consuming negativity
23rd December 2014, 17:35
i've been doing internet research on africa to try to find left-wing movements, organizations, etc. and i came across a very interesting organization in south africa that i think paints a very interesting picture of post-apartheid, post-mandela life in the country. in particular, i started reading about abahlali basemjondolo...
Abahlali baseMjondolo (Zulu: [aɓaˈɬaːli ɓasɛmdʒɔnˈdɔːlo], Shack Dwellers), also known as AbM or the red shirts[1][2] is a shack-dwellers' movement in South Africa which is well known for its campaigning against evictions[3] and for public housing.[4][5] The movement grew out of a road blockade[6] organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005[7][8] and now also operates in the cities of Pietermaritzburg[9] and in Cape Town.[10][11][12] It is the largest shack dweller's organization in South Africa[13][14][15] and campaigns to improve the living conditions of poor people[16] and to democratize society from below.[17]
The movement historically refused party politics, and has boycotted elections[18][19] and has a history of conflict with both the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance.[20] (Despite this, it announced its support for the Democratic Alliance in the 2014 elections.[21][22]) Its key demand is that the social value of urban land should take priority over its commercial value[23] and it campaigns for the public expropriation of large privately owned landholdings.[24] The key organising strategy is to try "to recreate Commons" from below by trying to create a series of linked communes.[25]
According to The Times, the movement "has shaken the political landscape of South Africa."[26] According to Professor Peter Vale, Abahlali baseMjondolo is "along with the Treatment Action Campaign the most effective grouping in South African civil society."[27] Khadija Patel has written that the movement "is at the forefront of a new wave of mass political mobilisation".[28] However the movement has faced sustained, and at times violent, repression.[28][29][30][31]
In the early days of the movement, individuals in the ruling party often accused Abahlali of being criminals manipulated by a malevolent white man, a 'third force', or a foreign intelligence agency.[24][68][157]
The movement, like others in South Africa,[158][159] has suffered sustained illegal harassment from the state[160] that has resulted in more than 200 arrests of Abahlali members in the first last three years of its existence and repeated police brutality in people's homes, in the streets and in detention.[161] On a number of occasions, the police used live ammunition,[159] armoured vehicles and helicopters in their attacks on unarmed shack dwellers.[162] In 2006 the local city manager, Mike Sutcliffe, unlawfully implemented a complete ban on Abahlali's right to march[163][164] which was eventually overturned in court.[159][165][166][167] Abahlali have been violently prevented from accepting invitations to appear on television[168][169] and radio debates by the local police.[170] The Freedom of Expression Institute has issued a number of statements in strong support of Abahlali's right to speak out and to organise protests.[171][172] The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions[173] and a group of prominent church leaders[174][175] have also issued public statements against police violence, as has Bishop Rubin Philip in his individual capacity,[176] and in support of the right of the movement to publicly express dissent.[177]
In March 2008, the Mercury newspaper reported that both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were investigating human rights abuses against shack dwellers by the city government.[citation needed]
In 2009 the movement was attacked in the Kennedy Road settlement - see below.
In April 2010, IRIN, the newsletter of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported that "The rise of an organized poor people's movement [Abahlali baseMjondolo] in South Africa's most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, is being met with increasing hostility by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government.[178]
In April 2013 the movement successfully sued the Minister of Police for violence against three of its members.[179]
On the 26th of June a local AbM leader, Nkululeko Gwala, was assassinated in the Cato Crest shack settlement in Durban.[180][181][182][183]
further wikipedia reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abahlali_baseMjondolo
this is an article by an ex-leader, s'bu zikode, in the guardian (2013):
Our movement of shack-dwellers – Abahlali baseMjondolo, representing some of South Africa's poorest people – was formed in 2005 in Durban and now has more than 12,000 members in more than 60 shack settlements. We campaign against evictions, and for public housing: struggling for a world in which human dignity comes before private profit, and land, cities, wealth and power are shared fairly.
When Abahlali baseMjondolo members take our place in cities we take it humbly, but firmly. We have won many important battles in court, including the overturning of the anti-poor Slums Act – but the law has not bought justice. Despite that victory, thousands of shack dwellers were forcibly removed to make way for developments ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Most were dumped in transit camps, left to rot without basic services. Some camps – such as Isipingo, south of Durban – were built on flood plains.
Promises were made to rehouse these people using a state-assisted housing programme, but cities refused to fulfil these promises. Instead, corrupt politicians benefit from these housing programmes by allocating funds to loyal members of the ruling African National Congress, and getting kickbacks from the building contractors to whom they award contracts. Homes are poorly built as a result, and corruptly allocated. If you are too poor, you cannot pay the bribe to get rehoused; if you are from the Eastern Cape, and not an ANC member, you will be excluded; and if you are an active member of Abahlali, you will not simply be denied housing – you may well be arrested, tortured or killed.
Therefore we continue to take direct action to move our rights from paper to reality, from abstract to concrete.
When we are denied land we occupy unused land. The state and the rich call this a criminal act; we call it the democratisation of urban planning and the realisation of our right to the city.
When they evict us, we rebuild. We have rebuilt nine times at the Marikana land occupation in Cato Crest, Durban.
When we are denied water and electricity, we connect ourselves. When we are disconnected, we reconnect. Recently nine people were shot during a disconnection in a shack settlement in Reservoir Hills, Durban. Two people, Malizo Fakaza and Nhlanhla Mkhize, were killed.
When our legal marches are ignored, our court orders are ignored and the constitution is ignored, when we are treated as dirty people who do not count before the law, then we engage in the politics of disruption. We organise road blockades across the city – we recently organised eight such blockades on a single morning during rush hour.
It is a tough time for our movement. The rich and the state have decided that they should unite to drive us out of the city. Our membership is multi-ethnic, but includes many Xhosa speakers from the Eastern Cape. Increasingly the ANC in Durban and the province of KwaZulu-Natal presents such non-Zulus as outsiders who should "go back where they come from", and so the idea that South Africa belongs to all who live in it is being replaced with a dangerous and divisive new politics.
The state is so threatened by the poor – especially the organised poor, the strong poor – that it has abandoned the rule of law. A politics of blood has replaced the politics of peace. The police have been militarised, and municipalities are setting up militarised units to stop land occupations. We have been evicted, driven from our homes by party thugs, beaten, tortured and shot by the police. Nqobile Nzuza, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, lies in her grave, shot in the back of her head on 30 September. Witnesses allege that she was shot by a senior police officer, but no arrest has been made. Nkululeko Gwala died after being hit by 12 bullets on 25 June. Thembinkosi Qumbelo was gunned down on 15 March. All these murders happened in one community, Cato Crest.
We believe that the reason for the absence of arrests is that these killings were political, carried out with the support of top politicians. Senior politicians on Durban City Council and the KwaZulu-Natal legislature have acted and spoken in a way that was widely understood to be in support of murder.
Political assassination of government critics is now a routine feature of life in the city, and has given rise to a new profession: the hitman. There is a very high rate of unemployment in Durban, and no shortage of young people willing to take this blood money.
The recent Manase report exposed massive political corruption in the eThekwini municipality, which includes Durban, and yet no one has been arrested. Indeed, Obed Mlaba, who was mayor of Durban when corruption became the order of the day, has been tipped to become the new ambassador to the UK. The British government will welcome him, but the British people should know he is a disgrace to our country.
Much is at stake. If South Africa's urban poor do not win this battle, our cities will become ATMs for the politicians and the rich. They will become cities of walls and guns, of blood and fear. In Durban and beyond, Nelson Mandela's vision of dignity for all has already been lost. His promise of a universal right to free housing, free education and free healthcare has not been realised. Thabo Mbeki's administration was too high to descend to the ground; Jacob Zuma's relies on violence to silence opposition.
We have learned that by demanding decent housing we make enemies, and that by occupying land we make those enemies even more ruthless. But we cannot wait in the mud, shit and fire of shack life for ever. Voting did not work for us. The political parties did not work for us. Civil society did not work for us. No political party, civil society organisation or trade union is inviting us into the cities or into what remains of democracy in South Africa. We have no choice but to take our own place in the cities and in the political life of the country.
But we are under no illusions. There will be more evictions, more beatings, more torture, more shootings and more killings. But to be poor in South Africa is already a living death and so we have no choice but to keep going forward.
is there anything else i could even say? what a fucking powerful article. these people kick ass and i'd never even heard of them before today.
Abahlali baseMjondolo (Zulu: [aɓaˈɬaːli ɓasɛmdʒɔnˈdɔːlo], Shack Dwellers), also known as AbM or the red shirts[1][2] is a shack-dwellers' movement in South Africa which is well known for its campaigning against evictions[3] and for public housing.[4][5] The movement grew out of a road blockade[6] organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005[7][8] and now also operates in the cities of Pietermaritzburg[9] and in Cape Town.[10][11][12] It is the largest shack dweller's organization in South Africa[13][14][15] and campaigns to improve the living conditions of poor people[16] and to democratize society from below.[17]
The movement historically refused party politics, and has boycotted elections[18][19] and has a history of conflict with both the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance.[20] (Despite this, it announced its support for the Democratic Alliance in the 2014 elections.[21][22]) Its key demand is that the social value of urban land should take priority over its commercial value[23] and it campaigns for the public expropriation of large privately owned landholdings.[24] The key organising strategy is to try "to recreate Commons" from below by trying to create a series of linked communes.[25]
According to The Times, the movement "has shaken the political landscape of South Africa."[26] According to Professor Peter Vale, Abahlali baseMjondolo is "along with the Treatment Action Campaign the most effective grouping in South African civil society."[27] Khadija Patel has written that the movement "is at the forefront of a new wave of mass political mobilisation".[28] However the movement has faced sustained, and at times violent, repression.[28][29][30][31]
In the early days of the movement, individuals in the ruling party often accused Abahlali of being criminals manipulated by a malevolent white man, a 'third force', or a foreign intelligence agency.[24][68][157]
The movement, like others in South Africa,[158][159] has suffered sustained illegal harassment from the state[160] that has resulted in more than 200 arrests of Abahlali members in the first last three years of its existence and repeated police brutality in people's homes, in the streets and in detention.[161] On a number of occasions, the police used live ammunition,[159] armoured vehicles and helicopters in their attacks on unarmed shack dwellers.[162] In 2006 the local city manager, Mike Sutcliffe, unlawfully implemented a complete ban on Abahlali's right to march[163][164] which was eventually overturned in court.[159][165][166][167] Abahlali have been violently prevented from accepting invitations to appear on television[168][169] and radio debates by the local police.[170] The Freedom of Expression Institute has issued a number of statements in strong support of Abahlali's right to speak out and to organise protests.[171][172] The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions[173] and a group of prominent church leaders[174][175] have also issued public statements against police violence, as has Bishop Rubin Philip in his individual capacity,[176] and in support of the right of the movement to publicly express dissent.[177]
In March 2008, the Mercury newspaper reported that both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were investigating human rights abuses against shack dwellers by the city government.[citation needed]
In 2009 the movement was attacked in the Kennedy Road settlement - see below.
In April 2010, IRIN, the newsletter of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported that "The rise of an organized poor people's movement [Abahlali baseMjondolo] in South Africa's most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, is being met with increasing hostility by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government.[178]
In April 2013 the movement successfully sued the Minister of Police for violence against three of its members.[179]
On the 26th of June a local AbM leader, Nkululeko Gwala, was assassinated in the Cato Crest shack settlement in Durban.[180][181][182][183]
further wikipedia reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abahlali_baseMjondolo
this is an article by an ex-leader, s'bu zikode, in the guardian (2013):
Our movement of shack-dwellers – Abahlali baseMjondolo, representing some of South Africa's poorest people – was formed in 2005 in Durban and now has more than 12,000 members in more than 60 shack settlements. We campaign against evictions, and for public housing: struggling for a world in which human dignity comes before private profit, and land, cities, wealth and power are shared fairly.
When Abahlali baseMjondolo members take our place in cities we take it humbly, but firmly. We have won many important battles in court, including the overturning of the anti-poor Slums Act – but the law has not bought justice. Despite that victory, thousands of shack dwellers were forcibly removed to make way for developments ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Most were dumped in transit camps, left to rot without basic services. Some camps – such as Isipingo, south of Durban – were built on flood plains.
Promises were made to rehouse these people using a state-assisted housing programme, but cities refused to fulfil these promises. Instead, corrupt politicians benefit from these housing programmes by allocating funds to loyal members of the ruling African National Congress, and getting kickbacks from the building contractors to whom they award contracts. Homes are poorly built as a result, and corruptly allocated. If you are too poor, you cannot pay the bribe to get rehoused; if you are from the Eastern Cape, and not an ANC member, you will be excluded; and if you are an active member of Abahlali, you will not simply be denied housing – you may well be arrested, tortured or killed.
Therefore we continue to take direct action to move our rights from paper to reality, from abstract to concrete.
When we are denied land we occupy unused land. The state and the rich call this a criminal act; we call it the democratisation of urban planning and the realisation of our right to the city.
When they evict us, we rebuild. We have rebuilt nine times at the Marikana land occupation in Cato Crest, Durban.
When we are denied water and electricity, we connect ourselves. When we are disconnected, we reconnect. Recently nine people were shot during a disconnection in a shack settlement in Reservoir Hills, Durban. Two people, Malizo Fakaza and Nhlanhla Mkhize, were killed.
When our legal marches are ignored, our court orders are ignored and the constitution is ignored, when we are treated as dirty people who do not count before the law, then we engage in the politics of disruption. We organise road blockades across the city – we recently organised eight such blockades on a single morning during rush hour.
It is a tough time for our movement. The rich and the state have decided that they should unite to drive us out of the city. Our membership is multi-ethnic, but includes many Xhosa speakers from the Eastern Cape. Increasingly the ANC in Durban and the province of KwaZulu-Natal presents such non-Zulus as outsiders who should "go back where they come from", and so the idea that South Africa belongs to all who live in it is being replaced with a dangerous and divisive new politics.
The state is so threatened by the poor – especially the organised poor, the strong poor – that it has abandoned the rule of law. A politics of blood has replaced the politics of peace. The police have been militarised, and municipalities are setting up militarised units to stop land occupations. We have been evicted, driven from our homes by party thugs, beaten, tortured and shot by the police. Nqobile Nzuza, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, lies in her grave, shot in the back of her head on 30 September. Witnesses allege that she was shot by a senior police officer, but no arrest has been made. Nkululeko Gwala died after being hit by 12 bullets on 25 June. Thembinkosi Qumbelo was gunned down on 15 March. All these murders happened in one community, Cato Crest.
We believe that the reason for the absence of arrests is that these killings were political, carried out with the support of top politicians. Senior politicians on Durban City Council and the KwaZulu-Natal legislature have acted and spoken in a way that was widely understood to be in support of murder.
Political assassination of government critics is now a routine feature of life in the city, and has given rise to a new profession: the hitman. There is a very high rate of unemployment in Durban, and no shortage of young people willing to take this blood money.
The recent Manase report exposed massive political corruption in the eThekwini municipality, which includes Durban, and yet no one has been arrested. Indeed, Obed Mlaba, who was mayor of Durban when corruption became the order of the day, has been tipped to become the new ambassador to the UK. The British government will welcome him, but the British people should know he is a disgrace to our country.
Much is at stake. If South Africa's urban poor do not win this battle, our cities will become ATMs for the politicians and the rich. They will become cities of walls and guns, of blood and fear. In Durban and beyond, Nelson Mandela's vision of dignity for all has already been lost. His promise of a universal right to free housing, free education and free healthcare has not been realised. Thabo Mbeki's administration was too high to descend to the ground; Jacob Zuma's relies on violence to silence opposition.
We have learned that by demanding decent housing we make enemies, and that by occupying land we make those enemies even more ruthless. But we cannot wait in the mud, shit and fire of shack life for ever. Voting did not work for us. The political parties did not work for us. Civil society did not work for us. No political party, civil society organisation or trade union is inviting us into the cities or into what remains of democracy in South Africa. We have no choice but to take our own place in the cities and in the political life of the country.
But we are under no illusions. There will be more evictions, more beatings, more torture, more shootings and more killings. But to be poor in South Africa is already a living death and so we have no choice but to keep going forward.
is there anything else i could even say? what a fucking powerful article. these people kick ass and i'd never even heard of them before today.