Daily Maverick: Evictions: When tragedy comes full circle

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2014-06-04-evictions-when-tragedy-comes-full-circle

Terry-Jo Thorne

The word eviction evokes violent imagery – more so in the wake of the considerably shocking removals occurring in Lwandle this past week.

The term "Apartheid-style" has been thrown around, too, as we speak of the use of the police force, with their Casspirs and their weapons, casting families out into the devastating winter climate.

I feel particularly strongly about it here in Cape Town because I am finally starting to sit up and take notice of the many, many voices that cry out in the night when the police come to arrest them and demolish their homes.

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The Con: Under Siege in Clermont

http://www.theconmag.co.za/2014/06/02/clermont-up-in-flames/

Under Siege in Clermont

Fred Kockott, Nomfundo Xolo and Slindile Jiyane

A ministerial housing project has gone awry in Clermont, Durban. Fifteen families who refuse to destroy their homes and move into a transit camp to make way for planned developments are under siege. Among families resisting relocation are the Mlandus. Arsonists attempted to petrol-bomb their home early Friday morning, but only a rock and the burning rag – the fuse of the “bomb” – penetrated through the windows. The bottle dropped outside.

“I was awoken around 2am by my daughter’s loud scream – ‘Vukani ma, nibaleke!’ (Wake up, ma. We must run),” said Nompumelelo Mlandu. “I saw a flame outside my window. I rushed to grab my grandson and got out the house… I am still shaken, but in greater fear of what’s to come next,” said Mlandu. “If something is not done soon, we are all going to die burning in our sleep.”

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Political Education Meeting, Chris Hani settlement, 31 May 2014

Letter to the Editor of the Mail & Guardian

This letter was sent to the Mail & Guardian earlier this week in response to a letter from Mathew Blatchford, an academic at Fort Hare, which makes some entirely untrue statements about our movement which he compares to a 'crack whore'. He suggests that we were first funded by Trotskyists and are now funded by the DA. Neither of of these statements are true.

The newspaper decided not to publish our letter.

Dear Editor

In Durban the ANC thinks that it can kill us with impunity. Mathew Blatchford thinks that he can lie about us with impunity in the Mail & Guardian. According to our understanding the ANC and academics like Blatchford are part of the same structure of oppression that wants to keep us in the dark, confined corners of this country.

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CSAAWU: Solidarity with Dismissed Farmworkers

STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH DISMISSED CSAAWU FARMWORKERS!

HISTORIC LABOUR COURT CASE, 2 JUNE 2014

On 2 June farmworkers will for the first time appear in the Labour Court. Dismissed farmworkers from the historic 2012/3 strikes will 18 months later have their case heard!

In 2013 farmworkers won an unprecedented 52% increase in their minimum wage to R105 p/day through their united struggle & courageous sacrifices. Farmworkers and dwellers undertook a historic rebellion. This was more than a labour dispute for higher wages – it was a spontaneous rural rebellion driven by workers and communities against intolerable working and living conditions, 20 years after so-called democracy.

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Foreman Road Settlement Renews its Commitment to Abahlalism

Friday, 30 May 2014

Abahlali press statement

Foreman Road Settlement Renews its Commitment to Abahlalism

Poor people are at most risk of crime in South Africa. We also get the least support from the police. Often it is assumed that all poor people are criminal. Sometimes the police are the biggest threat to us. However when a community is democratically organized it can sometimes be possible to negotiate with some people in the police so that people can get proper protection against violence. It can also be possible for a community to organize itself in such a way that the risk of violence is reduced. When this doesn’t happen people often take matters into their own hands. In most shack settlements people that commit serious violence against other residents, acts like rape and murder, are made to leave to the settlement. This can happen on a fair basis but, especially when there is no democratic process, it can also be very dangerous.

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Marikana (Cape Town) heads to the Supreme Court of Appeals today

Marikana Land Occupation Press Statement

27 May 2014

Marikana (Cape Town) heads to the Supreme Court of Appeals today

Today we, the Marikana community, have traveled for 12 hours in a cramped taxi to hear the appeal by the City of Cape Town on their illegal eviction of our members in January this year.

We believe we will win the case because we can't afford to rent and the landlords had chased us away so because of our poverty we have nowhere else to go. The "structures" they evicted us from where our homes as defined by the Cape High Court.

Right now we feel like we have already won the case because we now know our rights. When the City came to demolish our homes, we felt like we did not belong in South Africa. But now we know that we are not guilty and that we must fight for our rights. The poor must fight to be considered human in South Africa. We trust in God that we will win this case.

On the 28th of April 2013, the Anti Land Invasion unit came to illegally demolish our homes. For more than 8 months, we had been living in fear and often under the stars and in the cold rain. But our struggle continued and we rebuilt our homes each and every time they came to demolish them.

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Richard Pithouse presenting his PhD to the movement, Hindu Surat Hall, 24th & 25th of May 2014

Richard Pithouse presenting his PhD to the movement, Hindu Surat Hall, 24th & 25th of May

Church Land Programme: Living Democracy

Living democracy

Church Land Programme, May 2014.

For good reason, practical questions of grassroots democracy and autonomy remain central in CLP's work and reflection during this period. It's clear that emancipatory politics starts in political events of complete rupture with what exists. It's also clear that the subsequent work taking forward that politics, in struggle/s and in organisation, can only be faithful to itself if it never compromises the principled basis of that politics. That fidelity requires always matching the modes of struggle and the forms of organising with a thoughtful and practical praxis that expresses those axioms and principles. In practice, such fidelity cannot be assumed or taken for granted and nor are there any readymade recipes for ensuring it, except perhaps the refusal to ever surrender principle to tactics.

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