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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Serving our life sentence in the shacks - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...66287

south africa shack dwellers pambazuka international development kennedyroad social movements movement intervention human rights

shared by Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Leading up to the World Cup there were more evictions and pending court cases in different parts of the country. Poor street traders had their belongings confiscated as they had no permits to sell in restricted zones and the taxi industry suffered the impoundment of their taxis.
  • We also know that the South African government still wants to look good in the eyes of the international communities and that they fear disgrace and shame. They want to show the world Soccer City but hide eTwatwa, Blikkiesdorp, Westville Prison, the red ants and the shack fires all around the country. We wish to thank all the international activists and organisations who have raised their concern against the repression that we have faced, including those that have organised protests against the South African diplomats in their respective countries.
  • Arabica Robusta on 31 Jul 10
     
    As people all over South Africa ask why the government continues to ignore the demands of shack dwellers, not just for the right to the city but for their basic human needs to be met, Abahlali baseMjondolo reply: 'Everybody knows that we are the people who do not count in this society…the truth that must be faced up to is that we have been sentenced to permanent exclusion from this society.' But, write Abahlali, 'we have recognised our own humanity and the power of our struggle to force the full recognition of our humanity. Therefore we remain determined to continue to refuse to know our place.'
Arabica Robusta

How the left let Abahlali down - Cape Times | IOL.co.za - 0 views

www.iol.co.za/...ft-let-abahlali-down-1.1685297

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry africa abahlali baseMjondolo

shared by Arabica Robusta on 10 May 14 - No Cached
  • Years ago I began to support a unique and influential social movement called Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), the Shackdwellers’ Movement. At the time, the movement had just refused to work with an influential leftist NGO called the Centre for Civil Society (CSS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Supported by the militant Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC), AbM had protested against the takeover of the Social Movement Indaba by NGOs such as CCS. As grassroots activists, they understood that their voice was being managed and also often silenced by those on the left coming from more privileged backgrounds.
  • AbM and the Anti-Eviction Campaign’s principled stance was brave. They lost massive support from leftists who believed themselves to be the vanguard of working-class struggle and who thought the poor must be directed towards the “right politics”. Leaders were ridiculed, pseudo-academic pieces were written to undermine the movement, and friends of the movement received death threats – some even lost their jobs. Many Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists scoffed at their “No Land! No House! No Vote!” campaign as being short-sighted and liberal. The only legitimate form of organising, they said, was around the creation of a workers’ party.
  • Abahlali has always been an autonomous movement. While it has shared ideas and worked closely with other movements, including some non-authoritarian NGOs and a few supportive academics, decisions have always been taken by the movement without regard to outsiders’ wishes and/or agendas.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • This autonomous organising was truly Frantz Fanon’s work in practice. Abahlali has always been and still is a shackdwellers’ organisation, run not by privileged activists or academics but by shackdwellers themselves. But the continued repression of the movement has taken a toll on its members.
  • Renewed threats against Abahlali leadership put its president, S’bu Zikode, and general secretary, Bandile Mdlalose, back in safe houses and members began focusing on ANC repression, rather than the state, as the primary driver of this violence. Over the course of the past year, a shift seems to have taken place in the rank and file of the movement in KwaZulu-Natal. Their original critique of the state has shifted to an overarching and focused critique of the ANC.
  • I say opportunistically because that is what it truly is. In Cape Town, the DA plays the same role as the ANC in oppressing social movements and poor communities. The party pioneered the use of the Anti-Land Invasion Unit and is very happy to shoot protesting shackdwellers and build massive transit camps when it suits them.
  • There is nothing about DA policy that is progressive economically or supportive of the rights and needs of shackdwellers. However, the DA leadership in KZN did listen to one Abahlali demand (which the ANC failed to do): talk to us, not about us
  • I was shocked and horrified to hear of AbM-KZN’s decision to vote as a bloc for the DA. (Note: Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Western Cape has not endorsed the DA despite media reports to the contrary). I believe that this is a hugely mistaken move for the most important post-1994 social movement – both from an acknowledgement that the DA is a right-wing, white supremacist political party, and also from an understanding that electoral politics undermines, destroys, and co-opts rather than helps social movements. Despite my love for Abahlali, it is very difficult for me to continue to support an organisation that votes for the DA – a party founded on white supremacy.
  • Some leftists have cried foul, claiming that the process could not possibly have been democratic or that white supporters of the movement, such as myself, were involved in manipulating Abahlali to support the DA. To other leftists, the fact that AbM went through a rigorously democratic process and yet ended up voting for their oppressor, proves once and for all that shackdwellers cannot be trusted with a vanguardist political project.
  • If we are to talk about Abahlali baseMjondolo’s core focus around land and housing, it would also be important to note that not only are there many more shacks per capita in Cape Town than in eThekwini, but Cape Town remains by far the most segregated city in the country.
  • Most of the people attacking the movement have never lived a day of their life in a shack settlement – yet their self-righteousness is palpable. They’ve refused to comprehend the way repression makes backing the DA seem like a very practical decision – one not about principles or the extent of AbM’s radicalism, but about tactically defending one’s own life. Under constant threat of death, what would you do? Do any of us really understand how much pain they have endured?
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Time to bury the IMF - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...73741

shared by Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • From ordinary folks in Bamako in Mali to the shack dwellers of South Africa, there are social forces opposing the looting of African resources and calling on the working poor to ‘fight against all manifestations of injustices, and protect their human dignity by direct action.’ Scholars who have been theorising the interconnections between gender, care and economics have been able to shatter neo-classical, Marxist and liberal understanding of economic relations that excluded the labour power of women.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 11
       
      "able to shatter neo-classical, Marxist and liberal understanding of economic relations that excluded the labour power of women."
  • Economists, financiers, journalists, policymakers, politicians and speculators draw attention to the fact that the entire international financial system is now in its death throes.
  • These warnings from mainstream commentators seek to divert attention from those in the oppressed South who are calling for the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system and plan for increased taxation of the bankers, especially in the short run with a financial transaction tax.
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