This paper could be seen as being about a `form', `aspect' or `activity' of internationalism. But I see communication as less an aspect than the core of the new internationalisms. This requires a little explanation. 

I share, firstly, the position taken by Mark Poster (1995) in relation to the Internet. For him, communication must be understood less as a hammer (a tool) than Germany (a space, a community). In the case of global solidarity communication, this space and community should perhaps be thought of as less like Germany (a historically-determined, culturally-defined and already-occupied space) than Utopia (a community to be imagined, a space yet to be settled). 

`Communication', secondly, covers a broad area, even as applied to traditional labour internationalisms. It includes, or has included, conferences, visits and exchanges, Mayday celebrations, publications of many types, photos, film, TV programmes, video tapes, drama, song, painting and monuments. 

Global solidarity communication, thirdly, has, like political solidarity, many axes, directions, levels, forms, breadths and extents. Today, for example, internationalist communication increasingly includes the computer-mediated kind, with its own many such dimensions (for labour see Waterman 1992b, Lee 1997, for the highly computer-conscious Zapatistas in Mexico, see Cleaver 1995). 

In so far, finally, as `communication' implies values as well as channels, I would argue the necessity for some kind of `global solidarity culture' (GSC) as an alternative to a globalised one. A global solidarity culture, for me, implies the creation of transterritorial relations that enrich and empower popular and democratic communities or collectivities by exchanging, sharing, diversifying and synthesising their ideas, skills and arts. The strength of the dominant pattern of international relations and communications lies in finance, machinery, institutions, arms, territory, and their tendency to stratify, segment, oppose, oppress and destroy. Information is here a resource to be hoarded, sold, controlled and used to reinforce the concentration of wealth and influence. The strength of a GSC is asymmetrical. It lies precisely in the use and furthering of international communication and culture as a cooperative, constructive and creative relationship between people. Unlike a globalised culture, a GSC would not be something coming from one or two countries or a handful of companies, nor one which homogenises. It would, on the contrary, provide both space for and stimuli to the local and particular, valuing difference and variety - at least in so far as these were not themselves racist, chauvinist, sexist, militaristic and authoritarian. 

In this paper I will deal primarily with one labour publication in one country. The publication is a small-circulation labour-movement magazine rather than a trade-union one. It is also a political journal rather than a popular or semi-popular magazine. It has, however, a privileged role, both in its country of origin and internationally. The South African Labour Bulletin (SALB), originating with and heavily-supported by left labour academics, has played a major role within the South African labour movement over a period of some two decades. It is, however, also one of the few platforms existing internationally for discussion on labour and socialist internationalism, prints contributions on and from many parts of the world, and is both closely read and widely respected amongst union officers and labour specialists internationally. As a country, finally, South Africa seems to appropriately incorporate the contradictions of both North and South in an age in which this opposition is being overlaid and criss-crossed by others. 

The question to be considered here is the manner and extent to which this magazine, coming out of one of the dynamic new national labour movements of the 1970s-80s, communicates a new kind of internationalism, and communicates this in a new way. It is possible to investigate this in a more than impressionistic manner. In what follows, I will conceptualise `approach' and `style' as related to the communication of labour internationalism. I will provide some background on SALB. I will then consider its international coverage in terms of quantity and quality, with quality being examined in terms of approach and style. I will, finally, make a comparison of the SALB's international coverage with that of its South African feminist counterpart, Agenda. This should serve as an appropriate bridge between our consideration of the old (and new) labour and socialist internationalisms on the one hand and the new ones of women and feminism on the other. 
 
 

Conceptualisation

`Approach', here, indicates theory, ideology or worldview, as customarily related to a state, party, movement, a revered past society or a desired future one. Relevant approaches to the foreign and international (F/I) in the South African case are listed below (`foreign' is material focused primarily on foreign countries/regions; `international' is that concerned either with relations between countries/regions, or with the international/global level). Relevant approaches would here seem to be the following: 

There is no necessary one-to-one relationship between approach and style, although, for example, the Informational/Analytical style may predominate in contemporary international Social-Democratic discourse, and the Critical/Self-Reflexive has not been typical (`criticism and self-criticism' notwithstanding) of the international Communist or Marxist-Leninist one. Nor is there a one-to-one relationship between historical moment/period and predominant style, although certain correspondences have been suggested. I do, however, consider that the appropriate style today for international and internationalist communication should be this fourth one. It seems to me that the only sound basis for a global solidarity culture under conditions of a globalised information capitalism is dialogue between groups operating predominantly in the critical, creative and self-reflective mode. In saying `appropriate' I allow for the possibility and, indeed, necessity for other styles, in so far as these address other such other human needs and capacities as the affective or expressive - or are required by other media. `Style', finally, should be considered an attribute not so much of individual messages as of the medium that carries them. This could, for example, mean that whilst an individual article might be in any of the above styles, that of an internationalist publication should, today, be the Critical/Self-Reflexive. 
 
 

Background

SALB celebrated its 20th anniversary in 1994. It began in Durban in 1974, in close association with labour studies specialists at the University of Natal and the Institute of Industrial Education, both in Durban. The latter was a response of radical, mostly-white, academics to the Durban strikes of 1973 that signalled the birth of the new unionism in South Africa. SALB first appeared as a slim, dull, cyclostyled A5 periodical. But, although university-based, it was from the beginning movement-oriented, attempting to make analytical, theoretical and strategic materials accessible to at least labour leaders. SALB was largely inspired by a non-dogmatic New Left, critical of Communism, Social Democracy and Radical Nationalism (at least in terms of the ANC fixation on guerilla warfare and an eventual insurrection). Like other such socialist, church, liberal and democratic intellectuals around the world at this time, this group opted primarily for the provision of services to the growing working-class movement. It has been close, successively, to the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU, 1979-85) and the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU, founded 1985), the two central organisations of the rising South African union movement. But it has always remained independent of these, has sometimes given the lead in new thinking, sometimes been sharply critical. It has also provided space for different union and socialist tendencies, and for strategy debates - also often sharp. 

SALB has always received foreign funding, this coming primarily from progressive development-aid agencies rather than directly from foreign and international trade unions. SALB survived the suppression of various issues, the banning,trials and exiling of various editors and contributors, as well as the assassination of Rick Turner, its initial guiding spirit. It also seems to have survived post-apartheid collapse of other alternative periodicals as development-cooperation funding was either withdrawn or switched to the newly-elected government. Early 1995 its total circulation was just under 2,400. Distribution broke down more or less as follows: national 1,520, international 850. This must be an exceptionally high foreign distribution for what is basically a national labour journal. Of the national distribution, 641 go to workers and unions on an individual or bulk basis; 205 go to corporations (which pay an exceptionally high corporate rate). Of the international distribution, 770 are distributed in bulk, presumably also ensuring a regular income. SALB claims to be dependent on subsidies for under eight percent of its total revenue. 

A national sample survey of COSATU's 25,000 shop-stewards in 1992 suggested that five percent - say 1,250 - were readers of this rather serious journal (Pityana and Orkin 1992). It came sixth in a ranking of preference, being proceeded (in this order) by three commercial glossies and two popular alternative publications. A 1994 sample survey/consultation with SALB readers throughout COSATU, revealed a relatively high value placed on it in comparison with other alternative periodicals, popular or serious. It also suggested that the international material was reasonably well received. 
 
 

Foreign/international coverage: quantity and quality

Quantity

The existence of a computerised index, covering Volumes 1 to 16 (1974 to 1991) makes it possible to state that of a total of some 1,916 items indexed over this 18-year period, some 287, or 14.3 percent, have fallen into the F/I category. My own calculation of recent volumes (1993-94) suggests that a number-of-pages comparison gives a higher percentage of F/I than would a number-of-items count: 15 percent for 1993 and 23 percent for 1994. What seems to determine whether or not there is an annual above-mean F/I coverage is whether or not there is a signalled `focus', or a concentration of articles, on F/I matter, in a particular volume. Identification of these concentrations also requires a specification regarding the F/I category, since in recent years there have been numerous foci, or on-going discussions, on `socialism', `social-democracy' and `democratic socialism', which - whilst addressed to South African circumstances - have usually had an international character, implicit or explicit. 

For a national labour magazine, it is clear that SALB has a persistently high interest in foreign, international and strategic or theoretical matters of a far more than national nature. We can here make a comparison with Quadernos Laborales, a Peruvian labour monthly, similarly oriented to, but autonomous from, the major left union confederation in Peru. In 1986, when I interviewed journalists from the NGO responsible for the magazine, they were apologetic about its failure to cover foreign and international material. During the following seven or eight years, Quadernos Laborales devoted perhaps one page out of 30 to F/I material, usually news briefs. 

Quality

As far as the foreign is concerned, there has been a heavy bias toward close neighbours. Thus Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland received heavy attention in Vols.1-7 (1974-82). The particular interest in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was evidently due to the questions its transition from a racist/isolationist to an independent `socialist' regime raised for South African labour and unions. If 1974-82 marks a first period for foreign coverage, 1986-94 marks another. Whilst Africa received its last `Special' appearance with another Zimbabwe issue in 1986, Volumes 12-18 see increasing attention to - though no special focus on - Western Europe, Australia, Latin America, the (ex-)Communist/Socialist world (East Europe, Russia, Grenada, Nicaragua, China). The dramatically growing interest in Brazil was due to the increasingly-recognised parallels between the Brazilian and South African labour movements (for which see Seidman 1994). But in many other cases interest was evidently due to a perceived positive or negative relevance for South Africa. 

The first international issues of SALB were Vol. 5, No. 8 (May 1980) and Vol. 9, No. 6 (May 1984), both issues also including such foreign material as that on Nigeria or Brazil. However, both issues paid highly-critical attention to the internationally-dominant Western unions, represented by the `European' International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO). Both of these were already intervening heavily in South and Southern Africa. The first issue arguing for `a new labour internationalism' was Vol. 15, No. 7 (April 1991). This seems to have begun a debate on and around the ICFTU that continued in Volumes 16 and 17. Strategic issues with international implications may have earlier found place in SALB (e.g. discussion on the anti-apartheid strategy of disinvestment). But it was from 1990, with the legalisation of the ANC and SACP and the approaching end of the apartheid era, that theoretical/strategic reports and debates - the latter with much international reference and many foreign participants - really took off. 

Debates about `socialism', `social-democracy', `social contracts/pacts' and `democratic socialism' mark the period 1990-94. But so do articles and debates about globalisation and internationalism. Indeed, it is my feeling that the SALB was leaning heavily in the direction of a social-reformist dispensation locally at the same time as it was leaning heavily toward an alternative to such internationally. Evidence of the first would require a systematic content analysis of the national coverage. But, for the international, article titles and number of pages suggest that SALB was not so much reporting or analyzing as promoting a new kind of labour internationalism related to a new understanding of the international. A number of items on globalisation were accompanied by extensive reports on or from new international labour fora or groups. Much of this came from the Indian Ocean (stretching geographically from South Africa to Australia, but with a political extension to the Philippines). But it also came from another axis that included a West-European partner. This was between the South African COSATU, the Brazilian CUT and the Italian (ex-)Communist federation, the CGIL. Here it was reported that the three organisations had agreed during a forum 

Approach

We are now considering the material in terms of the typology mentioned above. My conclusion is that the original and continuing orientation of the SALB editors and writers has been a Democratic-Socialist Internationalism. This is suggested by: 1) the continual critique of not only international capitalism but of state-authoritarianism (left as well as right); 2) the critique of bureaucracy and authoritarianism within the international labour movement; 3) the sympathy for shopfloor worker movements, West, East and South; and 4) the welcoming of and support to a democratic and labour internationalism without geographical or political frontiers. An early indication of this orientation is provided in the `Editorial Notes' for the issue with the special focus on the New Internationalism': 

Social-Democratic voices, both from within South Africa and from Europe/Australia, have been increasingly heard in the debates around the international trade union movement and the future of South Africa and its trade unions. In the argument of Alan Fine, Assistant Editor of the South African Business Day and correspondent of the ICFTU's Free Labour World: 

Style

I have spoken of SALB as providing some kind of a platform for different approaches to the foreign and international. The same may be true for style, as specified earlier above. 

The Rhetorical/Denunciatory. An example of this is provided by the British Trotskyist, Alex Callinicos, denouncing social democracy and energetically promoting `struggle' (though presumably not of the `empty sloganeering’ kind): 

Behind the disarray of the unions lies a failure of the Left... Revolution is not on the cards. What then is left? [...] The answer, at least in the short run, must be defensive [...] What does this mean in concrete terms? [...] 1. Accept some neo-liberal advantages [...] 2. Work within corporatist institutions [...] 3. Co-operate with governments and employers [...] 4. Form alliances with conservative union leaders [...] These are dark times. We must have the courage to look reality in the face. We must conserve our strength in the hope that a time will come when labour can once again take the offensive. (Vol. 16, No. 4, 1992:37. Emphasis in original) 

SALB has published large numbers of interviews, which have often given space and voice to those whose persons or organisations have been elsewhere criticised in the journal. Thus, although Mike Allen, a British international labour journalist, sharply criticised the SALB Special Focus on `the new internationalism' for its `blatantly leading questions' (Vol. 16, No. 2, 1991:61), both he and many other officers/supporters of the ICFTU have been provided with considerable space to both defend the ICFTU and criticise its detractors. This means that the SALB has been contributing to, or even creating, not only a democratic South African public sphere but also a global one. Given the customary absence of any debate, or even discussion, in the periodicals of the traditional labour internationals, this is no mean achievement. 

It could be argued that, in so far as it has provided a platform or arena for a variety of approaches and styles, the SALB exemplifies a Critical/Self-Reflexive mode of internationalist labour communication. The matter is more complex. Part of the definition of this style was `to stimulate collective critical and creative capacities amongst readers'. Whilst occasional letters from rank-and-file activists in the Bulletin do deal with F/I matters, most of the discussion remains amongst academics and politicians, South African or foreign. 
 
 

Foreign/international coverage in `Agenda'

Whilst the SALB compares favourably, in quantity, breadth, approach and style with other national and international labour periodicals, a comparison with its feminist opposite number should prove instructive. Here we will, regretably, have to dispense with illustration and make do with a summary of the evidence. 

Agenda, the South African feminist journal, has existed for a much shorter time than SALB, and has a more limited national reach and international impact. It has a similar size, format and frequency of appearance. It has an academic origin and base. But it has a more academic address than SALB. Many of its founders, editors and contributors share the same democratic-socialist origins as those of SALB. A number of them, indeed, were academic labour specialists, and even involved with SALB, before they became drawn to the women's movement. The similarity to the SALB can therefore hardly be considered accidental. 

In analyzing Agenda I found it necessary - because of its more academic nature - to recognise and allow for a specific `theoretical/strategic' (T/S) sub-category amongst the `foreign/international' (F/I). This was due to the considerable proportion of such material in the journal, much of which makes exclusive or heavy reference to F/I literature or debates. F/I+T/S material takes, over the years, one-third of total space in Agenda! This compares with the SALB total F/I which in no single year was more than one-quarter. Even if we subtract the T/S, almost one-quarter of this feminist journal is still devoted to F/I material. If we look at Agenda coverage in percentage terms, Foreign material would be 9.8, International 14 and Theoretical/Strategic 10.5. Whichever way we look at it, then, Agenda is a very internationally-oriented journal. The extent of this is something of which neither readers nor observers seem aware. Thus, one evaluation, using rather narrow criteria, only records four percent as `International' (Budlender 1994:11). And whilst survey material suggests readers have no great interest in `the international', neither do they seem to have any particular objections to it. 

Approach: My findings suggest that the Global Alternative approach is the implicit one in the many Agenda articles concerned, as it was and is, with facing up to power differences between women (inter)nationally, and seeking for (inter)national relations between women that recognise and respect difference. But it is not easy to find explicit statements illustrating this position. Agenda has evidently understood this kind of material in terms of relations within or between the women's movement and women, feminisms and feminists, with the international nature of the relationships remaining implicit or obscure. 

Style: The Critical/Self-Reflexive mode was much in evidence in a prolonged Agenda discussion about feminist conferences, in which Black/White, Academic/Activist, and even Black American/Black African conflicts came to the fore. It was these conferences that eventually led to an Agenda workshop and special issue that dealt with both `difference' and `representation'. The workshop was intended precisely to reach women activists beyond the editorial, authorial and readership constituencies (see Agenda 19, 1993). This event involved unionists, rural organisers, academics, a poet, and one of the (foreign?) funders. It was, in fact, one of a series of workshops and panels organised by the journal, occasionally involving foreign visitors. A related article on feminist conferencing by Susan Bazilli (No. 9, 1991:44-520 had already dealt, amongst other issues, with the following: 1) allowing for those who feel the need to `speak bitterness', but avoiding polarisation; 2) organising events not dependent on the capacity to write papers; 3) avoiding territorial and competitive claims with respect to the struggle and knowledge; 4) ensuring outreach to those unable to attend; 5) attending to the (differentiated) gender politics of conference place, space, financing, time, paper or presentation, accessibility, language; 6) recognising that preparatory `networking' can exclude as well as include; and, finally, 7) avoiding formation of an elite of `conference goers'. This sohisticated critique of the conference form not only breaks with the dominant academic paradigm but also that of that of the subaltern one, as customarily exemplified by the labour movement. It shows, moreover, an implicit awareness of the significance of communicative form in the emancipatory process, even when it does not name such. It is difficult to imagine SALB revealing or expressing similar concerns. 
 
 

Discussion: the light the new shines on the old

Let us consider a little further the light that Agenda shines on SALB. 

The first point to be made concerns the movement Agenda relates to. Second Wave (since the 1970s) women's and feminist movements are not, in general, incorporated into such structured and hierarchical national or international institutions and procedures as is even the South African trade-union movement. Like other alternative social movements (ASMs), furthermore, that of feminism is not directed to `taking power', `getting into government' or `controlling the commanding heights of the economy'. Whilst it evidently addresses itself to political domination and economic exploitation, it is primarily oriented toward the expansion and enrichment of civil society, nationally and globally. In so far as the existence of a meaningful national democracy is increasingly recognised to require a surpassing of national, regional or bloc borders (Held 1991), it may be that the national/foreign or local/global distinction is either challenged or blurred. This seems to be the case with Agenda. 

The second point here is that the South African feminist movement, like others, challenges the customary private/public and personal/political oppositions so necessary to the control of women - and workers! In so far as it insists that there must be an explicit and principled relationship between the personal and the political (increasingly extended to the professional), the politics of, and in, women's movements are likely to be `humanised' - at least in the sense of people being required to put their bodies where their mouths are. For feminist publications this may mean more stress on inter-personal relations - also at international level - than we are accustomed to from the old labour or, for that matter, the new labour movements. It should also mean that such publications are under some pressure to develop the Critical/Self-Reflexive mode. This again seems to be the case with Agenda. 

There is no evidence, thirdly, however, that the invisibility of F/I coverage in Agenda is due to any kind of post-nationalism, or any kind of post-inter-nationalism. It is probably due to a shared sense of community with women's movements and feminism globally, sharpened, perhaps, by the relative lack of such with other progressive movements locally. This kind of internationalism is known also from `pre-nationalist' labour movements, and it has been common to early and contemporary feminist movements too (Waterman Forthcoming: Ch. 6). In South Africa, moreover, we also have to take into account the ethnic composition of both journals' editors and writers (if not always readers), since leftwing South African whites have been prominent or dominant amongst them. Such people share a sense of community with the left internationally. Whilst South Africa evidently has unique racial characteristics, we should not forget the foreign origins and internationalist values of early labour and socialist leaders (Waterman Forthcoming: Ch. 2). In so far as these matters are not reflected upon, by either SALB or Agenda, the internationalism could disappear, or narrow down to the Third World, or even Southern Africa, as the labour and women's movements become more extensive, ethnically representative, and incorporated within the rapidly-developing institutions and processes of state-nationalist development in South Africa. 

Something must be said, fourthly, about the function of these journals as platforms for the creation of a new kind of internationalism, or as contributing to some kind of alternative international public sphere. They evidently do this in different ways. I have suggested that, in the absence of any other such international labour forum, SALB provides one. Agenda possibly provides such a space for South Africa, but there are multiple international platforms in the international feminist and women's movements, and Agenda does not in any case have an equivalent international presence to SALB. Yet, on the other hand, as I have also suggested, access to SALB debates appears more limited than those of Agenda, and the latter has gone beyond itself in order to spread debate wider. There remains, further, the question of whether either of these journals can provide an effective (inter)national forum for communication and discussion of foreign and international issues when internationalism remains invisible (Agenda) and communication transparent (both). 
 
 

Conclusion: the internationalist journal under information capitalism

We need, finally, to return to our limited subject of analysis - one or two tiny-circulation political journals, largely inaccessible to supporters of the movements they concern themselves with. What role can they possibly play in an era of globalised mass media? 

It has been observed, in Latin America, that 

One last point. Journals such as SALB and Agenda are still seen, both by their promoters and by those they reach, as a means to an organisational end. We urgently need to see them in the earlier-cited terms of Mark Poster - in terms, therefore, of places, spaces, communities. This means seeing such media as potent creators of internationalist meaning and feeling, with such being understood as itself a source of power. This does not mean that international organisation and action are today redundant. Nor that ASMs cannot be analysed in political or organisational terms. It means that they will be energised and renewed - and repeatedly challenged - by the force of information, ideas, sounds and images. 
 
 

Bibliography