Abahlali to mourn the fraud of ‘Freedom Day’

Friday, 26 April 2019
Abahlali baseMjondolo Pres Statement

Abahlali to mourn the fraud of ‘Freedom Day’

Many South Africans will be celebrating ‘Freedom Day’ on 27 April as we mark the anniversary of the first time that our country’s black people voted in a democratic election. We always acknowledge and salute all the people that struggled for us to win this victory, including, especially, all those ordinary people whose names will never be known to history. Many of our own members carry scars from the struggle against apartheid. 

However, we know that what we see today is not what the people fought for.

Today the ruling party tries to make the impoverished, the dispossessed and oppressed, think that we are free by giving us free t-shirts, free meals and free rides to the stadiums to listen to politicians tell us that they brought us freedom. Many of the people that will go to the stadiums to listen to the politicians have no jobs, no land and no safe homes. Many of them will return to shacks or RDP houses that were damaged in the recent floods, and many of them will go to bed hungry that night.

Abahlali have no reason to celebrate this so-called ‘freedom’ while we live in indignity. We have no reason to celebrate ‘freedom’ while we have no land. We have no reason to celebrate ‘freedom’ when we have no jobs, or jobs that keep us exploited and poor. We have no reason to celebrate ‘freedom’ when many of us remain without safe and dignified homes, and continually at the mercy of evictions, fires and floods in our shacks. We have no reason to celebrate ‘freedom’ when we are ruled by gangster politicians. We have no reason to celebrate ‘freedom’ when the ruling party, the ANC, continues to murder our members during protests and evictions, and to assassinate our leaders.

We have no reason to celebrate ‘freedom’ when millions of people remain impoverished while the politicians and their families grow richer by the day. We have no reason to celebrate ‘freedom’ while the politicians prop up the system of racial capitalism that made us poor and keeps us poor.

We will not be going to the stadiums to listen to the politicians. We will be holding our annual Unfreedom Day Rally to mourn what was supposed to be a real revolution bringing real freedom for all. We will also gather together to recommit ourselves to building the power of the oppressed from below, and to struggling for a genuinely emancipatory programme, for a society in which land, wealth and power are shared fairly.

This is a national event for our movement and comrades will be joining us from all over the country. Our comrades in migrant organisations will also join us as we take a clear public position against xenophobia and the politicians that try to turn neighbours against neighbours. We have also invited comrades from the labour movement to join us as we remain committed to work to build alliances between the progressive forces in organised labour and the progressive movements of the poor. It is vital that we build unity in struggle, including unity between struggles in communities and in workplaces, to be able to effectively confront the monster capitalist state.

The UnFreedom Day Rally will take place on Sunday, 28 April at Thekwini TVET College, Springfield Park in Durban. We will start at 10:00am and finish at 3:00pm.

Contact:

Mqapheli Bonono: 073 067 3274
Nomusa Sizani: 081 005 3686
Zanele Mtshali: 062 437 9077