A Bleak Year for the Poor and the Working Class

21 December 2020
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

A Bleak Year for the Poor and the Working Class

The year 2020 has exposed the cruelty of the corrupt and capitalist ANC government, a repressive and predatory government that makes the political and economic elites richer while making the poor poorer.

During the lockdown poor and working-class black people were openly murdered in the streets by the army and the police. Our movement faced repeated illegal and violent evictions during the lockdown despite the supposed moratorium on evictions. Live ammunition was used against unarmed people. Most shack dwellers did not receive the Covid grant. Millions of people lost their jobs. Others were not able to continue with their livelihoods. Across the country people went hungry.  The government did not deal with the capitalists whose interest in making profit at all costs led to them putting their workers at risk during a pandemic. The lives of health workers who are in the frontline in the fight against this pandemic were disregard by the government which failed to provide enough protective gear.

The money that the government allocated to deal with the Covid crisis was stolen on a massive scale. Many companies were started with the sole purpose of looting Covid funds. Huge amounts of money were taken in fraudulent tenders by senior ANC members, including people close to the president and ministers.

Corruption always hits the poor and the working class the hardest. For example the working class in Khayelitsha in Cape Town is unable to travel to work in cheap affordable transport because the thieves in the ANC ran Prasa to the ground. The only affordable form of transport for the working class is no more because of greedy politicians.

We are ruled by thieves. This was not what was meant when the Freedom Charter said ‘The people shall govern’. This is a government of counter-revolutionaries. They have captured the people’s struggle to make themselves rich.

We continue to live under difficult conditions in shacks while those in the ANC are living in luxury. The Freedom Charter said that “All people shall have the right to live where they choose, to be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security” but more people are living in shacks than ever before. Across the country violent evictions are an everyday bread.

Instead of dealing with all of these issues the ANC is using this time to fight its own factional battles in the party. Those who are involved in corruption are promoted in order to please a certain faction. The ANC does not care about the lives of ordinary poor black people. We only count during the elections. When we ask for the promises that were made to us to be kept we are met with bullets. They openly say that we should not be living on land that is near the gated communities of the rich.

Why do people continue to vote for these thugs?

This will be a bleak Christmas. Children who used to have Christmas clothes every year will not receive them this year because their parents have lost their jobs or livelihoods. Many families are now without a bread winner. There are families that will go hungry on Christmas day.
Steve Biko, who was born today 74 years ago this month, said ‘Black man you are on your own’. Today if you are black and poor you are on your own. Solidarity is imperative. Building the power of the poor from below is imperative.

We have done our best to build the democratic power of the poor from below, settlement by settlement, and occupation by occupation. Our membership in good standing is currently
82 056 with 76 branches counted so far, and four branches still to count.

This year we celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of our movement. We celebrated all that we have achieved despite serious repression and saluted all the heroes who lost their lives during our struggle. We thanked all those who have been brave enough to stand up for their humanity and to resist oppression. We noted that women are in the forefront of our movement as members and as leaders and stressed the need to continue to build women’s power from below. We held many meetings to reflect on the last 15 years and to discuss what we have learnt in struggle.

During the lockdown we resisted evictions, developed a food solidarity programme in four provinces and worked to build the social infrastructure in our occupations and to turn them into spaces of production as well as land for living. We have pushed hard to build food sovereignty from below.

We have also done our best to build living solidarity with other organisations and struggles of the poor in South Africa and around the world.

As the poor we are on our own. We will continue to build a living politics, to occupy, to produce and to resist. We will continue to insist that our humanity and right to dignity are non-negotiable

Biko said that “We believe that in our country there shall be no minority, there shall be no majority, there shall just be people. And those people will have the same status before the law and they will have the same political rights before the law. In this instance it will be a completely non-racial egalitarian society.” In 2020 the government treats us as if we are beneath the law.

They just ignore the law when it comes to us. There is no equality.

The ANC was bought to power by the struggles of the people but it has betrayed every tradition of liberation in this country. It is now up to the oppressed to liberate ourselves.
We express our solidarity with the residents of Masiphumelele in Cape Town. Over a thousand homes were lost in the terrible fire on Thursday last week. More than a quarter of a century since the end of apartheid we are still left to burn because we are still not counted as human beings.

Mqapheli Bonono – 073 067 3274
Joyce Majola – 063 181 9997
S’bu Zikode – 083 547 0474