Aims of the Winter School
Responding to struggle: Different themes
Every year the winter school is organized around a specific theme that responds to the particular context and conjuncture, and the challenges facing the working class and movement building. The theme is informed by current struggles, consultation with organisations and movements, and also influenced by Khanya’s critical engagement with theory, monitoring strikes, struggles and protests. For instance, for many years the Khanya Journal reflected the struggles of the social movements. The Journal also carried a Barometer of Resistance documenting the daily struggles and protests of working people.
Some of the key themes of the Winter Schools have been:
- Four schools on Globalization, GEAR and Neoliberalism, Organising under Conditions of Globalisation, Is Sustainable Development Possible under Neoliberalism and Democracy and Neoliberalism focused on developing activists understanding of the changes within capitalism and its impact on working people and society internationally and in South Africa. Considerable time was spent to facilitate activists to understand the sources of the restructuring and changes in their daily life. Internationally neoliberalism has weakened working people, causing impoverishment and inequality. Similarly, in SA the ruling government’s Growth Economic and Redistribution [GEAR] strategy has deepened apartheid legacies and inequalities.
- The Struggle for Regional Solidarity and Building solidarity across borders was a twofold response: an opportunity to build unity with Africans in the region after a long time of SA’s isolation; the need to understand our common history in the face of emerging xenophobia towards African nationals from about 2004 and the forces behind these that gave rise to the outbreak of xenophobia in Alexandra township in 2008; and President Thabo Mbeki’s New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) that positioned SA’s white monopolies to recolonize the African continent.
- Over three years the school focused on Crisis and Resistance, the crisis within capitalism in particular in 2008 and capitals voracious search for profits; and the Crisis of Resistance focused on the weaknesses within the social movements, a combination of internal organizational issues and neoliberalism. Two schools focused on From Crisis to Resistance and Sustaining Resistance.
- To assist the movements to organize and build internal democracy, the theme of Gender and Neoliberalism and the Challenges of Feminist Organising highlighted conceptual issus about women’s position in society and under neoliberalism, women and social reproduction and the importance of internal democracy to facilitate women’s substantial participation and leadership.
- The Making Meaning of Marikana and Deepening Resistance was an important watershed theme for movement building in South Africa. Marikana signalled the inextricable link between colour and class in South Africa, and that the crisis in South Africa was organic, structural, and reinforced the impoverishment of black people and the systemic transfer of wealth.
- Schools also focused on assisting the movements including the Role Study Groups in Working Class Education, Understanding Political Programmes (also coincides with the local government elections), Popular Education, and the Role of Media (including how to produce a newsletter).
These schools attempted to strengthen participants understanding and their skills to encourage self-organisation and self-education, the use of popular education methodologies and how to produce a newsletter amongst others. - The Covid 19 pandemic had a devastating impact on communities and the July 2021 Food Riots are illustrative of this. No school was held in 2020 and instead Khanya formed the Covid 19 Working Class Campaign (CWCC), a compact group of organisations that met regularly on zoom, and monitored schools and clinics to ensure adequate PPEs. In the Post Covid 19 period, the themes focused on the need to revive the movements. Key themes included Reimagine the World, Organise!. This year the theme similarly is on Solidarity and Mutual Aid.
- In 2009 Khanya made a strategic intervention with the formation of the Jozi Book Fair, to assist in the development of the cognitive and generic skills of the working class. By 2009 the impact of neoliberalism since 1996, had junked down on the working class, leading to 50% of drop outs of those who first enrol at school. The JBF also provides a platform for memory and continuity, and space for progressives to launch books, debate, self-publish and rebuild the social justice through sport, culture and art. This crisis impacts on citizenship and the capacity of people to hold government and those in authority to account. Reading and writing skills have therefore been fundamental to all Khanya’s education and movement building and the capacity of activists to document community experiences.