Statement of Solidarity from the Democratic Socialist Movement

Dear Comrades,

We are following the terror that has been unleashed on the Kennedy Road settlement and Abahlali baseMjondolo activists in particular with outrage and offer our heartfelt solidarity to your organisation and to the people of Kennedy Road. We will do our best to support Abahlali baseMjondolo at this critical time through spreading the appeal for solidarity to working class activists and social movements nationally and internationally.

From the reports we have been given by Abahlali baseMjondolo comrades, it seems clear that the state, through the local branch of the ruling, ANC, and the police under the cover of a Zulu-chauvinist ethnic cleansing are attempting to crush Abahlali baseMjondolo in blood. The presence of police
intelligence officers in civilian clothing, the local Sydenham police’s non-intervention against the violent attacks, the arrests of eight Kennedy Road Development Committee members who had been targets of the attacks, not perpetrators, and the longstanding police persecution of Abahlali leaders and supporters, are evidence showing the complicity of the police in the attacks.

The longstanding death threats against Abahlali members and supporters and intensifying political intolerance pronounced and promoted by local ANC leader Jackson Gumede, together with ward councilor Yacoob Baig’s statement that “harmony” has now been restored, speak in favour of Abahlali’s interpretation that the ANC has been part of orchestrating the attacks. Abahlali also correctly point out the complicity of the Zuma-led
ANC in fuelling ethnic and “tribalist” tensions by consciously playing on Zulu nationalism to rally support for Zuma’s presidency bid.

For Abahlali, this serves as a confirmation of your statement that “there is no democracy for the poor”. You are right when you say that “harmony” in the mouth of the ruling party representative means “our silence in the face of our oppression”. There can be no true democracy of harmony in a capitalist society like South Africa, where the real power
lies with the tiny elite which owns the wealth – banks, mines, factories, land etc. The hopes that the black working class and poor people of South Africa linked to the ushering of a democratic government – redistribution of the land and the wealth of the country, for decent work, houses, education, and so on – could not be fulfilled by the ANC or any other liberation movement or party as they were and are all committed to preserving the same capitalist system that the apartheid system defended.

The democratic state, which the Sydenham police forms part of, and which
the ANC structures defend and in many instances have become inseparable from, is at its core an instrument to keep the poor and working masses silent in the face of oppression and exploitation. The state is the most critical weapon of many in the ruling class’ possession in the class struggle that defines our society. The rise of Abahlali baseMjondolo frightens the representatives of the state so much because if all the poor
working class people in SA realised the power that we could have if we all united in struggle like you have done, we could blow their oppressive system away in a matter of days. This is a system that cannot tolerate simple demands for houses and a dignified life. Therefore, Abahlali has to be crushed, and if the usual soft trickery fails, the state resorts to this
terror.

We trust that you will recover from these blows, and in time be able to turn the experiences of these traumatic events into renewed strength and to take the strategy to fight this system further. We hope you will then also be willing to engage with us and other social movements on the lessons of this struggle and on the question the DSM has raised with you before: the
need for movements such as Abahlali’s to link up with other communities in struggle against poor service delivery and corruption, recognizing that these are rooted in capitalism. Democracy that gives voice to the working class and the poor, houses, land and a better life for all cannot be achieved without the socialist transformation of society. That means poor
communities coming together with youth and students fighting for free decent education and organised workers fighting for jobs and decent wages to create a mass workers party on a socialist programme.

Liv Shange, for the Democratic Socialist Movement
tel: 0824074959
www.socialistsouthafrica.co.za