http://akhilak.com/blog/2011/02/25/feature-friday-abahlali-basemjondolo-the-durban-shack-dwellers-movement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wordpress%2Fkjoh+%28Justice+for+all%29

Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Durban Shack Dwellers’ Movement

Akhila Kolisetty

A loved one, deeply passionate about social movements, has recently opened my eyes to a truly incredible one: Abahali baseMjondolo, the South African shack dwellers’ movement.

http://www.blackyouthproject.com/blog/2011/02/the-dark-continent-the-criminalization-of-the-poor/

The Dark Continent: The Criminalization of the Poor

Abahlali baseMjondolo or the Shack Dwellers movement began almost six years ago in Durban, South Africa. Abahlali has become (according to their website) the “largest organization of the poor” in post-apartheid South Africa. The organization was solidified through their first protest. This protest was a “road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road settlement” to speak out against the sale of an area that was promised by local government to the shack dwellers for housing. Through Abahlali, which is the largest representation of the poor in South Africa, we can explore in more depth how the poor are treated in society. I will use S’bu Zikode’s article on The Third Force to detail the conditions and struggle that poor people experience in on a regular basis. With this article we can examine and determine exactly how the poor are criminalized.

Click here for more information on this film.

http://impendingboom.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/who-shot-first-the-uprising-of-hangberg/

Who shot first? The uprising of Hangberg
October 27, 2010

“Who shot first?” That’s the pivotal question in Dylan Valley and Aryan Kaganof’s The uprising of Hangberg , screened last night at Labia on Orange.

The documentary presents overwhelming evidence that metro police used unwarranted force when they arrived in Hangberg on Tuesday, 21 September, to demolish informal houses built on a fire break.

http://propertyistheft.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/the-revolutionary-potential-of-social-scum/

The Revolutionary Potential of Social Scum

by Phil Dickens

Media pundits, politicians, and the outraged chattering classes often go on about the “underclass.”

Faced with levels of crime, poverty, and social anger that they are neither willing nor able to understand, the term is one of blame and accusation. It’s a useful catch-all for the long-term unemployed, welfare recipients, the homeless, petty criminals, drug addicts, and those who operate on the black economy. These are the people dragging us down, keeping us from success and prosperity with their listless criminal ways.

http://pumlagqola.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/tokyo-sexwale-among-the-shack-dwellers/

Tokyo Sexwale among the shack dwellers

by Pumla Dineo Gqola

The business mogul, ex-guerilla, ex Premier of Gauteng Province, Tokyo Sexwale spent a night in an informal settlement recently as the South African media has been telling us ad nauseam over the last few days. Sexwale is now the Minister of Human Settlements. This blog-post is not about what a terrible title that is, even though, it never fails to conjure up beings from elsewhere in the universe looking at planet earth and engineering/studying settlement patterns, much like old fashioned anthropologists, I imagine. Very unfortunate choice of name.

http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/?p=1174

The Rule of Law and “conflicts of interests”
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by Pierre De Vos

One of the most important but often neglected aspects of the Rule of Law is the requirement that individuals must be able to enforce their rights and legal entitlements in a court of law. At the heart of the Rule of Law is the notion that we are a rule-based society and that everyone - no matter how powerful or weak - must have the equal chance to enforce their rights and legal entitlements as set out by law.

Irene Grootboom died, homeless, forgotten, no C-class Mercedes in sight
Posted on August 11th, 2008 by Pierre De Vos

Irene Grootboom died last week, but we hardly noticed as we were all too busy obsessing about yet another court appearance of Mr. Jacob Zuma. She died homeless and penniless, not yet fifty years old, in the same week that robbers broke into the garage of ANC Youth League President Julius Malema’s upmarket home in Sandton and stole stuff from his C-Class Mercedes.

The ANC Youth League did not have time to issue a press statement about the death of Mrs. Grootboom. They were too upset about the break-in at the fancy house of Mr. Malema. Breaking into a C-Class Mercedes is apparently not a revolutionary act - especially if that C-class belongs to Comrade kortbroek Malema. Thus the Youth League did have time to pontificate on this break-in: who cares about a poor and destitute woman who made legal history if there is a revolution to be fought and a man of dubious ethical standards to be defended. The Youth League statement reads in part:

http://durbanaction.wordpress.com/

Durban Action Against Xenophobia
July 12, 2008
3am 12 July Message from Kathleen
Filed under: Updates — durbancrisis @ 8:42 am
Tags: Albert Park, displaced people, durban, eThekwini, kwazulu natal, refugees, violence, xenophobia

It’s 3am. I can’t sleep because of what we’ve seen and heard tonight.

This evening, we went to Albert Park to see what we could do. The refugees said that two women were injured. So we offered to take them to hospital. I’ll call these women Sophie and Marie (not their real names). Sophie’s two young sons came with her to our car. There was no room for them and the other refugees assured Sophie they would look after her sons until her return. Sophie was moaning and unable to walk. “Who did this?” I asked the boys in my rusty French? “The police”.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cdc/bythepeople/2008/06/post_12.php

From Gugulethu, South Africa

by Harry Boyte

Over the past several weeks, waves of violence have broken out across South Africa, directed at political refugees who have fled across the border from Zimbabwe and immigrants from other African countries. In the desperately poor squatters settlements of the Abahali movement, where many refugees have settled, leaders recognized signs of growing anti-immigrant sentiment months ago and moved rapidly to quell and prevent violence. “No human being is illegal,” read their statement. “Only actions can be illegal.” They determined that people already see squatters in negative terms – “even township people look down on us” – and that they could not afford to further damage their reputations through violence.