Challenging the Pink Tide

Taking on the Pink Tide: A Brief Review of Ben Dangl's Dancing with Dynamite

The raw force and passion of social movements do not lend themselves easily to investigation from the Ivory Tower. Dynamic and fluid, a “movement’s” impetus and value depend largely on who is telling the story. A union leader’s perspective on a wildcat strike will differ from that of a rank-and-file member. Students raging against debt and bankers fighting to keep the payments coming will have radically different understandings of the loan crisis. It’s all tied up in perception.

In Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America, author Benjamin Dangl attempts to harness the explosive, subjective energy of South American social upheavals long enough to commit them to paper. Alongside chronicles of upheaval and solidarity, readers are granted a quick glance into the parallel workings of the proverbial state – cooptation and exclusion are among the most common tactics. He has decided to (cordially) address the elephant in the room: how can/do South American social movements interact with the state while defending their goals and integrity?     

Dangl’s analysis centers on this interplay (a “dance”, he says) between social movements and states, highlighting the inherent tug-o-war the relationship embodies. Sometimes a movement’s demands are reflected in policy. Other struggles are camouflaged by stealthy repression or coopted by center-left parties of the now-famous Pink (aka pseudo-socialist/populist) Tide. 

With the notable exception of the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil, Dangl focuses on movements which are not opposed to working within the proverbial Machine. In Uruguay, for example, left wing activists morphed into ardent supporters of “The Party” when the Frente Amplio needed support, abandoning their grassroots beginnings and ideals to work within the state apparatus. 

The selection of less combative movements implies another set of exclusions, but the choice lends his work mainstream legitimacy. Many of the region’s purportedly left-wing leaders Dangl discusses engage in the same neoliberal, authoritarian tactics as their right-wing predecessors, but with more fashionable branding (hope, anyone?). The author is drawing an obvious conclusion: a government cannot be both progressive and repressive, especially when the targets are democratic, nonviolent movements. 

A bread-and-butter protester outraged by the shortcomings of the Correa presidency in Ecuador is more sympathetic than a Mapuche militant disillusioned by former Chilean President Bachelet’s anti-indigenous tactics. Dangl expertly shows his readers feeling excluded and disenchanted by the state is not just for wingnuts anymore. In the context of the mainstream’s idea of South America (ex: bearded, jumpsuit-clad communist dictators bellowing orders from the Presidential Palace to a sea of obedient, jumpsuit-clad followers), Dynamite challenges some of the most pervasive stereotypes regarding support for the likes of the Morales or Kirschner regimes. 

But Dangl does go the way of many lefty academics in his inability to sufficiently critique Chavez (a negligible discussion of the problematic nature of top-down revolution fills a few pages), he checks Western naiveté by questioning the true radical potential of these leaders. The implication of acceptable anti-authoritarianism begs the question of whether state or social movement is the dynamite in Dangl’s analogy.

In the final chapter, Dangl attempts to tackle the relationship between contemporary US and South American movements. Readers will be relieved to note the obvious comparison he draws between the disabling of US radicalism by the Obama election and similar co-optive coups in Argentina and Ecuador.  Dangl’s insight is tempered by his suggestion that South American movements are directly inspiring uprisings in the US. 

To an extent, Dangl is right. Movements in the Global North certainly have much to learn from those in the South, and an exchange of knowledge is not only desirable, but necessary.  Many specific instances exist - Dangl notes the Republic Window and Doors occupation in Chicago was specifically inspired by Argentine factory occupations. Here in the Belly of the Beast, tactical and ideological exchange with Latin American movements can make organizing more potent and efficient. It's a welcome development when compared to the southward-flow of neoliberalism and US crop surplus, right?

But the Argentines were not the first to occupy a factory and water sovereignty struggles are not unique to Bolivia. To suggest this is to engage in a bizarre sort of paternalism which essentializes Latino knowledge and is likely connected to the Indigenous character of many South American struggles. Besides, Dangl’s work is evidence of a trend even more encouraging than a one-way flow of radical knowledge from South to North. Dancing with Dynamite, in documenting that which cannot be pinned down, is indicative of a vibrant exchange of knowledge where South informs North and the North repays the favor: a globalization of resistance. 

Global Warming: Man-Made Catastrophe or International Conspiracy?

History majors at my university were required to take Historical Methods. To lighten up an otherwise dull module, the professor assigned us each a conspiracy theory to investigate. The cream of the paranoid crop would be posted to his blog, which showcases his favorite projects from over the years. My piece on climate change denial was selected. Read it here.

                                  photo/nyki duda/london 2009

Student Activists Set Sights on DRC

Refugee Turned Student Activist Addresses Conflict in the DRC

April 29, 2010
By: Nyki Duda

Congolese student activist Kambale Musavuli spoke on-campus last week in an effort to "break the silence" surrounding the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The conflict has taken nearly six million lives since 1996.


“Africa cannot develop with the Congo in a state of conflict,” Musavuli told the assembly. He stressed the African country’s intrinsic importance to the continent and the destabilizing effect the extraction of resources and the accompanying political oppression is having on the nation.


Violence and impunity have become the norm in the region as Western companies, Congolese rebels and neighboring Rwandan and Ugandan militaries scramble across the Congo in search of mineral wealth and logging opportunities. At the top of their list is coltan, an ore necessary in the production of most modern electronics, from cell phones to laptops.

Musavuli argues this El Dorado-like quest for riches is fueling conflict in his country and its impacts are radiating throughout Africa.


He came to the United States in 1998 as a refugee from the Congo and has since been engaged with stopping the conflict in his country, joining up with Friends of the Congo in the process. Musavuli is currently part of a campus tour as a spokesperson and student coordinator for the organization. The young activist also produces a weekly podcast on the situation in the Congo.


“I still don’t think the conflict is complex if you have the proper framework to understand it, if you know what to do to stop it. To stop the conflict, we must stop resource exploitation by finding out who is exporting what,” Musavuli said.

Kambale Musavuli sporting a Patrice Lumumba shirt and sharing his
experiences in the DRC with an audience. photo courtesy/musavuli

                                                                                


Paper trail after paper trail has led Congo activists to the United States, where a large portion of the profit being reaped from the violence in the Congo comes to roost. Kemet and HC Starck mine in the Congo, only to sell their product to American corporations like Apple and Bayer. As a result, conflict minerals—i.e. those which are obtained by force and do not financially benefit the DRC as a country—end up in Macbooks and aspirin bottles throughout the United States.


“The aspirations of the Congolese—all those things are taken away because people want to pick up rocks and put them in cell phones. And at the end of the day, there is no amount of humanitarian aid that will change the situation in the Congo. It’s the Congolese on the ground who will change the situation, but your help, active participation of people around the world, can accelerate it,” he said.


Students from the "Season in the Congo” freshman seminar are part of the thousands nation-wide who have answered the call to action. The talk was part of a campus-wide Congo Week organized by the first-years.


Nikki Riley, a student-organizer at USF, is confident that learning about the conflict and its possible solutions will move her classmates to action.


 “Besides simply raising awareness, we also wanted to instill in the USF community a sense of hope for the Congo, and I think Kambale’s talk really achieved that,” Riley said. “We didn’t want to just feed the USF community all the harsh realities about what’s going on there, but we wanted them to gain a sense of hope that things can change with action.”


Lara Sidhu, another seminar student, is hopeful Congo Week will ignite an interest in the DRC and further programming revolving around the country's human rights concerns.

“In class we have talked about creating a Friends Of The Congo branch here on campus to continue bringing awareness and hope to our fellow students and faculty. I would love to one day go with a group of classmates to the DRC to help out in any way possible and to see the beauty the country holds,” she said.


Activists and students in countries across the globe are answering the Congolese call to break the silence alongside Sidhu, Riley and their classmates. Oliver Kearns, a third year International Relations student at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, is active in the struggle to shed light on the conflict in the DRC.


“I think there’s a widespread myth that after the Cold War Africa was abandoned by the rest of the world, that the major Western powers no longer had any use for them,” says Kearns.


For Kearns, Africa was not abandoned by Western corporations or governments, but by social justice and human rights campaigns and activists. The DRC, as one of the most conflict-ridden states on the continent for decades, has suffered the brunt of this isolation.


“This myth of an isolated Africa also means progressive activists just don’t consider the Congo relevant to their political struggles. The conflict’s seen only as an ‘African problem’ or a ‘humanitarian crisis’. This is how you end up with a conflict that’s been literally 1000 times more deadly than the Israel-Palestine conflict getting 1000th of the attention, even though the West is equally implicated in both,” Kearns says.


Musavuli echoed this sentiment, pointing out that the 5 permanent members of the UN security council, the organization many look to for a solution to the troubles in the Congo, are all players in the conflict themselves. As a result, only the symptoms of war are treated with efforts like MONUC, the UN Mission in the DRC, and do not address resource exploitation as a root cause of conflict.


But for the young Congolese student activist, having the odds stacked against him is no reason to waver in his hope for the Congo. Musavuli told the audience: “I’ve been inviting everyone to visit the Congo on July 13, 2031. That’s my 50th birthday; I know the Congo will be free, I know there will be peace.”


For more on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and resources to plan your own Congo Week, visit www.friendsofthecongo.org.

von Bothmer: Vietnam-Era Politics Still Relevant

Professor Releases Account of the Sixties

Posted on 04 March 2010

By Staff Writer: Nyki Duda

When strolling from Fromm Hall down to the freshman dorms, it’s impossible to ignore USF has a distinct cultural and political vibe. From the ever-present didgeridoo-playing bands of Marley fans in Harney Plaza to the Garden Project and service learning requirement, the university frames itself as a tolerant, fun-loving progressive haven.


Bernard von Bothmer, author of the newly released “Framing the Sixties: The Use and Abuse of a Decade from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush,” would argue USF’s decision to self-identify as 'socially just' is typical of a larger political trend that uses the memory of the 1960s as a framework. Terms like 'liberal' or 'radical' are equated with the counterculture of the 'bad' '60s, the dreamy time of JFK and Camelot with the right wing. And vice-verse, depending on your political persuasion.


von Bothmer, an adjunct professor of US history at USF, filters this tendency through the lens of presidential politics, focusing on the ways former presidents have used the legacy of the sixties for political gain. From Clinton distancing himself from the memory of Lyndon Johnson, to Bush the elder’s determination to "kick" Vietnam syndrome, von Bothmer has painstakingly uncovered stores of documents which highlight what he calls the ‘use and abuse’ of the decade in presidential rhetoric and political advertisements.


According to von Bothmer, he chose to study the '60s through executive politics because the connection between the two has received little academic attention. And with his Kennedy-esque style and East Coast accent, von Bothmer dove into the complex world of presidential politics like he belonged there.


“This is a very unique study which I think explains so much of the politics for the last thirty years. I wrote this book because I wanted to explain present day politics through history,” von Bothmer said.


In his research, von Bothmer spoke to multi-administration heavyweights like James Baker, former Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Treasury to Reagan and Secretary of State to George H.W. Bush. But he also consulted giants of the left (like Noam Chomsky) in an effort to piece together first-hand accounts of post-Vietnam politics. The trouble, he argues, is each interviewee wanted to spin the dramatic events of the decade to advance their political agenda.


“Each was special in its own way, giving different insights into all of the different ways we frame the '60s,” von Bothmer said. “I really felt I was getting the inside story from people who were there and knew and worked for these presidents.”


“Framing the Sixties,” released on Feb. 1, saw its campus debut on Feb. 23. A crowd of students and staff gathered for a reading in UC to hear von Bothmer discuss his work and pick up copies of their own. Von Bothmer’s first book has already received high praise—and not only on-campus.


Tom Brokaw, former anchor of the NBC Nightly News and author of “Boom! Talking About the Sixties,” called the book a “smart, impressively researched account of the decade that far too often is reduced to clichés by the left and the right. This book will be invaluable to anyone eager to know the real story behind […] that tumultuous time.”


Obama-Era politics are not exempt from being reduced to what Brokaw calls “clichés”. von Bothmer stressed that for Obama, it is necessary to keep from being associated with President Johnson, something he has already been careful to avoid. Instead, says the author, he has adopted the tactic of both Clinton and Reagan by “hijacking the JFK comparison” that was made throughout his presidential campaign.


But President Obama is not the only way the 1960s’ will impact the youth of today for von Bothmer. The author also made sure to note that by demonizing the sixties, we also demonize political activity.


“We have to be careful about romanticizing the 60s’, but at the same time, we can’t discount them. Idealism is important—it’s a hope for a better tomorrow and it’s sad that those dreams have disappeared since the end of the sixties.”


He also sees hope in the future, however, and in the memory of those who came out of the culture dominated by what he calls the “silent generation of the 50s’” and broke down barriers in the following decade.


“As a teacher, I stress to my students that democracy can’t function if people are disengaged and so I encourage them to keep reading the paper or keep up with current events. Young people need to know this history and how they’re being manipulated. Don’t let politics on either side of the aisle frame politics for you; learn it for yourself, find out what really went on and what’s going on now.”


von Bothmer will be featured as a contributor on an upcoming panel on the legacy of Howard Zinn, a prominent American author, historian and activist. He will host the panel with fellow history professor Uldis Kruze at 12:30 p.m. on March 30, location forthcoming


For information on how you can purchase “Framing the Sixties,” a list of upcoming appearances and his blog chronicling contemporary uses and abuses of the 1960s, visit www.FramingtheSixties.com.

 -------


Read the original article here.

Welcoming the Tiger

Members of the Chinese Student and Scholar Association put on performances and played games to entertain guests and celebrate the Chinese New Year.

 photo & caption/ alexander crook/Foghorn

Chinese Students Ring in Year of the Tiger

Posted on 25 February 2010
By Staff Writer: Nyki Duda

Dozens of USF students and staff filled Fromm Hall’s Xavier Chapel to celebrate the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year on Friday, Feb. 19. The festival was organized by the Chinese Student and Scholar Association to welcome the Year of the Tiger. The lunar year officially began on Feb. 14, but the Chinese Association’s festival fell on the sixth day of the 15-day celebration, the Lantern Festival.


Visitors were greeted by a red, festive atmosphere and an evening packed with performances honoring Chinese history and culture. The program included everything from traditional music and dance to a modern take on a legend acted out by members of the Chinese Association. The audience was regaled with stories of the history of Chinese New Year in Mandarin, Cantonese and English .


“The beginning of the Chinese New Year started with the fight against the beast Nien,” the emcee boomed to the crowd. According to legend, she continued, Nien would arrive to pillage and destroy villages, killing children and wrecking crops and livestock. After the monster had its fill, it would leave only to return at the start of the next lunar year.


One year, some villagers witnessed Nien fleeing a child dressed in red. From the tale, wearing or decorating in red and lighting firecrackers became synonymous with Lunar New Year celebrations in an effort to keep the monster away.


Though New Year traditions vary regionally, emphasis is placed on togetherness. The sharing of food, usually dumplings or rice cakes, and gift giving are both common practices throughout the Chinese community.

The Chinese Association’s festival was no different, treating guests to a Chinese dinner and asking guests to sport name tags to promote conversation. They served their purpose. A low murmur of chatter punctuated the presentation and camera flashes bounced off of the bright walls of the room as students photographed their friends on stage.


Yue Song, the President of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, was pleased with the vibrant atmosphere of the festival after logging hours of work in the run-up to the celebration.


“We’ve spent a lot of time preparing. Last week, most of the performers were only getting five hours of sleep a night,” he said. “The celebration for the Chinese New Year is for China what Christmas is for the Western cultures [and] is the most important holiday for Chinese people,” Song reiterated.


Song was also impressed by the high level of attendance, joking that most friends “came for the Chinese food.” The exhausted organizer chuckled as he watched attendees wander from Xavier Chapel into the foyer, retiring to the floor with plates buckling under the weight of dumplings and rice.


The majority of attendees were Chinese students, evidence of the influx of Chinese international students at USF. According to Song, Chinese students make up the largest chunk of the university’s pool of international students with roughly 250.


For Song and the Chinese Association, the support of their community by USF, a university renowned for its diversity, was important to the success of the festival, the second of its kind in the past three years. Just as important was the presence of the university’s president, Father Stephen Privett.


“USF has a large Chinese population, and it’s important to show them how much we appreciate them and how valued their culture is,” Privett said.


Song stressed that the event was not just for the Chinese community, pointing out the elements of other cultures in the festival and its modern undertones. Beyond the more traditional aspects, the program featured an appearance by the USF Hawaiian ensemble, a classical piano performance, and a jazz dance choreographed to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.”


Senior Lina  Calderón-Morin seconded this sentiment, arguing that this recognition of Chinese culture was tantamount to the appreciation of difference as a whole.


“I love Chinese New Year because it’s a celebration of life not just for the Chinese community, but a time when we can share and enjoy the rich diversity of our city and university,” Calderón-Morin said.


The event was co-sponsored by the Center for the Pacific Rim, International Relations and the Chinese program.

 Original story published in the USF Foghorn.

Students Picket Exxon, Economic Forum

Students Picket Exxon, Economic Forum

Sunday, 3 May 2009
By: Nyki Duda

Members of the Left Society staked out day two of the St Andrews Economic Forum (SAEF) yesterday, held in Lower Parliament Hall. The small demonstration was in opposition to oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, one of the forum's sponsors.

Students distributed information to attendees and passerby alike, receiving reactions ranging from concern to fury. One forum goer engaged in a heated discussion with Seema Patel, a fourth year Neuroscience student.

"A student stomped up to me and started shouting that Exxon is helping the nations where they extract
 resources with social programs and donations. He didn't acknowledge the company's role in environmental degradation or governmental instability," Patel said.

But the trouble was not checked at the door. An uproar began inside when Connall McGinley, a protester and Scottish Socialist Party member, attempted to hand out leaflets inside the forum. A paid attendee of the conference, McGinley was threatened with expulsion from Lower Parliament Hall by one of the forum's organizers.

The Society's leaflet cited the corporation as a prominent supporter of climate change denial research and a major generator of pollution. ExxonMobil's projects are responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions.

International Relations student Lukas Ross showing off his placard outside of Lower Parliament Hall. Forum attendees and passersby expressed both support and disdain for the picket.

photo/nyki duda

Read the edited post on the Taycoast Scottish Socialist Party blog here. 

Struggle for Lower Rents in St Andrews

Dr. Louise Richardson (purple hood) walks past protesters on North Street on her way to being inaugurated as the first female principal of St Andrews University. The students were protesting Richardson's planned demolition of Fife Park, the University's only available affordable accommodation in a town where monthly rents are increasingly on the rise. photo/nyki duda

LOWER RENTS NOW! COALITION
Nyki Duda
07503347517
npduda@usfca.edu
25 March 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
St Andrews Students Call for Lower Rents at Principal's Installation
    Students from the Lower Rents Now! Coalition voiced their anger as the new principal, Dr. Louise Richardson, was installed today. The picket, covered on STV and Tay FM, was to remind Richardson and other university staff that the issue of affordable accommodation is still a pertinent one for many students in the midst of this global economic crisis.

    After arriving with signs and leaflets in hand, students were promptly asked not to carry on with the protest and told they would not be allowed to protest on University premises.

    LRN!C continued their activities off of university property, passing on information to those making their way to Dr. Richardson's installation. Following the ceremony, the protesters made their way to St Salvator's Quad with leaflets, where they were asked to leave and threatened with disciplinary action by University personnel, though no official reason was given.

    "I think it's disgraceful that they asked us to leave and threatened disciplinary action while we were being civil and respectful," Mary Andes, a third year International Relations student, said of the protest.

    LRN!C is a group of students who have been lobbying the University to re-think its policies, and this protest was meant to mirror the one they held outside of ex-principal Brian Lang's retirement celebration at the end of the fall semester. The students stated that they were not targeting Richardson or her appointment, but rather letting the Principal know that they are not prepared to be ignored.   

    "This isn't a protest against the principal, it's a protest against the principles of the university," said Alex Bennett, an LRN member and first year student studying International Relations.

    At the forefront of LRN!C's platform is the struggle to keep Fife Park from becoming like the David Russell Apartments: unnecessarily expensive, 3-star accommodation.  The new principal has already shown that she is of a slightly different mindset than Lang. Dr. Richardson was recently quoted in “The Saint” calling Fife Park ‘hideous’ and ‘not of a standard that […] students are entitled to.’

    Richardson suggests an increased number of bursaries to help students pay for more costly housing at an upgraded Fife Park. LRN(!)C members doubt the effectiveness and sustainability of this measure if not combined with decreased fees.

    LRN!C is looking for the University to live up to its promise of making one-sixth of beds affordable accommodation. They have student support and mandate for a full 1000 affordable beds in the form of a petition signed by 1000 St Andrews students last year.
   
END
Notes for editor:
Photographs available upon request.

Gravel Spends Run-up to Super Tuesday at USF

Below is a 2008 article I wrote for the Foghorn covering then-presidential candidate Mike Gravel's appearance at USF on Super Tuesday Eve. Two USF students had contacted him to speak on campus and he happily obliged.

Gravel Speaks on Eve of Super Tuesday

By: Nyki Duda
February 2008

Globalization of Dress

Compromising Culture

Nyki Duda
Winter 2007, Divisadero 

The holidays can inspire guilt. Credit cards maxed out and car trunks full of gifts for the family, US consumers rush home to clean out their closets, determined to “give back” in the spirit of the season. Unwanted clothes are dumped into charity collection bins. From there, it’s on to the thrift store. 

Charity shops can be cluttered, too, and when their racks can’t accommodate the overstock, the clothes are sent to the needy. Right? 

Well, sort of. Some US organizations have begun to send their excess to Latin America, where “donated” clothing from the US is sold at dirt-cheap prices. A fine idea in theory – provide affordable clothing to impoverished Latin Americans. Beneath the surface, the practice poses a serious threat to Latin American culture as Western brands and style overtake traditional ways of dress.

Due mostly to questionable labor practices, US customers are offered lower prices on clothing made overseas in developing nations. As prices deflate, clothing becomes disposable and we continue to replace it. Out-of-style duds are donated to second-hand stores where they are (usually illegally) exported to Latin America. Like other shadow economies, the illegal trade in used clothing is near-impossible to control. 

Now, on US soil and in metropolises like Mexico City or Lima, it is common to see city dwellers dressed in the latest Western styles. Lately, Nike and GAP labels have been cropping up in the cerros of Honduras and the pampas of the Southern Cone alike. Traditional rural or gaucho wares are less common, outshined by US used imports. Indigenous communities that have sustained their post-contact cultures on a semblance of tradition find their native dress impractical compared to blue jeans.

Patricia Salinas, a resident of Munster, Indiana, has family in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. As a youth spending her summers there, she recalls the women would wear “shawls, long skirts, leather sandals; things you associate with Mexico and its culture.” A mostly mestizo area, the regional style was far from distinctive. 

Still, after returning to her family’s home last summer after 15 years, she was in for a shock when she saw her 87-year old aunt, Jovita Salinas Fuentes, in a familiar getup. 

“She was wearing jeans and a button-up shirt from Wal-Mart,” she recalled.

In April 2007, Bolivian President Evo Morales banned imports of used clothing from countries like the US. Bolivia, like neighboring Peru, has a large, vibrant and impoverished indigenous population with unique traditional styles.

The land-locked nation is the 32^nd country in the world to implement this strict conditional ban along with Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. But is the ban ethical when traditional clothing like the pollera of the Aymara women, is almost prohibitively expensive? 

Like other leaders, Morales feels affordable used clothing isn’t worth the cost of a loss of national identity. In fact, he often sports an artisanal Bolivian-made sweater at official functions. Both moves could and are being construed as statements against US imperialism, but for his countrymen, the option to buy Bolivian is hardly a realistic one. 

In his July 2007 article “Morales to Ban Used Clothing in Bolivia,” journalist Dan Keane spoke to Jose Luis Hernandez, a Bolivian citizen concerned by the ban. 

“I don’t know what it’s like to wear new clothing,” he said. “My pay isn’t enough after food, the rent.”

A wider Latin American ban of used clothing will leave families like the Hernandezes with few options. But should the shipments of Western apparel continue to roll in, maintaining national and indigenous identities will undoubtedly become more of a struggle.

Power to the Peaceful

The following is the first piece I wrote for the USF Foghorn. After living in San Francisco only a few weeks, the assignment to cover one of its most popular festivals made me a bit anxious, but the story wound up on the front page.

Power to the Peaceful

By: Nyki Duda
September 2007