Transformation Journal

about us

Transformation was born in 1986 at the height of the popular anti-apartheid
struggle in South Africa. Its earliest days coincided with scenes of riot,
violence and repression on an unprecedented scale. Depressing and
overwhelming as was this backdrop much of the time, it was equally one
of mass meetings, strikes, spontaneous organisation and feverish political
activity. It was a period not merely of optimism amongst a people given to
hope, but even of bouts of euphoria. The old regime clearly was dying and
it was uncertain what would succeed it; the possibilities seemed infinite
and infinitely liberating at times. But this was kept in check by the harsh
reality of systematic repression - the regime was fighting back in the name
of reform. Repression, by contrast with the Ice Age of the 1960s, could not
succeed even in the short term without further institutional change and
experimentation that left holes open for change and for new forms of
resistance. The old regime was dying, but it was not dead yet by a long way
and the impact of its final breath would be felt for some time; the popular
movement was giving birth to a new society but it was not going to be born
according to the beat of its own clarion call.

In some ways, this period of balance between repression and popular
resistance suited the rise of Transformation. Its founders felt the need to
provide a forum for analysis amidst the euphoria of idealistic spontaneity,
reflection amidst the frenzy of popular action, independence amidst the
compelling pressure to bow to the discipline of various political factions.
The new journal was never euphoric or partisan. In mood, it always
suggested the need to look about for complexities, for contradictions, for
the possibilities of setback. Its roots lay in a clearly perceived need for an
analytic forum and political voice that would marry the European academic
traditions of left theoretical analysis with the organised and spontaneous
mass movements operating on the ground. The very choice of name
reflected the need critically to engage with transforming South African
society as well as the political modalities of how this was to be brought
about. The name embodied a space to reflect on both issues of structure and
agency. So, for example, a dominant political theme in the early years was
an emphasis on engagement and involvement as opposed to outright
boycott and irrevocable hostility to the surrounding realities. This could be
understood in a reformist vein of course but it was largely couched in the
language of structural change, of winning the battle for organisational
hegemony with revolutionary intentions.

Transformation was a journal of the independent Left meant to take in
the political economy and organisational life of a changing South Africa.
It was not hostile to the resurgent African National Congress/South African
Communist Party movement but it was also clearly not its political vehicle
either. Fiercely independent, it provided a forum for views that were
critical of strategies and tactics that might undermine a transition, perhaps
a very gradual transition, to a socialist and non-racial settlement. Alongside
the emphasis on institutional and economic issues lay, from the beginning,
an insistence on the salience of class issues. Suspicion about the hijacking
of liberation politics by a new ethnic or racial bourgeoisie lay behind this
salience and united most early contributors. Yet the tone was not one of
cynicism but of critical engagement and of optimism about the potential for
structural change that would minimise the role of such a bourgeoisie.
The birth of Transformation was also a time of rapid growth in the
alternative media, as has been documented and intelligently discussed in
Nicholas Evans and Monica Seeber's recent book, The Politics of Publishing
in South Africa. While journals aimed at a wider public such as Work in
Progress (WIP) and the South African Labour Bulletin struggled to grasp
historical and theoretical analyses, small academic journals such as Cape
Town's Social Dynamics seemed to thrive on a diet of politicisation.
Transformation had a particular political outlook, but its non-partisan
approach allowed it to be respected and receive contributions both from
those identified as mainstream liberals and from significant actors in the
world of the ANC and the UDF. It tried to bridge the gap between political
engagement and intellectual rigour while taking on material from a host of
disciplines and concerning the entire southern African region. In so doing,
Transformation took its cue from qualities perceived in other intellectual
sources - that of the analytic independence of New Left Review coupled
with the Review of African Political Economy's attempt to be immediately
politically relevant. The original editors were delighted with the schematic
chameleon created for our cover by Cape Town artist Cliff Bestall. The
chameleon's robust little body marked by such appetite and capacity for
change - especially colour change — was confined to a skeletal frame only
in its normally less visible rear end. This spoke for irony, for contradiction
and for the need on the part of South Africans to have a good look at the
product they were consuming.

Transformation's early production and distribution routines can only be
called artisanal and were not without embarrassing flaws, derived as it were
from the voluntary work of politically committed and engaged university
academics who had not yet had to experience the philistine pressures of the
management-run, profit-driven university of today. This collective
enthusiasm, which made the journal available in all of South Africa's
alternative bookshops and at many of the workshops and conferences
which marked the struggle years, brought circulation up quickly to many
hundreds.

The original team of founder editors were Bill Freund, Gerry Mare and
Mike Morris, all of whom had recently taken jobs at the University of Natal
in Durban. Bill was an historian by training, but his interests had tended to
shift towards political economy. As a foreigner, he was always interested
in situating the South African scene in a broader picture. He had a wide
range of friends and contacts throughout the world and notably in a number
of African countries where he had lived and taught. Despite idealistic
opposition from his friends and colleagues outside the country he felt it
important to come to Natal in order to participate in, and contribute to, the
critical environment of the South African universities of the time. His wide
range of intellectual interests ensured a broad coverage of the journal's
scope. Gerry had a broad interest in development, particularly with reference
to rural areas, having done a masters' course at the pioneer development
studies programme at Wits. He had been a founder of WIP and thus brought
much needed publishing experience and confidence in what was possible
on a new journal. He was a sharp critic of any sort of ethnic nationalism
deriving from his own experiences as an Afrikaner and student of Afrikaans
literature. Mike, steeped in the French left structuralist Marxism of the
1970s, had been a founder of the new left analysis of South Africa's
political economy which so heavily impacted on many academics of this
decade. He came to the university and the journal after spending some
years in the thick of the burgeoning independent trade union movement.
This movement emphasised critical engagement in the act of constructing
organisational strength and had thrived despite the suspicions of boycottist
lobbies internationally. His background in development studies and
philosophy, mixed with the sharp practicality learned in the union movement,
brought a unique combination of theory and pragmatism to editorial
assessment. Vishnu Padayachee, an economic researcher at the University
of Durban-Westville, joined this crew within a year (Transformation 5,
1987). He has long since shifted to the University of Natal but in fact the
editors have ever since represented both institutions, now seemingly on the
verge of merging under the aegis of the plans of the Minister of Education.
Vishnu was engaged in researching the role of Indian workers in the
struggle in order to reject the ethnic anti apartheid politics that dominated
Durban at the time. Like the editors he joined, he was very interested in
Marxism, labour issues, the implications for reform in South Africa, and in
the creation of a genuine non-racial society. He brought a necessary broad
knowledge of economics to the editorial board.

If we look through the early issues of Transformation, a number of
themes come up already in the 1980s quite clearly:

• while contributors represented the whole country, there has always been
a strong emphasis on Natal, on KwaZulu-Natal, and on the city of
Durban. The peculiar feature of the province lay in the popular strength
of Inkatha (later the Inkatha Freedom Party), the existence of the Natal
Indian Congress and its ethnic-based anti-apartheid politics, and in the
relative power of the trade unions vis-a-vis the UDF and by extension,
the ANC. The questionable aspects of Inkatha politics came up frequently
in articles. However, the non-dominance of Congress politics actually
created a kind of free space for discussion of issues, which might have
met vociferous condemnation in other centres;
• the journal has from time to time been successful in obtaining important
interventions from significant intellectual voices from distant places
such as Henry Bernstein, Gavin Williams, Raphie Kaplinsky, Dan
O'Meara, Ronald Aronson, Linda Freeman, Ben Fine and John Saul.
These would also include African voices such as those of Mahmood
Mamdani, Thandika Mkandawire and Claude Ake;
• independent, but engaged voices such as those of Neville Alexander,
Pallo Jordan, Blade Nzimande, Rob Davics, Alec Erwin and the late
Sipho Maseko and Harold Wolpc have been featured. At the same time,
we have sometimes run important documents or statements from more
established ANC figures, particularly before 1990 when so much was
censored;
• over the years, Transformation has been able to produce articles and
reviews that consider virtually every country in the region including
Namibia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland. Zimbabwe
has been examined in a number of issues over a long period of time;
• among disciplines, some have been represented better than others. Early
issues pinpointed struggles and issues in education, an area of great
importance to the editors and often neglected in such documents as the
RDP. We have occasionally explored the doings of anthropologists,
philosophers and psychologists. Historians of the calibre of Peter Delius
and Colin Bundy have contributed to our pages. We have published from
time to time in areas such as the media, social policy, human rights and,
more consistently, labour organisation. Nonetheless it must be said that
economics and political economy, not surprisingly given the bent of the
editors, have consistently ranked high among subjects covered. We have
always operated on the basis that interdisciplinary knowledge was of the
greatest importance, however. Intellectuals need to understand what is
happening in areas of interest other than their own;
• there has been a consistent long-term interest in issues concerning land
and agriculture from the earliest issues to a focus issue (Transformation
44, 2000). An agriculture issue is being planned for 2003;
• another consistent interest has been in the conditions through which
South African society could democratise, both formally and more
profoundly with regard to a wide variety of issues. The form of debates
about democracy has of course shifted markedly over the years;
• Transformation has made a contribution to the construction of South
African feminism and ideas relevant to its development. The first
overtly feminist contribution was by Jo [Metelerkamp] Beall, Shireen
Hassim and Alison Todes and wryly called 'A bit on the side'. It featured
in Transformation 5 in 1987. We produced a focus issue on gender in
1990, issue 15. In addition, Transformation tried to play a helpful role
in the birth and early years of Agenda, South Africa's most significant
feminist journal, which was also a Durban creation;
• we have tried from our first issue to support the culture of books in South
Africa by reviewing significant new publications.

The history of Transformation has, however, been as complicated in a
sense as the history of contemporary South Africa. A distinct new phase
was reached, for instance, from 1990, when articles focused on the politics
and economics of transition, while the politics of the struggle fell away.
Transformation 12 in 1990 recorded some aspects of a groundbreaking
workshop in Harare attended by Mike, Bill and Vishnu in which COSATU
and ANC intellectuals discussed the days to come. Issue 18/19 consisted of
pieces produced at an important workshop held at the University of Natal
in 1992 on the transition, covering a wide range of policy issues. Some
participants at the conference have remained academics; most have not,
and some have become prominent in the new government. These issues
have an historic resonance now. The workshop was sponsored and created
by Transformation and was partially subvented by the change-orientated
Canadian IDRC.

In 1987, Alec Erwin, later to become Minister of Trade and Industry in
the national government, was warning us (in issue 5) about elite pacting
with regard to Natal politics: by 1994 this would ring a bit ironically. As
early as 1994, we published an article in issue 25 by Vishnu co-authored
with Asghar Adalzadeh telling us that the Reconstruction and Development
blueprint was underpinned in fact by a strong conservative economic
analysis, a critique which has certainly resonated since amongst left critics
of the ANC government. Vishnu was part of the MERG team which
attempted to forge a more left path for the new South Africa. At the same
time, we published much material connected to the initiatives of the
Industrial Strategy Project with which Mike was associated.

The very nature of the journal has meant that adjustment to the changes
of a democratic South Africa have contained real dilemmas and difficulties.
Subscriptions fell away as many individuals lost their taste and time and
interest for critical debate. Debates within our pages certainly became less
frequent. At the same time, it became hard to drum up quality articles in
some phases, when it seemed as though everyone of intelligence had left
the universities and NGOs to sign up as consultants. It proved in a way
fortunate that Transformation had never depended on foreign funding. It
was never a capital-intensive operation. Moreover it benefited from having
met the formal criteria to achieve SAPSE accreditation in 1989, which gave
authors who continued to be based at the universities, some standing or
even funds from their home institutions providing an incentive to contribute.
We survived - by contrast with other excellent journals such as WIP and
New Ground.

In 1995 the editorial group was joined by John Daniel, whose years of
exile had included time with Britain's renowned Zed Press. We finally had
a political scientist rather than a political economist to write about politics!
John was based at the University of Durban-Westville and he also became
involved in the riveting Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Mike and
Vishnu both felt in 1998 that they needed to think about new directions and
concentrate their activities elsewhere. With their "disappearance Gerry,
John and Bill brought into the editorial board a new team of colleagues
belonging to a new generation - economist Imraan Valodia, literary critic
Lindy Stiebel, political analyst Adam Habib (from 1998) and sociologist of
youth and policing Monique Marks. Our cover was re-designed by Immie
Mostert, with a somewhat more intact chameleon, still however looking for
titbits, and perched on an uncomfortable thorn twig.

Diversity has worked! We are now picking up material at a much faster
clip, attracting the attention of foreign scholars of the calibre of Bjern
Beckman and Antoine Bouillon in our recent issue 48, and finding more
and better young local talent. The current brief calls on us to acknowledge
the importance and impact of culture and we have been able to include
relevant material for some time in our issues (although we have been
concerned with cultural issues from an early point: Ari Sitas wrote about
black worker poetry in our second issue). It has become possible to publish
a slew of focus issues on subjects such as land, crime, race and agriculture.
The pioneer focus issue on the TRC was edited by John and came out in
2000 as Transformation 42.

The South African Left today is looking at a whole variety of issues. It
sets itself up against 'globalisation'; it looks with some sympathy at
growing struggles around availability of infrastructure and basic economic
rights; it expresses anxiety at the questionable attitude of the ANCto whites
and other racial minorities while becoming the chosen steed of a black
business elite; it interests itself over a broad range of human rights issues;
it is concerned with the cultural and historical contextualisation of issues
being investigated; and it confronts the social disasters of HIV/AIDS and
poverty. We are trying to pick up on all these strands, and recognise others,
and continue to make, we hope, an important contribution, to the
development of intellectual activity and critical thought in a democratised
but very imperfect South Africa. This issue is a landmark; we have been at
it for 50 issues and we have continued to make that contribution. Let us
hope that we can continue to renew ourselves and attract readers and
contributors of the quality that have made this project so worthwhile thus
far. Viva Transformation viva!