Celebrating the Beauty of Our Youth

15 June 2014

Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League Press Statement

Celebrating the Beauty of our Youth

HECTOR PETERSON was murdered by the apartheid police on 16 June 1976. He was 13. NQOBILE NZUZA was murdered by the ANC’s police on 30 September 2013. She was 17.

We’ve spent many years in pain and frustration about what happened to HECTOR. We will have to spend many years in pain and frustration about what happened to NQOBILE. We all know that more of us will die in this struggle.

Our youth are serving their life sentences in the shacks or the transit camps. Most of us cannot find work, we cannot study and when we are older we will not be able to get married. We are treated like the rubbish of this society when we should be treated as its promise for the future.

Tomorrow the Abahlali baseMjondolo youth league will be hosting a youth death event that will be focused on bringing out the fun and humorous side in all people. We will celebrate the beauty of the youth. But although it might be a day to celebrate and have fun but we believe in using every opportunity we have together to educate each other.

We are also in solidarity with the families of the 200 Nigerian girls who were abducted #BRINGBACK OUR GIRLS, everyone will go into silence prayer to plead the almighty Lord to hear our cries “there’s more chances of being heard because there’s a larger number of people crying out”.

The AbM Youth League Youth Day event will be held in the Hindu Surat Hall in Prince Edward Street from 11:00.

For more information and comment on the youth day event organised by the AbM Youth League please contact:

Lisa Nene Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League President 074 8596880

Boni Duma Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League Deputy Secretary 076 0875184

Induction Workshop

Today we had an induction workshop for two new branches (eKuphumeleni in Shallcross and Briardene – Foreman Road will join in the next induction workshop). The induction workshop is part of the procedure after new committees are elected.

The induction workshops include a step by step guide to joining the movement, and all the requirements for branches to be in good standing and the roles of and responsibilities of office bearers and committees.

There is a strong focus on why it is important to join the movement as a collective and not individuals, on why families and neighbourhoods are so important. We talk about how our humanity is expressed and recognised in relation to others and how our political strength is built in relation to others.

Abahlali is not a church. There is also a discussion of ubuhlalism as a philosophy. Today there was a lot of discussion about the ideologies of capitalism, socialism and communism. This really uplifts new leaders to understand why Abahlali is part of a long and world-wide struggle against capitalism. There was a big debate about how James Nxumalo can say that he is communist and what this means for communist as an ideology.

We also spoke in depth about the politic of poverty and exclusion. IUn this discussion it became clear to everyone that our poverty is a result of the choices that have been made at a political level. People were really excited to understand how life is made to be so unfair as some are made rich and others are made poor.

We concluded that we are struggling for a world in which land, cities, wealth and power must be shared fairly.

Abahlali baseMjondolo

031 304 6420