Category Archives: John Holloway

Lineages of Freedom

Lineages of freedom

by John Holloway, Grahamstown, October 2012

Lineages of freedom. I love the title of the colloquium, with its suggestion of a discontinuous continuity between past and present. It makes me think of Bob Marley: These songs of freedom, redemption songs, redemption songs.

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Redemption. It’s the word that keeps on coming back to me in South Africa. I know that there are people in the room who were imprisoned and tortured in the struggle for a better world. I am sure that many of you will have known people who gave their lives in that struggle. And there must be a sense that this is not what you fought for, that this is not what you dreamed of. There have been great changes, of course, fundamental changes, but I cannot believe that in the world you dreamt of, there would be so much poverty beside so much wealth. I cannot believe that your ambition for South Africa was that it would win first prize as being the most unequal society in the world. I cannot believe that Marikana was part of your dreams. There have been fundamental changes, but the pain of capital is still there, the pain of a form of social organisation that quite literally tears up the earth and destroys the humans, animals and plants that live on it.

Continue reading →

On dignity, love, and philanthropy

On dignity, love, and philanthropy

Mark Butler and Graham Philpott, Church Land Programme, October 2012.

Input presented by Graham to the panel on “Faith communities, philanthropy and social change: A giant awakes?” at the African Grant Makers Network’s “Growing African Philanthropy” event.

The burn of a ‘false generosity’

In John Steinbeck’s seminal novel of the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a character called Annie Littlefield says:

If a body’s ever took charity, it makes a burn that don’t come out. … [I]f you ever took it, you don’t forget it… I did, … Las’ winter; an’ we was a starvin’—me an’ Pa an’ the little fellas. An’ it was a-rainin’. Fella tol’ us to go to the Salvation Army.” Her eyes grew fierce. “We was hungry — they made us crawl for our dinner. They took our dignity. They — I hate ’em!” … Her voice was fierce and hoarse. “I hate ’em,” she said. “I ain’t never seen my man beat before, but them — them Salvation Army done it to ‘im. ‘They took our dignity’.

It is not about what they gave, but more deeply about what they took – they
took our dignity. Is it about how they gave, their stipulations, their intentions, the amount, the frequency, the conditionalities? Maybe – but more profoundly, it is about what they took – they took our dignity, and my man was beat. There is no awakening giant here – just a man beaten and Annie Littlefield. Continue reading →

The Witness: Tsunami of small rebellions

http://witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=89169

John Holloway interviewed by Yves Vanderhaeghen for The Witness

DESCRIBED as a “gentle revolutionary”, John Holloway is a communist philosopher, lawyer and academic who champions the cause of the Zapatista peasants’ movement in Mexico, and whose current visit to South Africa was inspired by the urban social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. Its values of community-based organisation, grassroots action, individual responsibility and a spirit of rebellion represent what he sees as essential elements in the struggle against oppression. He is, not unexpectedly, resolutely opposed to capitalism, which he describes as a “monstrous act of aggression”, and against which he proposes a kinder, gentler communism. However, his people-first philosophy argues strongly against a politics based on the impulse to power. The struggle is lost “once the logic of power becomes the logic of the revolutionary process”. Revolutionary movements fail because they assume the shape of the oppressive regimes they topple, a criticism increasingly directed against the South African government, especially after the Marikana mine massacre. To escape from this graveyard of dreams, Holloway proposes direct, daily action by ordinary people, whether shack-dwellers, miners or peasants. Continue reading →

Umlando ka John Holloway

Umlando ka John Holloway

U John Holloway uyinculabuchopho eyikomanisi (communist
philosopher), umsebenzi wakhe uchazwa njengogxile emizabalazweni
yokuzimela kanye nenkululeko yabantu.

U Holloway wazalelwa eIreland wabamba iqhaza
emizabalazweni yaseNgilandi. Wayebhala ngemizabalazo yabasebenzi
bemboni yezimoto yakwa Nissan eSunderland ngo 1980. Njengamanje
usehlala eMexico lapho eyingxenye yomzabalazo wombutho odumile
okuthiwa ama Zapatista. Ngonyaka ka 2002 wabhala incwadi ethi Change
the World without Taking Power (ukushintsha izwe ngaphandle
kokuphatha umbuso). Lencwadi yaba nomthelela omkhulu ekulweni
nogombela kwesabo abayizikhondlakhondla zomnotho basemazweni
aseMelika nase Europe kumbandakanya nokubhikishela inhlangano
yezokuhweba yomhlaba (World Trade Organisation) eSeattle ngo
November ka 1999. Continue reading →

Padkos: John Holloway in Pietermaritzburg on 9 October 2012

PADKOS
Wednesday 12 September 2012

John Holloway: coming to PMB!

John Holloway, without question one of the world’s leading thinkers of emancipatory politics, will be in ‘Maritzburg next month! CLP will host John for a Padkos discussion, and there will be a public lecture, co-hosted with the Paulo Freire Project of the Centre for Adult Education! It’ll all be happening on the local university campus on the 9th October – block the time off NOW. (Note that for those on our Padkos list based in Durban, and who absolutely cannot make the real Padkos event, an additional seminar is also being arranged on Wednesday by Richard Ballard on the Durban Campus of UKZN.) Continue reading →

Attachments


An Introduction to John Holloway