Apartheid petty and grand and old and new is evil

by Ayanda Kota

The Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) was formed in August 2009 to respond to the crisis of unemployment and the commodification of essential services in a society dominated by corruption and greed. As Steve Biko said we blacks are tired of standing at the touchlines to witness a game that we should be playing. We want to do things for ourselves and all by ourselves. This is a realisation that we are protagonists of our lives and nobody will free us but ourselves, we – the unemployed - will have to be our own liberators.

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-02-29-no-charges-but-cops-still-want-to-throw-the-book-at-kota/

No charges, but cops still want to throw the book at Kota

by Farnaaz Parker

Charges of theft against prominent Grahamstown activist Ayanda Kota have been dropped but police say they will still pursue additional charges against him.

Kota was charged with theft in January after he failed to return some books he had borrowed from a former associate with whom he had had a falling out.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-02-07-ayanda-kota-unapologetic-anc-apostate

Ayanda Kota: Unapologetic ANC apostate

by Mandy de Waal

“I choose to identify with the underprivileged,” Martin Luther King once said. “I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. I choose to live for those who find themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U12JgKt69k&feature=related

Directed by Andiswa Leve. School of Journalism and Media Studies. Rhodes University.

17 January 2011
Unemployed People's Movement Press Statement

Ayanda Kota has Laid a Charge of Assault Against the Police

Ayanda Kota was released from custody on Friday afternoon. Bail was set at R500. The judge made it clear that he considered the charge of 'theft' for failure to return borrowed books to be ridiculous. Although this was not mentioned in court the fact that Ayanda has repeatedly offered to replace the books in question makes the charge even more ridiculous. The prosecutor did not even have a docket on the charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer but he requested more time for 'further investigation'.

There are also articles in The Daily Dispatch and Grocott's Mail.

http://mg.co.za/article/2012-01-13-cops-arrest-grahamstown-activist-for-book-theft/

Grahamstown activist arrested for book theft

Faranaaz Parker

Social activists in Grahamstown have accused police of assaulting and laying spurious charges against prominent social activist Ayanda Kota in retaliation for his anti-government stance.

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONT

13 January 2012

PRESS STATEMENT: DROP CHARGES AGAINST AYANDA KOTA AND CALL FOR PUBLIC ACTIONS AGAINST STATE/POLICE REPRESSION OF ACTIVISTS

The Democratic Left Front (DLF) calls for the immediate release and dropping of all charges against comrade Ayanda Kota, the Chairperson of the Grahamstown-based Unemployed People’s Movement. Kota is also a founder and member of the National Committee of the (DLF). Kota will appear at 9am this morning at the Grahamstown Magistrate’s Court to answer to charges of theft and assault of police. He has been in police custody from yesterday afternoon.

ANC Centenary: A Display of Elite Power

The centenary celebrations of the African National Congress (ANC) are being used to persuade the people that a movement that has betrayed the people is our government, a government that obeys the people, instead of a government of the elites, for the elites and by the elites. It is a hugely expensive spectacular designed to drug us against our own oppression and disempowerment.

In his Communist Manifesto Karl Marx wrote that “Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class...The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie”. Here Marx is referring to the ability of the bourgeois to translate economic power into state power, thus reducing our governments to mere managers acting in the interests of capital and not the people. This has happened to governments around the world. But here our politicians are not mere managers. They are, like in Russia or India, a predatory elite with their own class interests and they support capital and repress the people as long as they can get their own share.

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-11-25-secrecy-bill-shows-ancs-historic-mission-is-over/

Secrecy Bill shows ANC's historic mission is over

Ayanda Kota

When the National Party government realised it was losing its grip on power, it became preoccupied with state security. It was so paranoid that secrecy and censorship became a tool of oppression. It was criminal to possess any document government saw as threatening. Media censorship was severe. On “Black Wednesday”, October 19 1977, 18 black consciousness formations were banned and their leaders jailed, tortured and killed. Newspapers were also banned.

A Better Life for All Remains a Dream for the Poor and the Unemployed

The eThembeni informal settlement was erected in 1992, before the dawn of our democracy. It was called eThembeni, “place of hope”, because the birth of a new nation, the birth of democracy was inevitable. But today people remain unemployed, living without income in mud houses.

Horizontal to the place of hope, 3km away, another informal settlement stands. It is called Phaphamani, a place of vigilant people. Phaphamani was erected in 1992. In both informal settlements there are no human basic services like electricity and sanitation.