The Faculty of Humanities together with the Women's Academic Solidarity Association at Rhodes University in Grahamstown invite you to attend the following lunch time seminar:

Topic: Democracy at the Brink of Catastrophe

Speakers: Shamita Naidoo & S'bu Zikode

Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) is a shack-dwellers' movement that grew out of a road blockade in the Kennedy Road settlement in Durban in early 2005. It now has more than 10 000 paid up members in 54 settlements across KwaZulu-Natal and, also, in Cape Town. The movement campaigns for land and housing in the cities and to democratise society from below. It has actively organised against xenophobia and has recently succeeded in having the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act declared unconstitutional in the Constitutional Court.

Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) at the University of Johannesburg invites you to a seminar entitled:

Democracy under Threat?: What Attacks on Grassroots Activists Mean for our Politics

DEMOCRACY requires that the right to express ourselves in association with others be enjoyed by all, not only those who are well connected and visible. Constant allegations over the past few years that grassroots social movements who are critical of the government have been subject to police action denying them those rights are, therefore, a severe threat to the credibility of South African democracy.