The Strategy Center attends the
World Conference Against Racism (WCAR)
Durban, South Africa

Eric Mann's commentaries from Durban:

1. On to Durban: Putting the Heat on the U.S.

2. The COSATU General Strike and the Treachery of the International Marketplace

3. U.S. Walkout Galvanizes U.S. NGO Delegation

4. From the Streets of Alexandra, South Africa: Where is Lenin Now That We Need Him?

5. The World Conference Against Racism: A Strategic Sum-Up

The World Conference Against Racism: A Strategic Sum-Up

by Eric Mann
Durban Commentary #5
 

..."In Durban, the delegates ranged from revolutionary to accomodationist; some from militant—even revolutionary—mass organizations; others were extensions of their own governments.  They came to launch an historic challenge to world racism—not through sit-ins or take-overs or armed struggle, but through the fight over political language and the battle over the wording of resolutions.  The primary goal of the NGO Forum was to draft a clear document to influence the subsequent UN governmental conference and its final declaration and program.  WCAR tested the NGOs' capacity to impact the policies of the UN; tested the United Nations as a forum for moving public debate forward; and tested the capacity of any international body to get the outlaw and racist West to 'fess up to its past sins and begin a process of introspection, repentance, and reparation.  In short, none of those objectives were met..."

click here to read the full article

Transcript of Democracy Now (in Exile) Labor Day Show 2001 from Durban, South Africa

Click here to listen to the interview

Amy Goodman reporting from Durban, South Africa
At the World Conference Against Racism

Features:
Mahlengi Bengu, Chief Education Officer, COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions).
Eric Mann, from the Bus Riders Union of Los Angeles

Towards a Program of Resistance to U.S. Imperialism
Written On the Occasion of the UN Conference Against Racism by the Strategy Center Program Demand Group      

New articles by Eric Mann:

A Race Struggle, a Class Struggle, A Women's Struggle All at Once: Organizing on the Buses of L.A.

Class, Community and Empire: Toward an Anti-imperialist Strategy for Labor

Building the Anti-Racist, Anti-Imperialist United Front: Theory and Practice from the L.A. Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union

WCAR Links

COSATU General Strike and the Treachery of the International Marketplace
Durban Commentary #2
Thursday, August 30, 2001

      "While there are some who talk as if the ANC is a petit-bourgeois party, it is in fact a multi-class party whose membership is overwhelmingly black working class. Whether the Mbeki leadership serves the interest of the Black working class is another question.
      "At the same time, it is widely agreed that COSATU and the SACP are losing some credibility with the rank and file members and the overall working class as the growing poverty, homelessness, and deterioration of social services is reaching national crisis proportions. Something bold had to be done to impact government policy. In this context, the two-day general strike is a major show of force by the majority of the COSATU leadership to establish its own power, its own independence in the united front..."

click here to read the full article