Category Archives: Shack Dwellers International

eThekwini’s shack plan sidelines Abahlali baseMjondolo

Daily News

Lee Rondganger

Durban – The eThekwini Municipality plans to enter into a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with four shack dwellers associations in an effort to improve the lives of residents in informal settlements and find long-term solutions for them.

However, the plan has been slammed by the biggest shack dwellers association in the city, Abahlali baseMjondolo who have been excluded from the MoA signing.

Abahlali baseMjondolo claims to represent 40 000 shack dwellers living in eThekwini alone and say they have 39 branches in the city.  Continue reading

Serious Threats Made Against our Movement by Leaders in the eThekwini ANC

Thursday, 14 June 2018

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Serious Threats Made Against our Movement by Leaders in the eThekwini ANC

At the Executive Committee meeting of the eThekwini Municipality on Tuesday, 12 June, the Mayor and the Chief Whip made disturbingly undemocratic, authoritarian and threatening statements about our movement, and about S’bu Zikode. In light of our past experiences, and the current climate of intimidation and violence in KwaZulu-Natal, which includes the ongoing murder of our leaders, we take these threats very seriously. We are sending out an urgent call for solidarity, and for urgent action to be taken against the senior leaders in eThekwini ANC who are a serious threat to democracy, and our safety. Continue reading

Concern about SDI press release

Dear Colleagues

I would like to voice concern with a press release by SDI, also posted on Shelter Norway’s website, about the Nobel Peace Prize nomination of Jockin Arputham. It appears below. I am not questioning the nomination, but the arguments put forward in the press release cannot remain unchallenged.

I’ve copied Mike Davis into this e-mail, as he might like to comment on the way one point in his book ‘Planet of Slums’ is used. In the interpretation of the press release, it is Davis’ notion that violence is guaranteed to arise from within the planet’s ‘slums’, which are therefore a threat to western society. The press release uses this (and reference to western military concerns) to justify or at least highlight the importance of SDI’s pacifying strategies of dialogue rather than ‘confrontation’. The press release, in the tradition of SDI tracts and publications, employs a simplistic dualism between ‘dialogue’ and ‘confrontation’, one good, the other bad; one beneficial, the other damaging; one supportive, the other exploitative;  one promoted by SDI, the other by ‘middle class rights based activists that “never give anything back”’.

Continue reading

Daily Maverick: In Langa, Cape Town: A dark combo of housing corruption & police brutality

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-05-08-in-langa-cape-town-a-dark-combo-of-housing-corruption-police-brutality

In Langa, Cape Town: A dark combo of housing corruption & police brutality

by Jared Sacks

Twenty-seven-year-old Siyabonga Magcida is in Groote Schuur Hospital today, under 24-hour police surveillance, because he is considered a flight risk. Yet he is severely injured, is connected to drips on both arms and is unable to walk or even speak. By JARED SACKS.

The answer will take us back a full six years, when the Joe Slovo community first rose up to fight their pending eviction to the peri-urban township called Delft on the outskirts of Cape Town. Now, Magcida’s enemy is not just the housing department, but also his former comrades. Continue reading

NGOs, Bill Gates und Selbstbestimmung

http://akkrise.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/ngos-bill-gates-und-selbstbestimmung/

NGOs, Bill Gates und Selbstbestimmung

http://abahlali.org//////node/2903, 22.11.2007

Weder der Marsch noch das Geld gehören uns

Die Telefone der Abahlali-SprecherIn haben pausenlos geläutet, JournalistInnen wollten etwas über die Demo der BarackenbewohnerInnen, die heute stattfinden sollte, wissen, und über die 10 Millionen Dollar für Wohnraum von der Gates-Foundation. Wir danken allen JournalistInnen für ihr Interesse. Das freut uns immer. Aber wir müssen einiges klarstellen. Die Demo ist nicht die unsrige, und das Geld ist auch nicht für uns.  Continue reading