S’bu Zikode Speaks at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics

CUNY graduate center, 42nd street, New York

http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/13770

Lessons from the militant poor in post-apartheid South Africa
An evening with S’bu Zikode

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH, 2010
6.30 – 8.30 PM in Room C198 (Concourse level)
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue @ 34th Street

S’bu Zikode is the elected President of Abahlali baseMjondolo Shackdwellers Movement of South Africa. He has held this position since 2005. In December 2009 Anglican Bishop Rubin Phillip, a former comrade of Steve Biko, conferred the Order of the Holy Nativity on Zikode. This year he was listed by the Mail & Guardian as one of the two hundred most influential young South Africans. He has written a number of widely published articles on popular politics and the struggle for just cities. As a result of his political work he has lost two jobs, been arrested and assaulted and, in September 2009, his home was destroyed and looted by an armed mob. He and his partner Sindiswe Mkhize have four children.

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Also featuring a 10-minute sneak preview of Dear Mandela, a documentary film (now in post-production) about South Africa’s “new apartheid”, where forced evictions and dire poverty are too clearly a reminder of days past. Abahlali baseMjondolo, a social movement of shack dwellers is challenging the conditions as well as the state of democracy itself in the country.
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Free and open to the public
Sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics.

Co-sponsored by the Anthropology Doctoral Program, Environmental Psychology Doctoral Subprogram, Political Science Doctoral Program, Sociology Doctoral Program, Africa Research Group, Global Studies Collective, Postcolonial Studies Group, Social and Political Theory Students Association, Spacetime Research Collective, Twentieth Century Area Studies Group, and Women of Color Network.