Muziwakhe Mdlalose

Mdlalose was born near the town of Eshowe at a village called Mbongolwane. He is coming from a poor rural family. He lost both his parents while he was still young and as a result he grew up as an orphan. He grew up in a village that was without water and sanitation and that was under the control of an unelected traditional leadership. He was involved in the struggle against apartheid as a supporter of the African National Congress (ANC).

He moved to the Kennedy Road shack settlement in Durban in 1993 to look for work. In 1999 he joined the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC), an elected community structure that governed the settlement. The Kennedy Road Development Committee affiliated to Abahlali baseMjondolo when the movement was formed in October 2005.Mdlalose was elected as the Chairperson of KRDC in 2008.

He works in a factory in Pinetown. In 2009 he was one of many militants in the Kennedy Road settlement who had their homes destroyed and was driven out of the settlement by armed members of the ruling party supported by the police and senior politicians. In 2011 he was elected as the President of Abahlali baseMjondolo.

His understanding of Abahlalism is that the movement should work to keep poor people together so that they can voice out their grievances and organise to struggle to bring back the dignity and respect of the shack dwellers and the poor at large. He believes that oppressed people can win their dignity back in the struggle to protect the rights that have already been won and to fight for new rights. For Mdlalose it is important that the movement works to bring the government to the people and the people to government in order to make sure that the people participate, fully, in all decision making that affects them. He thinks that it is very important to organise and struggle to promote the bottom up system which has been recommended by the constitution of South Africa but which is denied by the top down ways of working that are typical of the government and NGOs. For Mdlalose the ultimate goal of struggle is a world in which all people are treated equally and with respect and in which everyone has the same right to participate in all decision making and wealth and land are shared fairly.