http://www.zmag.org/content/AllByAuthor.cfm?lname=Barker&fname=Michael&startrow=1

http://michaeljamesbarker.wordpress.com/

He is right. There is no SA chamber of Commerce. But there is a South African Chamber of Business, which is represented on the advisory panel of his “independent” center. The South African Chamber of Business is a business lobby. The claim, then, that “CCS has no ties to any business lobbies of any sort” is wrong.

Is this a deliberate deception, or does Bond not know who is on the advisory panel of his own center? Either way, Bond is not a very reliable source of information on this (nor, as he has shown, on the matter of whether groups like Sokwanele, which are funded by the US government, are truly independent.)

One could make the case that Bond is being deliberately deceptive. By pointing out there is no Chamber of Commerce he is able to avoid addressing the fact that a member of the Chamber of Business (not Commerce) is on the advisory panel of his center (a ruse similar to Clinton’s “I never had sex with that woman.”

Bond’s dishonesty is evident at another level. His arguments are typically personal attacks, the copious use of the word “nonsense” and appeals to authority based on his mailing address – whatever it takes to win a shouting match, and not much more.

For a laugh, check out some of the organizations listed on the CCS’ website as “Other Research Institutes Working on Civil Society”

http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?5,14

Presumably they are recommended:

Ford Foundation
USAID
Friedrich-Ebert Stitfung
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
and so on.

Somehow I can’t picture these sites ending up as links on “What’s Left.”

Hmmmm.
And Friedrich-Ebert Stitfung links the Centre for Civil Society……
http://www.fes.de/in_afrika/studien/studien.htm

Check this out:
http://sds.ukzn.ac.za/default.php?7,12,35,4,0

I wonder what integration they are talking about - into the Western economic model?

Civil Society and Development [ Civil Society]

Brief Description: This research is the product of the Ford Foundation funded Civil Society and African Integration (CSAI) programme, a joint initiative of the School of Development Studies and the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The overarching aim of the programme is to build a consortium of universities and private research centres across the continent that will work collaboratively to develop a research and training programme on Civil Society and African Integration. Through its outputs - the development of a critical mass of institutions and researchers; continental and international visibility; a set of publications - the programme has already created a solid foundation upon which to develop into a useful and permanent feature on Africa’s intellectual landscape that makes important contributions to the objectives of African integration.
Additional Participants: Professor Adam Habib; Dr Mammo Muchie
Participants:
Professor Vishnu Padayachee
Professor Patrick Bond

The US is using civil society to carry out color revolutions. Bond is the director of a center for civil society. His center’s website links to the MDC, the principal formal opposition group the US is using to bring about a color revolution in Zimbabwe. Bond celebrates a US-funded group Sokwanele, which would be one of the principal vanguard movements in a Zimbabwean color revolution. And yet Bond insists he, and the center, are completely independent of the aims of the US government.

Bond presents himself as a serious scholar, and yet his arguments against the Zanu-PF government draw, almost word for word, from the same bag of cliches the Zimbabwe ISO group used. One can hardly take seriously anyone who asserts, with no sense of shame or embarrassment, that “The Zim counter-example, frankly, is a useful one for imperialism to keep alive,” or that “imperialism doesn’t need regime change in Zimbabwe.” Patrick, wake up, and look across the Limpopo river.

Bond’s protests remind me of the fiercely anti-communist social democrats who were generously funded by the CIA during the Cold War, and knew it, but vehemently insisted they were independent of Washington’s aims all the same. Movements, political parties and media have knowingly accepted funding from Western governments, their agencies and pro-imperialist foundations, while proclaiming their complete independence. Members of these groups may genuinely believe they remain aloof from their backer’s aims (and in the West it is often the very groups that claim not to take sides that are the favored recipients of this lucre), but self-deception is an insidious thing – and the promise of oodles of cash is hard to resist.

The most serious insult Gowans might fling were he to do some actual research, is that at one point CCS was funded by US AID on a research capacity-building project with 33 community activists in 2003. However, US AID soon withdrew the funding - and even demanded back money already deposited in the UKZN bank account - after my predecessor Adam Habib began outspoken criticism of the Iraq invasion. Late last year Adam - now one of the SA government’s top research officers - was prohibited entry to the US, spending a day in custody at JFK: http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley12112006.html.

Some debunking:
* As far as I know, CCS has no formal links to Kellogg and never has.
* CCS once received Ford funding but not since 2004; one result of the funding was this book: http://www.ukznpress.co.za/book.php?action=displaybook&confbookid=261.
* The SA NGO Coalition has no formal connection to CCS, and in any case it is laughable to put Sangoco in the category of the ruling class (as even a glance here will show: http://www.sangoco.org.za - just look at the lead cartoon) .
* There is no such thing as the “SA Chamber of Commerce”, and CCS has no ties to any business lobbies of any sort (except making regular critiques).
* As for ABSA banking group, not only is there no connection, I challenge Gowans to identify anyone who has written as many critiques of ABSA and SA banking more generally than myself. One of the things I’ve criticised ABSA for is their connections to the Mugabe regime via Jewel Bank, a point I made last week here - http://www.counterpunch.org/bond03272007.html - which apparently Gowans didn’t read, judging by his backfire allegation. No doubt Gowans will pull out p.42 of this document - http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/annual-report2005.pdf - and find a CCS ‘advisory board member’ from ABSA Foundation. So for the record, during my time at CCS, he has never come to a single meeting or event and I’ve never met, spoken or communicated to him. So ‘no connection’ is still accurate

On the matter of MDC economic policy-making and imperialist interests, I challenge Gowans to find anyone who subjects the party to such detailed critique as myself and coauthor Simba Manyanya, in Zimbabwe’s Plunge: http://www.ukznpress.co.za/book.php?action=displaybook&confbookid=191.

On how “these policies would benefit the corporations, investors and banks connected to Bond’s Center for Civil Society”, I challenge Gowans to find any academic centre in SA working as hard against neoliberalism and imperialism.

Gowans is not only politically ridiculous, he is incompetent, and I won’t take him seriously any more. Ironically Gowans relied on one of my articles for 1/3 of his citations in his critique of the ANC: http://www.counterpunch.org/gowans04032004.html - but from here on out, I hope he steers clear, given what a wreckless driver he is on the info highway.