0-10 min

Chancellor
President Thabo Mbeki
Vice Chancellor
Professor Mandla Makhanya
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am honoured to be invited to give this lecture and I hope I can do justice to it.
When formulating the title for this lecture, I had in mind Du Bois book of nearly a
century ago, Africa and the world. In Africa and the World, Du Bois took a
historical perspective; his focus was on Africas contribution to the making of the
world. My purpose is to look at the present and the future from the vantage point
of the all important question raised by the South African Student Movement over
the past year: decolonisation. In todays talk, I propose to look at the modern
period through the lens of globalisation and decolonisation.

The first globalisation was associated with the rise of western power in the
centuries that followed 1492. These centuries led to the colonisation of the three
continents, the Americas, Africa and Asia. We can trace the beginnings of the
second globalisation to the era of revolution that begun with the Russian
revolution and continued with the great revolutions in China, Cuba, Algeria and
Vietman. Though each claimed a mantel of socialism, I think these developments
are better recognised as high points of a decolonising global movement which
paved the way for political independence in the colonies. If the first globalisation
was a colonising movement, the second globalisation can be said to represent its
antithesis: decolonisation. If colonialism and anti-colonialism can be summed up
as two contradicting forms of colonisation, one anchored in the West and the
other outside it, this simplified understanding of modern history, is considerably
complicated by recent developments. I am referring to Brexit and the election of
Donald Trump as the President of the United States. While both have been
understood as expressions of popular mobilisation again globalisation, I will
argue that both need to be understood in a narrower sense: as mobilisations
against the neo-liberal face of globalisation. Both represented a stunning
reversal in the institutionalised practice of politics. Politics as a profession, as
known in the West. No sector of the establishment, neither political parties, nor
established media of the right, left or centre had the slightest inkling of what was
around the corner. Few academic pundits could claim to be ahead of the curve.
Both Brexit and the US election represent the most remarkable rupture between
machine politics and popular politics.

Populism has come to the West. How should Africa understand this shift? Let me
begin with President Trump. We all know that Clinton won the popular vote and
Trump the voting college. So in what sense was this result a popular outcome?
Imagine what would have happened if the result had been the reverse. If Clinton
had won the Electoral College and Trump the popular vote by over two million
and Clinton had been declared winner of the election. My guess is that Trump
supporters would have been in the streets, the way Clinton supporters were not.
But why? Because Clinton was a machine and Trumps candidacy was propelled
forward by a movement. Because Clinton promised a continuation of the status
quo and Trump a change of sorts.

Liberal democrats were shocked by the result; some were so dazed you would
think this had been a second 9/11. It was after all 9/11! Who voted for Trump
and why? Were they a racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic lot? A basket of
deplorable in Clintons unfortunate phrase? Where they mobilised around real
issues to which liberals had no answers. Maybe why these issues never figured
in the campaign. Even if Trump seems increasingly cornered by the deep state,
and seems to be looking for favour with the liberal establishment by beating
drums of war, even if Trump should fall in the coming months or year, these
issues will not go away. I have in mind two issues: immigration and war as
crusade for human rights. Both are key to the definition of the neo-liberal face of
contemporary globalisation. We know that historically, borders have been of
concern mainly to business. Borders signify the outlines of home market
capitalists need to control. What we have been slow to realise is that borders are
of increasingly significance for working people. In the era of national sovereignty
and national citizenship, every advance in minimum wage and in social benefits
is an advance limited to citizens and permanent residents. No one thinks of these
as part of human rights. This is why unlimited or lax immigration has come to be
seen as undermining historically gained wage levels and social rights.
Immigration especially of the unskilled and the poor has become a code word for
the entry of cheap labour. Thats the new situation. Business can be pro
immigration, and workers can be anti immigration. Does the left have an
immigration policy that addresses these concerns? In both South Africa and the
US it is assumed that anti-immigration evidence of a xenophobic society
restrained by a state focused on rights. I would like to suggest that we consider
the opposite hypothesis: it is the state that has been sanctioning xenophobia. As
Marx wrote in the 18th Brumaire [of Louis Bonaparte] wrote if you play fiddle
at the top of the state, you should not be surprised that those down below
dance

In South Africa, the official definition of an immigrant until 1991 was that he or
she had to be able to assimilate in to the white population. By definition black
people from the rest of Africa were not immigrants but temporary guest, contract
labourers. The entire region, as you well know, was a pool of potential cheap
labour for South African mines, farms and industries.