I try hard to
look back, to remember the first time Sam Moyo and
I met. And I cannot remember. For me, it had long
been taken for granted that Sam and I would meet,
now and then, in some major international encounters.
I look at my photo albums for the traces of Sam.
Yes, we were together at the International Conference
of Intellectuals and Artists for the Defence of
Humanity and the General Assembly of the World Forum
for Alternatives (WFA), held in October 2008 in
Caracas, Venezuela. One highlight of the conference
was President Hugo Chavez spending several hours
with the participants for a lovely intellectual
exchange, and surely, Chavez talked most of the
time, and the conference ended near midnight, most
people going hungry without dinner.
In some sessions on that occasion, I sat between
Sam and Vinod Raina. We must have known each other
quite well already. Still, I cannot remember when
we first met. Probably in one of the encounters
organized by the WFA, with Samir Amin, Francois
Houtart, Remy Herrera, and others. We might have
met too in Porto Alegre, Durban, Dakar, Mali, Nairobi,
Algiers, Tunis, Mumbai…
Sam's image, for me, is twinned with that of EbrimaSall.
Which is why I was slightly disappointed when Ebrima
came to the Bandung+60 Conference held in Jakarta
and Bandung at the end of October this year, but
Sam did not come. To me, the two were like brothers.
They both attended the First South South Forum on
Sustainability held at Lingnan University in Hong
Kong in December 2011, and they both joined the
post-forum tour to Chongqing on December 16-21.
Those were memorable times. Tour group members included
Sam, Ebrima, Vinod, Patrick Bond, Mayu Santana,
Tani Barlow, Ariel Salleh, SreckoHorvat, Surichai
and ChantanaWungaeo, Ernesto Revello, and others.
My 14-year old
niece was tasked to produce a video documentary
of the trip. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJoDhMGTtkA&feature=youtu.be)
During the 6-day trip when we visited the city and
countryside of Chongqing and Chengdu, and talked
to peasants, migrants, earthquake victims, cooperative
members, social workers,officialsand others, we
also had good opportunities for chatting among ourselves
about politics, economics, culture, and any issue,
significant or trivial.
Needless to say,
how we made sense of Chongqing's particularities
in the context of China's Reform, and how China
was playing a changing role in Africa, were topics
for discussion and debate. I was impressed by the
approaches and views of Sam and Ebrima, not being
entrapped in either China-glorifying or China-bashing.
They could see the complexities of different sectoral
interests and contestations that shaped China's
domestic and foreign policies, and they could see
the commonalities in resistances of the subaltern
classes across borders. Their views about relations
between China and Africa were pragmatically situated
in the historical context.
Before the Chongqing
trip, with the question of agro-fuel aggravating
the issue of land-grab in Africa, I had discussed
with Sam the idea of collaborating on a project
on the question of land and land-grab in Africa,
and tracing China's involvement. I wanted to have
some sense of the land situation in Africa, with
European powers dominating the scene but with “emerging”
forces such as Japan, South Korea and China entering
as contesters. Would it be possible to map the temporal
and spatial land grab, as well as to revisit the
question of land reform in Africa and Asia?After
some thought, Sam felt it was very difficult to
obtain accurate data, as shareholding and business
contracts were by and large secretive and camouflaged.
We did not pursue this further.
Instead, we had ideas about revisiting issues of
land reform and exploring alternatives for rural
reconstruction movements in Africa and Asia.Sam
started being Chief Editor of Agrarian South in
2012.In the book project on The Struggle for Food
Sovereignty – Alternative Development and the Renewal
of Peasant Societies Today, of which Remy and I
were co-editors, Sam was a participant, along with
Samir Amin, Joao Pedro Stedile from Brazil, Utsa
Patnaik from India, Wen Tiejun, Erebus Wong and
Jade Sit from China, Gerald Choplin et al from Europe,
and PoeuraTetoe from Tahiti. Putting together paperswith
perspectives from different continents was meant
to enable us to grasp the global and local dimensions
of the urgent issues facing us today.
This intellectual
project does not end with the publication of the
book by Pluto Press this year, for so many issues
demand rigorous follow up. That is also the reason
for the setting up of the Global University for
Sustainability (Global U). (see www.our-global-u.org)
Sam was among the first persons to become Founding
Members of Global U. The idea of Global U is to
strengthen exchanges especially in the global south,
and support the proliferation of autonomous and
self-managing local bodies and their interdependent
networking for ecological justice and socio-economic
justice.Global U has embarked on a project of documenting
the life history of activist thinkers from across
the globe, relating their personal stories to historical
conjunctures, offering an understanding of their
thought based on activist practice. The project
has speeded up after Vinod left us in September
2013. I regret I did not attend the CODESRIA Assembly
last June, or I would have interviewed Sam and learnt
about his life trajectory, his happy and sad moments,
his aspirations and frustrations. I hope Sam's story
would be narrated by his family and comrades.
It is extremely difficult to come to terms with
the thought of Sam leaving us at his intellectual
prime. He will be remembered for his honesty and
integrity, his wit and wisdom, his internationalist
horizon, and his commitment to make a better world.
Deep condolences to Sam's family, friends, and the
CODESRIA, WFA, and Agrarian South communities.
Please go to
http://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/
and http://our-globalu.org/oguorg/en/?page_id=1161
for Sam Moyo work uploaded to the Global University
website.
November 30, 2015.