Statement by Marie Huchzermeyer on Abahlali baseMjondolo’s decision in 2006 to disrupt the Social Movement Indaba

Bandile Mdlalose’s 2014 paper in Politikon continues a line of argument about Abahlali emanating from people aligned to the Centre for Civil Society,  that began in 2006. This line of argument is that ‘white academics’ have been controlling Abahlali and that “the academics and left activists coming from the suburbs found shack-dwellers who could be made to look like their dreams and assumptions”. These arguments began to be made in the media in 2006 when Abahlali took the decision, with the Anti-Eviction Campaign, to disrupt the Social Movement Indaba hosted by the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN.

It is important to place on record how Abahlali baseMjondolo, along with the Anti-Eviction Campaign came to its decision late in 2006 to disrupt the Social Movement Indaba hosted by the Centre for Civil Society.

I witnessed the making of this decision, which was taken in the break time of an unrelated housing rights workshop at which we began a discussion about the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Illegal Slums Bill. Abahlali’s objection to this bill and later act took the movement on a bumpy road to Constitutional Court victory in 2009. The housing rights workshop, organised by the Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions in the Kennedy Road community hall, happened to be on the day of the Social Movement Indaba.

The participants in the workshop were members of Abahlali and the Anti-Eviction Campaign. Both had been invited to the Indaba. During break time in the workshop, participants formed a caucus. The caucus consisted of shack dwellers only, and the concern, we were later told, was their exclusion from the agenda-setting of what they perceived as an NGO-dominated Indaba.

Key participants in the Indaba framed the disruption by Abahlali and the Anti-Eviction Campaign, staged later on the same day, as instigated by ‘white academics’ Richard Pithouse and Richard Ballard. However, Richard Ballard was at the workshop only very briefly, and Richard Pithouse was not present at all, as it happened to be the day of his wedding – neither could have influenced the caucus in any way. Abahlali has consistently maintained its independence of those it calls on for various kinds of support.