Yesterday Abahlali baseMjondolo presented to the Human Rights Commission in Johannesburg. This is the statement that was sent to the Commission in advance of the hearings.

12 February 2015

Abahlali baseMjondolo

Statement for the Human Rights Commission Hearings Relating to Access to Housing, Local Government and Service Delivery

We first met on the 5th of January 2015 to begin the process of developing a response to the questions asked by the Human Rights Commission and we concluded the process on the 12th of February 2015.

We note that we have been invited to the hearings as a civil society organisation. We would like to begin by stating that we do not identify ourselves as a civil society organisation. Mostly when people talk about civil society what they mean is NGOs. Most NGOs have no members and no mandate to represent anyone. When NGOs are taken to represent the people in the name of civil society this is one more way of excluding oppressed people from important spaces and discussions. Some NGOs are as hostile to democratic membership based peoples’ organisations as the worst elements in the state. We are also not a political party. We are a democratic membership based movement of shack dwellers and other poor people (umbutho wabantu). We currently have twenty two branches in good standing in KwaZulu-Natal, and one in Cape Town, and just over 11 000 individual members in good standing. The government, and some NGOS, have always been saying that our movement will not exist in a year’s time. They are always excitedly announcing the death of our movement. But this year we will be celebrating ten years of our existence. Continue reading →