here to watch this video at the Canale TV Rainews 24 website (it is in Italiano and English).
We are all agreed that there is a serious crisis in our country. The poor are being pushed out of any meaningful access to citizenship. We are becoming poorer. We are being forced off our land and out of our cities. The councillor system has become a form of top down political control. It does not take our voices upwards. The democracy that we won in 1994 is turning into a system of oppression for the poor.
The World Cup in South Africa doesn’t mean anything to the poor people. That is so unfortunate for us poor people because we are not going to benefit anything out of it. We as a movement believe that the construction of the stadiums was at the cost of the poor people. Because we feel that the government decided to make preparations for the World Cup instead of building us the houses that we were promised since 1994. No we feel betrayed because we have realised that the funds are available to build these houses but we feel that we are being sidelined. The World Cup is a great event for African and South Africa. We are supposed to be happy but we are not. How can we be happy to go and watch the people playing for the World Cup and yet when the games are over we go back to the very same shacks where there is no food, no water, no electricity.
Well Abahlali in South Africa, I can safely say that they are the only movement that addresses the problems of the poor people, the social problems of the poor people. Abahlali movement is the movement that amplifies the voice of the voiceless. Because if you say something as a poor person no one is prepared to listen to you. But as a collective, as a movement, we have managed to get some of the attention.
We also work with churches like the Diakonia and the DDC and, yes, other NGOs. But the NGOs that are, in particular, working towards developing the culture of a bottom up approach. Because as an organisation we refuse for some other people to take decisions for us. The movement is controlled by the people and we want it to remain so.
Unfortunately the government regards Abahlali baseMjondolo as a threat to the state security. But I wish to put this message across. That Abahlali baseMjondolo is only a social movement. It will never be a threat to the government, it will never be a threat to the state security. We are only seeking for justice, social justice in our communities. We believe that the government that is in power now is our government. We voted them into power. So we feel that it will be stupid for the South African community to break the very same government that we have put into power. We are seeking for social justice in the community. We want the government to work for the people, not to decide for the people.
If you look at the amount of monies that have been spent a lot of houses could have been built, a lot of basic services could have been delivered to the poor people during the period from 1994 up until 2009. As a member of Abahlali we stand deep rooted to our decisions. We won’t be going to the stadiums as an organisation Abahlali.
But we know that the security is tight in South Africa. We are the responsible leaders of the movement. We do not want to risk causalities. But we are busy deciding on some other means to demonstrate peacefully that we are not happy about the World Cup.
– Thembani Ngongoma, Canale TV Rainews 24