Category Archives: Center for Civil Society

Statement by Marie Huchzermeyer on Abahlali baseMjondolo’s decision in 2006 to disrupt the Social Movement Indaba

Statement by Marie Huchzermeyer on Abahlali baseMjondolo’s decision in 2006 to disrupt the Social Movement Indaba

Bandile Mdlalose’s 2014 paper in Politikon continues a line of argument about Abahlali emanating from people aligned to the Centre for Civil Society,  that began in 2006. This line of argument is that ‘white academics’ have been controlling Abahlali and that “the academics and left activists coming from the suburbs found shack-dwellers who could be made to look like their dreams and assumptions”. These arguments began to be made in the media in 2006 when Abahlali took the decision, with the Anti-Eviction Campaign, to disrupt the Social Movement Indaba hosted by the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN. Continue reading →

An Old Snake in a New Skin – From Raymond Masondo to Heinrich Bohmke and Bandile Mdlalose

6 February 2015

Abahlali baseMjondolo Statement

An Old Snake in a New Skin – From Raymond Masondo to Heinrich Bohmke and Bandile Mdlalose

In 2006, when we made it clear that we would not give up our autonomy to the NGOs and walked out of a meeting at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) at UKZN, some NGO workers, such as Mondli Hlatswayo, rushed to call us criminals on emails and in the press. At the time we could see no difference between how these NGOs responded to our insistence on our right to organise ourselves, to think for ourselves and to take our own positions and how the state responded. They both declared that we were criminals under the control of a white man.

As everyone who is familiar with the history of our movement knows since then we have been subject to constant defamation from a small group of people, all linked in different ways to CCS. These same people have never said a word when we have faced evictions, arrests, beatings, torture and murder. We continue to see very strong parallels between how the state responds to our movement and how some NGOs respond to our movement. Continue reading →