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Read the Interview
with John S. Saul
on the MR Webzine:
Africans are regrounding
the liberation struggle
in new terms—as part
of a global movement.

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September 2005

ISBN:
1-58367-125-0
$21.95 paper

384 pp.

Southern Africa/Politics

THE NEXT LIBERATION STRUGGLE

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy in Southern Africa

by John S. Saul

“John Saul's book is as much the fruit of many decades of struggle and commitment to the cause of the working class in Africa as it is of careful scholarly research. Both as a scholar and an activist he has taught and inspired many revolutionaries, myself included, and has been part of bold practical efforts to go beyond capitalism.” —TREVOR NGWANE, chair, Anti-Privatization Forum, South Africa

“John Saul writes political science 'from below' most rigorously. His work stands in the international literature as among the most widely-cited analyses of Southern African politics and this book is another extremely important contribution.”—PATRICK BOND, University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, Durban

The end of apartheid in South Africa has been widely viewed as the end of an era of African history. The Next Liberation Struggle is an indispensable guide to understanding how the resources of that era can be used to contribute to real liberation for the region and for the continent of Africa as a whole.

The Next Liberation Struggle integrates the concrete observations of a seasoned observer and participant in southern African liberation struggles with analysis of and reflection on the large question of the place of southern Africa within the global capitalist order and its capacities to contribute toward remaking that global order. It examines specific national developments in South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, and Tanzania. At the same time, it shows throughout how the problems of each national context are linked by a common location in the global order, and argues for a collective regional response.

For the past four decades John S. Saul has been among the foremost left wing analysts of the struggle for liberation in southern Africa. This volume brings together his recent writings on the region in the aftermath of the decade of globalization.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION: Liberation and after

SECTION ONE: CONTINENTAL CONSIDERATIONS

Preface to section I: Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy

1. CAPITALISM: Sub-Saharan Africa in global capitalism
(with Colin Leys)

2. SOCIALISM: The failure of African socialisms and their future

3. DEMOCRACY: Liberal democracy vs. popular democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

SECTION TWO: SOUTHERN AFRICA: A RANGE OF VARIATION

Preface to section II: Peace and Reconciliation; Authoritarianism and African Socialism

4. PEACE: On War and Peace in Africa: The Mozambican Case

5. RECONCILIATION: Lubango and After: 'Forgotten History' as Politics in Contemporary Namibia (with Colin Leys)

6. AUTHORITARIANISM: Wither Zimbabwe: the Mugabe Years
(with Richard Saunders)

7. "AFRICAN SOCIALISM": Nyerere's Tanzania Reconsidered

SECTION THREE: SOUTH AFRICA: DEBATING THE TRANSITION

Preface to section III: South Africa in Transition

8. SOUTH AFRICA: The Transition

9. SOUTH AFRICA: The Post-Apartheid Denouement

10. SOUTH AFRICA: Starting from Scratch? A Debate

11. SOUTH AFRICA: The Hares, the Hounds and the ANC: On Joining the Third World in Post-Apartheid South Africa

SECTION FOUR: THE NEXT LIBERATION STRUGGLE

12. LIBERATION: Africa: The Next Liberation Struggle

Appendix: A Class Act: Canada's Anti-Apartheid Record

About the Authors
JOHN S. SAUL is professor emeritus of politics at York University in Toronto. He is the author of many highly-acclaimed books on the politics of southern Africa, including Recolonization and Resistance: Southern Africa in the 1990s, Namibia's Liberation Struggle, The Crisis in South Africa, and A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique.