa office, 185 Smit Street, 9th
floor, East Wing, 10AM-4PM, sandwiches and refreshments
-- 22 June: SOWETO: Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee offices, Careers
Centre, Corner of Old Potchefstroom and Immink Drives, behind Funda Centre
(entrance at BP Garage), 10AM-4PM, sandwiches and refreshments

Please RSVP by email to Patrick ([email protected]) or by phone to SECC:
938-4305 (Nonhlanhla or Bongani); please specify which date you will come

Why a seminar, report-back and strategic brainstorm?

The May 2003 conference on 'The Work of Karl Marx and Challenges of the 21st
Century' was held under the auspices of Cuban trade unionists, philosophers
and economists. More than 500 attended, and in addition to lengthy
interventions by Fidel Castro, papers were presented by the likes of Samir
Amin, Fred Bienefeld, Liudmila Boulavka, Simon Clarke, Francois Houtart,
Diane Flaherty, Barbara Foley, Marta Harnecker, David Kotz, Michael Lebowitz
and Istvan Meszaros. Many of these are available for summary and discussion
at the seminar.

The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Johannesburg) has made available resources to
discuss the conference and its implications for South and Southern African
social change movements.

We aim to cover several interlinked themes and specific topics that animated
the Marx conference:

* global apartheid: imperialism and war, international political economic
theory, capitalist crises, uneven development and accumulation by
dispossession, the institutions of neoliberalism, the world's anti-capitalis
t forces, and Pretoria's ambitions, strategies, tactics and
alliances;

* privatisation: the commodification of everything (energy, water, air,
land, healthcare, education), Washington's renewed privatisation thrust, the
limits of privatisation in the water sector, social struggles, and an update
on the South African situation;

* a socialist alternative: what are our communities across the region
demanding in lieu of water/electricity privatisation, how do they relate to
organised labour and to struggles for social justice in other sectors, is
'autonomism' a substitute for socialist visions, what is the state of
Southern African, African and international anti-capitalist movements, and
what is the nature of debate about movements, networks and workers' parties?

Join us in an open, nonsectarian seminar for sharing information and
brainstorming ways forward.

(Trevor Ngwane -- [email protected] -- is a community activist with
the SECC and Anti-Privatisation Forum; Patrick Bond -- [email protected] --
teaches at Wits and is an associate of the Centre for Economic Justice.)