Franco Barchiesi writes
"The following article was published (in Spanish) in “Brecha” (Montevideo, Uruguay), No. 876, 13 September 2002. The interview was done in Buenos Aires on 28 July 2002.
“South Africa: Popular Forms of Resistance”
Interview with Franco Barchiesi
by Veronica Gago and Diego Sztulwark
It is called operation “Khanyisa”, which means “switch-on” or “connect”. It is a mass practice that is implemented daily in South Africa and it consists of reconnecting basic services that have been suspended due to non payment. It is something not very different from what is going on in many neighbourhoods and communities of the Buenos Aires province. Attracted by this and other similarities, the Italian political analyst Franco Barchiesi -- lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg -- has come to Argentina. He is researching movements of resistance to privatisation in South Africa in relation with the unfulfilled promises of the government of Nelson Mandela and his successors, the first case, as he says, of “national liberation” to take place in times of globalisation. Barchiesi, 34, is one of the editors of the magazine “Debate – Voices from the South African Left”, was active in the Italian social centres and is currently taking part in various anti-neoliberal initiatives in South Africa.
