Thursday, 23 September 2021
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement

The Struggle Continues – always moving, always organising, always building

In the past three weeks we have been continuing our work in the branches across the five provinces organising to ensure food security. The crisis of hunger rapidly worsened during the lockdowns, and some members were also hard hit by the winter riots. We organise to build food sovereignty by setting up collective gardens on occupied land and we organise to provide immediate solidarity via the direct provision of food to the most vulnerable people in each branch, as determined by the branches. More than 1 000 families have benefited from our food solidarity project. Building living solidarity is an essential part of struggle.

Tomorrow, Friday 24 September, beginning at 9:00, we will hold the annual Thuli Ndlovu lecture at the Hindu Surat Hall in Prince Edward Street in Durban. Thuli Ndlovu was a leader in our movement when she was assassinated on the instruction of two ANC councillors on 29 September 2014. Each year on the day of the lecture we remember all our fallen heroes and heroines in the struggle for land, housing and dignity. We give them the dignity that they were not given by the government, instead they were killed like dogs for opposing the corruption and oppression of the ANC. They were treated like animals by a government that calls itself democratic. The lecture is also an opportunity to present and share ideas. This year the lecture will be given by our Deputy President Mqapheli Bonono. Engaging in the battle of ideas is an essential part of struggle.

On Saturday, 25 September the Abahlali baseMjondolo Choral Society will perform at The Forge in Braamfontein in Johannesburg during an event, beginning at 13:00, to discuss and celebrate radical culture. The choir, which is mostly made up of women, sings about the years of pain in the struggle for land, housing and dignity. It gives honour to those who are denied dignity by oppression. Creating and sustaining progressive culture is an essential part of struggle.

On Sunday 26 September, starting at 9:00, we will host our Heritage Day celebration in Perdekop in Mpumalanga Province. On Heritage Day we always build unity between the oppressed, celebrating all cultures. Attendance at the event has been limited to 500 due to Covid protocols. Uniting the oppressed is an essential part of struggle.

To be in struggle means constant movement, constant organising and constant building. It means organising solidarity, taking on the battle of ideas, creating progressive culture and uniting the oppressed. It means insisting that our dignity is not negotiable, that capitalism and the gangster politicians must be overcome and that land, wealth, cities and power shared fairly. It means mourning together, celebrating together, thinking together and building together.

We continue to work to support other progressive formations to organise and build their power. We continue to develop unity in struggle so that the oppressed can pave the way to real freedom, not the fake freedom that was brought to us by the ANC. It is only the democratic power of the oppressed that can successfully confront oppression.

Move, organise, think, mourn, celebrate, create, resist, build.

Contact:

Thapelo Mohapi – 074 774 4219
Mqapheli Bonono – 073 067 3272
Nomsa Sizani – 081 005 3686