A few days after the World Day of Social Justice
24 February 2025, News from JAH 1
“It takes a revolution
To make a solution”
- Bob Marley, Revolution, Natty Dread, 1974
Soul rebels,
Thank you all for your positive response to my announcement about forming the Justice and Activism Hub (JAH) and for asking to be signed up to the newsletter. I was inspired by your messages of support and concurrence on the need to rethink activism.
The JAH newsletter aims to embody what I call eclectic materialism. It will bring you news of campaigns, ideas, resources, important reports and pioneering activists, with the aim of further empowering you and others to make the world better, fairer, equal and sustainable. It aims to be a hub that draws in useful information and then shunts it out again to those who can benefit from it. It will endeavor to avoid civil-society jargon, improve as I go along, soon have an innovative new logo (I hope) and be available on Substack.
Thumbs up! South African activism
#Budget 2025 brought out an excellent showing of South African activism. Marches to Parliament, a People’s Assembly and co-ordinated civil society response felt like a mini-uprising against austerity budgeting – that is against a decade of destructive cuts to funding health, basic education and social services. The Budget Justice Coalition (BJC) did great work panel-beating an evidence-informed critique, that in all probability the Treasury will unlawfully ignore. The question is what will civil society do when it does?
It’s a time of irony when the DA finds common cause with civil society to block a 2% VAT hike proposed by the ANC. It makes no economic or moral sense to impose further hardship on the poor when it would have raised the relatively small additional amount of R58 billion (according to the Minister of Finance’s now canned budget speech). It’s also against the law as a great judgement won by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) and #PayTheGrants on the issue of the Social Relief of Distress Grant makes clear.
If we are really so desperately short of money that we can’t meet the fundamental human rights obligations set out in the Constitution, and some well informed activists contest whether it is in fact true that we have no “available resources”, then why not now seriously consider a wealth tax or other feasible alternatives put forward by the IEJ in this excellent statement?
Thumbs down! Trump’s mission against the poorest of the poor.
On the other hand though it was a painful week.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) had to ask over 150 activists involved in community-led-clinic monitoring to “cease-work” as a result of Trump’s cruel Executive Order prohibiting foreign aid. The withdrawal of funding to TAC by UNAIDS, which is itself under attack from the US administration, threatens the survival of TAC. TAC has helped save millions of lives. It’s been one of the most effective civil society organizations in post-apartheid SA. At a time when 1,1 million people have been “lost to treatment” this is not the moment to close the TAC. If you think you might be able to help TAC contact our General Secretary, Anele Yawa: anele@tac.org.za.
But this is not just a TAC or South African -issue. Many other developing countries are much worse affected. It’s a roll-back of many of the victories that we won at the height of global AIDS activism twenty years ago. It’s a global threat to human rights and life.
Talking of civil society: Did you know the Daily Maverick publishes a Civil Society Watch every Monday. Here’s this week’s edition: The fight for peace in Ukraine, unpacking the true state of student aid, Deep dive into right-wing politics and other events in civil society
Activists’ bookshelf
I’ve recently read George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson’s 2024 book, The Invisible Doctrine, The Secret History of Neoliberalism and How It Came to Control Your Life. It’s a concise, non-doctrinaire history of neoliberalism, highly recommended if you want an overview of the life and death of this malicious ideology. It seems that neoliberalism is a story of how the right stole the left’s clothing. After reading it, I added a new slide to my deck on Rethinking Activism (below).
Talking about Monbiot: I recommend reading one of his latest columns in the Guardian. Make your own mind up whether what Monbiot paints is a possible worst case scenario arising from the Trump/Musk/Bannon/Project25 coup: There are many ways Trump could trigger a global collapse. Here’s how to survive if that happens | George Monbiot | The Guardian
Connection, Compassion and Culture
This week I attended the launch of Malika Lueen Ndlovu’s new book of poetry, Griefseed, at Love Books in Johannesburg. In a time of genocide and ecocide, understanding grief - not suppressing or denying it - is incumbent on all of us if we are to stay sane and mentally healthy. Malika’s journey through grief started with the stillbirth of her daughter, Iman Bongiwe Ndlovu, on January 3 2003. Since then her grief has grown inwards and outwards to encompass all humanity. Malika writes:
“We are all grieving, carriers of sorrow. To be human, to be authentically and wholly alive here, means being with all the various ways in which dying and loss are an integral embroidery of all our lives. Grief exists in all our stories, our epic and even unknown lineages. Once we begin to get a grasp of its pervasiveness, this paradox of how pain makes you acutely appreciative of life, we can come to know the light and liberation that grief brings.”
Iman Rappetti describes the book as "one of the rarest kind.” I agree. It’s moving, deep thought-provoking and one I will write on before long.
Whilst on the subject of literature, I’ve already written a couple of pieces about books this year. One is a review of Ingrid De Kok’s fantastic new poetry collection Poetry as antidote: A journey through grief, love and the transformative power of language; the other a reflection on how literature helps build empathy, compassion and solidarity and why we need it in our lives more than ever right now: Literature as empathy: A call for stories that bridge divides, ignite understanding.
Podcasts for better informed progressives: Mark’s choice
Adam Tooze is a progressive, prolific economic historian, author of Crashed, How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World. I’ve found his weekly podcast, Ones and Tooze, and his several times weekly newsletter, Chartbook, available on substack incredibly informative and thought-provoking. What I like about Tooze is that he always offers a lot of facts and a little opinion, compared with many podcasters and writers who are a lot of opinion and not much fact!
“Miracles nestled in the ordinary”
Return of the ubiquitous Cosmos. I spotted the first Cosmos flowers whilst parkrunning in Delta Park in Johannesburg a week ago. Early? They usually bloom in mid-March. Climate change? You tell me. The Cosmos is a flower for our times, an emblem of migration. It originally came to South Africa from Mexico and Argentina in bales of hay imported to feed horses of British troops during the Anglo-Boer war.
As well as beauty it also brings sadness to me. Our first two children, Joe and Caitlin, died at birth during the Cosmos season three decades ago. Every year the return of the pink and white flowers bring back their spirits and remind me of two people who never had the chance of life. But, as Malika says in her poem Letting, “Let the wound weep”.
End Hunger Now
This Wednesday 26 February sees the launch of the Union Against Hunger (UAH) in Johannesburg. According to Busiso Moyo, a young activist and researcher co-ordinating the campaign, UAH’s mission is “to eradicate hunger and malnutrition by holding those in power accountable, empowering communities with practical solutions, and advocating for equitable food policies through rights-based frameworks. The alliance operates at the intersection of high-level advocacy and grassroots action, serving as a vital link between policy change and community-driven solutions. If you want to find out more or join contact Busiso at busiso.moyo@gmail.com
Finally, look out for a webinar I will be organising soon on Rethinking Activism in the era of the Oligarchs.
Mark
Heywood
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The Justice and Activism Hub is a change tank for a time of change. We are committed to strengthening social justice struggles through connection, collaboration, coordination, convening and catalysing.