Category Archives: Mandela Complex

LRB: The Mandela Complex

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/04/17/harry-stopes/the-mandela-complex/

Harry Stopes

In December 2013, a group of people living in shack settlements in Newlands West, Durban, entered and squatted a development of 16 nearly complete apartment blocks on Castle Hill, about ten miles north-west of the city centre. They stayed for more than a year before they were evicted on 17 December 2014. The developer calls the site Hilldale; the squatters called it the Mandela Complex.

Since 1994 the main government policy for housing the poor in South Africa has been to provide free homes, for private ownership, through the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). To be eligible for an RDP home, your total household income mut be less than 3500 Rand a month. That isn’t much (currently around £200), but there are millions of South Africans who earn less, or nothing at all – a quarter of the workforce is unemployed. Around 180,000 RDP units have been built in Durban since 1994. Continue reading →

Comrades from the Mandela Complex protesting outside the Durban High Court – 27 January 2015

Comrades from the Mandela Complex protesting outside the Durban High Court – 27 January 2015. They have successfully secured an interdict stopping Jay Singh from moving new tenants into the flats from which the comrades were evicted in December after a one year occupation. The next legal step is to secure an order allowing them to return to the flats. The political struggle for land and housing continues outside the court, including at the ongoing occupation outside the block of flats. The Mandela Complex comrades return to court on the 5th of February 2015.

Comrades from the Mandela Complex protesting outside the Durban High Court – 27 January 2015

Comrades from the Mandela Complex protesting outside the Durban High Court – 27 January 2015. They have successfully secured an interdict stopping Jay Singh from moving new tenants into the flats from which the comrades were evicted in December after a one year occupation. The next legal step is to secure an order allowing them to return to the flats. The political struggle for land and housing continues outside the court, including at the ongoing occupation outside the block of flats. The Mandela Complex comrades return to court on the 5th of February 2015.