Category Archives: Reverend Mavuso

Living Learning

Click here to download the Living Learning booklet in pdf.

Living Learning

Just two days before Abahlali baseMjondolo was violently attacked in Kennedy Road, the movement was in celebratory mood as hundreds of shackdwellers crowded into the eMmause Community Hall on Heritage Day, 24th September, for the launch of a new booklet, Living Learning.

Living Learning is the collected notes from an extraordinary series of discussions between militants of two key movements in contemporary South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Rural Network. When, in late 2008, they made the decision to publish them, these authors explained that “this Living Learning is a living testimony and a record of how we made reflections and distinctions about what we face in life and in our learning. Living Learning is part of a living politics”.

Living Learning captures some of the best of the life, thought and struggle of these two key South African movements. That the ANC and the police launched a violent coup against Abahlali baseMjondolo in its best known base in Kennedy Road is of course reprehensible and must be exposed and resisted – but it is also perfectly understandable, even anticipated, in the analysis that emerges in Living Learning. In the booklet, movement militants describe this lifelong 'living learning' as:

“a learning that helps us become questioning people – to the powerful, we become suspicious, we become trouble-makers and they do not want us to continue this kind of lifelong learning”.

The movement militants said that this 'living learning' is “is not about heavy things to be learned by us 'fools' from 'smarter' people. Publishing a booklet out of our Living Learning could also be there for those 'smarter' people to learn from the 'fools'.”

The 'fools' had been mandated by their movements to attend a participatory development course at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and the Living Learning discussions ran parallel to that course as a movement-directed space for critical reflection. The content and the curriculum is nothing other than the militants' own identification and analysis of the connections between life and struggle; between the universities of movements and of academia. It's publication is a decisive demonstration of the reality and value of the deep intellectual work that informs and shapes the praxis of these movements.

Within the overarching commitment to a movement praxis of “Living Politics”, this deep intellectualism is a popular project not, as is more normal, an elite one that reinforces inequality. The authors themselves note that “there is this assumption… that when you go to the academic university you don't think about what you are learning daily in life, but you are just theorising and talking about the people. Education can sometimes destroy our struggle – when education makes leaders think of the people that they came from as the 'uneducated' ones, those who 'do not understand', those that we move away from. But if this publication comes, it will show that it can be different; that the people and daily life are included by us in our Living Learning, and that the work continues. And this is part of the thinking about bringing the two universities together. Perhaps we can talk of achieving the 'Universal University' – invading the academic one in order for it to benefit the people”.

The Living Learners gave their notes to academics Nigel Gibson, Anne Harley and Richard Pithouse, and asked them to collaborate and write some thoughts about what they read. The resulting piece, “Out of Order: A Living Learning for a Living Politics”, is also featured in the booklet. In their conclusion, Gibson, Harley and Pithouse say they “thank the comrades … who were part of the Living Learning project … for the honour of their invitation to write a piece for their booklet. … The movements and their alliance face all kinds of challenges and the future is not, at all, certain. But Living Learning, along with various other records of the intellectual work done in the movements – press releases, films, essays, songs, speeches, interviews and files and files of meeting minutes, and so on – makes it is very clear that the movements have laid an excellent intellectual foundation for the next phase of struggle. If, as the radical French philosopher Alain Badiou argues, “a struggle prevails when its principles are clear” then the movements are in with a fighting chance. We salute them. Qina!”

For the movement-based authors, the booklet is “an invitation to the world to “take your time and read it”, you can learn from it, it is living – not in the distant past. It can generate and provoke debate and discussion, even critique”.

Under the current circumstances, inviting the rest of world to share in the project of 'living learning' is a matter of urgency and practical politics connected with the imperatives of a living politics. The violent take-over of Kennedy Road perfectly illustrates the morbid and stultifying regime of death that passes for 'politics' in South Africa:

“Our country is caught in a politics that often prevents us to search for real truth. We don't say that we in the movements are perfect, but at least we are trying, we are opening these gates; at least we are on a right path to search for the truth. We have a deep responsibility to make sure that no-one can shut these gates”.

Mark Butler
2 October 2009.

Abahlali on DemocracyNow!

Full background at DemocracyNow

JUAN GONZALEZ: We end today with a look at South Africa, which is poised to host the World Cup, the premier international football competition, next year. While Durban completes the finishing touches on its new stadium, thousands of the city’s poor who live in sprawling informal settlements are threatened with eviction by the ruling African National Congress’s, or ANC’s, slum clearance policies.

Late this Saturday night, an armed gang of some forty men attacked an informal settlement on [Durban’s] Kennedy Road killing at least two people and destroying thirty shacks. A thousand people have reportedly been driven out of the settlement. Eyewitnesses say the attackers acted with the support of the local ANC structures. Members of the Durban Shack Dwellers Movement, which brings together tens of thousands of shack dwellers to demand their right to fair housing in the city, were holding a youth camp when they were attacked.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, last month we interviewed a young leader from the Shack Dwellers Movement, eighteen-year-old Mazwi Nzimande. He is president of the movement’s youth league. He has been displaced by this latest attack. He’s currently in hiding. We also spoke with Reverend Mavuso Mbhekiseni from the Rural Network in South Africa. They were in the US speaking out against the anti-poor policies in post-apartheid South Africa.

I began by asking Mazwi to explain the Shack Dwellers Movement.

MAZWI NZIMANDE: The Shack Dwellers Movement is a movement that was made by the poor people, the people who were waiting for housing since 1994. It’s the movement that is made out of poor people only, because the poor people are feeling betrayed, so they decided to join hands together and approach the government and make the government to be aware. They say there are still poor people in South Africa, because they feel that they are the forgotten citizens of the country. The only thing that is being remembered is to build stadiums for the 2010 World Cup. They don’t talk about the poor people anymore. They’re only talking about promoting the country, so the poor people decided to join hands together and approach the government and say, “Hey, we are still existing in the country, so we are still waiting for those houses.”

JUAN GONZALEZ: What is the [Slums] Act? When was it passed? And what has been the impact of it on the poor communities of South Africa?

MAZWI NZIMANDE: The Slums Act was first a bill in 2006, when the Shack Dwellers Movement was invited at the provincial parliament in Pietermaritzburg, when it was still a bill, you know. So we were invited to come and observe while they were introducing the Slums Act. And it has not been good for the shack dwellers, because the Slums Act says you should not resist eviction. If you resist evictions, you might be fined 20,000 rand or being sentenced at five years. So, most of us cannot afford that, because we want to be in our shacks, we want to be close in the city. I mean, that’s what we want. We want the government to provide houses where the people are, close to our working place, close to our schools, close to the hospital. Plus, we have a right to be close to the city.

AMY GOODMAN: Isn’t South Africa unusual in that it has housing as a human right written into the Constitution?

MAZWI NZIMANDE: It does, yes. But now, it seems like it’s working for certain individuals, not for the poor people, because you will be surprised and shocked when you go to South Africa and see thousands and thousands of informal settlements. And then we just don’t understand, because, I mean, since 1994, these people are still on the waiting list. Each informal settlement has about 7,000 people. And in our movement in Durban only, we have fourteen settlements, and each of those have about 7,000, 5,000. And you will just find it so hard to understand why at this time of the year.

AMY GOODMAN: Mazwi mentioned the World Cup. It’s almost the only way we talk about South Africa today in the United States. But what exactly is happening to people as a result of the World Cup, which is watched by over a billion people and is going to be in South Africa for the first time?

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: Our government is concerned about developing spaces, not population development. So, as they develop spaces, they move away people. They say people should move away, so to pave way for the development, to help it. So, by building these stadia, they are moving people away from the cities and away from their original places, even in rural areas, because they want to build malls, big malls. They want to build freeways, so that, to us, this World Cup is a mass eviction of poor people. So that’s what is happening in South Africa. We are not going to live and stay in the stadia. We are not going to sleep there. So they are destroying our houses or our homes. Because we can afford those homes, so they say—they call them slums, and so we are evicted. So we are saying this World Cup is accompanied by evictions and destruction of our own—and demolishing of our own homes.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And when you say they are moved out, does the government—where are they being moved to? Is the government providing them adequate housing where they’re being moved to?

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: Government is promising them that they are going to have houses about fifty kilometers away from the cities, only to find that there are no houses. You will be moved to transitional relocation camps, where they say you have to wait for some—it’s ten years before you get housing.

AMY GOODMAN: Give us a historical perspective. Reverend Mavuso, you were there before the first democratically elected government of Nelson Mandela. You were there under apartheid. Compare that to today.

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: There is now a widening gap between the rich and the poor. During apartheid, it was the whites and blacks. So, now that is the type of apartheid that we see now, that people are getting more richer, and people are getting more poor.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever get a chance to meet Nelson Mandela? You’re eighteen years old, but President Mandela is still alive.

MAZWI NZIMANDE: I mean, I didn’t get a chance to see the days of Nelson Mandela, but, I mean, I’m hearing things that he’s such a wonderful man, he’s such a good man. You know, he has that powerful voice. But I don’t believe, because he is still alive, but there are informal—there are shack dwellers in South Africa, but he hasn’t said anything. There is that huge gap. Mandela is up there, and the people are down there, so it’s very hard to, like, get a chance to meet with Nelson Mandela. Even the current president, I haven’t met him, you know, because those people are high up. The only time they come to the communities is when the elections are going to take place. And they come with bodyguards. So, for me, it’s hard to understand why does a man that we must elect as a president come to our community, has bodyguard. That means he fear us, you know. So how can we access the man who comes with bodyguard in our communities? I don’t understand.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And if it’s true, as you say, that there’s been so many problems in terms of the widening gap in the country, why is the ANC leadership still receiving such huge support at the polls?

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: People were educated, through what we call domestication, that they should love one party, because that party gave them—will give them freedom. This is a majority party of—and it is a black government, so they say if we vote for another party, then it means it will not be democracy. They think democracy comes with the ANC. So they think ANC is democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Rev. Mavuso of the Rural Network in South Africa and eighteen-year-old Mazwi Nzimande, president of the Shack Dwellers Movement’s youth league. We only have fifteen seconds, but he is now in hiding after a major attack on their shacks this weekend, Saturday night.

Mazwi, what happened? Very quickly, who did this? Who attacked people, killed two and hurt the shacks?

MAZWI NZIMANDE: Thank you. Firstly, we were not there, but on Sunday during the day, we went back to Kennedy Road to check on how things were, how the conditions were. I mean, it became clear when we saw the ANC guys who were there, you know, enjoying themselves, having that gathering. Even the [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds. We have five seconds.

MAZWI NZIMANDE: Even, I mean, so clear, it’s the ANC, because they have mentioned it, that they want the whole informal settlement to be known to the ANC [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: Mazwi Nzimande, we have to leave it there.

live or die for (eNkwalini)

The film is about the eNkwalini community’s struggle for land rights. It highlights the attacks by the local neighbouring farmer who has been trying to evict them since 2005 when he started to demolish their houses. The film tells a story of a rural community that is waging a struggle against ferocious tides of oppression. It is a story about a territorial war between the poor rural community and rich land owner. It is a story that reminds us that although South Africa may be celebrating 15 years of democratic rule, however, conditions under for those who are poor and marginalized, such as the rural and farm dweller communities, have hardly changed. For them it is not yet “uhuru” (freedom).

One of the houses shown in this film is a debilitated homestead that used to belong to the Shandu family. After many years of participating in the local community’s struggle to defend their territorial rights the Shandu family gave up and left on the grounds of voluntary eviction. Mr. Zulu who narrates the Nkwalini story in this film states that after numerous attempts of constructive eviction by the local neighbour farmer such as unlawful cattle impoundment, denial of access to water and public servitude road, threats of violence, damage to property (with almost impunity) the Shandu family joined a small group of local residents who ended up succumbing to this constructive eviction exerted upon them by this local farmer.

The Nkwalini community is an affiliate member of the Rural Network (RN). The RN is a non-partisan alliance of various communities who live on rural and farming areas in KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. It was formed in the late 2005 as an initiative to mobilize and keep connected for purposes of strengthening solidarity among those who suffer abuses of their land rights and basic democratic rights.

Reverend Thulani Ndlazi

To see more short films by Elkartasun Bideak click here.