Raymond Suttner on AbM Electoral Pact
Budget Committee Meeting, 15 May 2014
Understanding Marikana Through The Mpondo Revolts
Sarah Bruchhausen
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate some of the ways in which rural histories can enhance our understanding of both rural and urban resistance, both past and present, in contemporary South Africa. In order to do so, it explores two books in conversation with each other, Thembela Kepe and Lungisile Ntsebeza’s edited volume Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years as well as Peter Alexander, Thapelo Lekgowa, Botsang Mmope, Luke Sinwell and Bongani Xezwi’s Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer. These two books provide a useful platform from which to engage in a re-examination of rurally based protest and repression in order to locate some of the suggestive links, particularly in regard to the transmission of repertoires of struggle, between the Marikana strike and the Mpondo revolts, as well as the on-going struggles of the organised poor in some of South Africa’s urban centres.
Attachments
Understanding Marikana Through The Mpondo Revolts
AbM Briardene Branch at the Durban High Court, 15 May 2014
Chimurenga: A Brief History of Throwing Shit
by Rustum Kozain, Chimurenga
Shit, muck, drek, kak. Faecal matter. We humans have a complicated relationship with our shit, one that dates back to long before Freud.
Consider Francois Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel. The birth of Gargantua is confused with his mother’s bowel movement after she has gorged herself on tripe: birth and decay, life and shit. Gargantua soon learns to shit in private and impresses his father, who considers this development as a sign of the divine in his child. The child has grown up. Continue reading
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Lessons in democracy from the poor
http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/mikevangraan/2014/05/08/lessons-in-democracy-from-the-poor/
Mike van Graan
The decision by members of Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) in KwaZulu-Natal to endorse the Democratic Alliance in the 2014 election has not only raised many eyebrows, but has also unleashed stinging vitriol against this branch of the shack-dwellers’ movement. Started in 2005, AbM with its anti-evictions focus and its campaigns for decent public housing is recognised as one of the most effective social movements in the country. With its core struggle for land and housing, it has boycotted previous local and national government elections under the slogan of “No land! No Houses! No Vote!” Abahlali baseMjondolo has experienced severe repression from both ANC municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal and their DA counterparts in the Western Cape. It is against this background — and the strong anti-capitalist sentiment of the movement — that questions have been raised about the decision of AbM-KZN to call upon their members (estimated to exceed 25 000 nationally) to vote for the DA.
The ANC Must be removed from Office
06 May 2014
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
The ANC Must be removed from Office
For nine years our movement has boycotted elections. We have been clear that no political party represents the interests of the poor and that it was necessary for us to build our own power in order to present our own needs and demands to society. In these nine years we have won many victories but most of us remain in shacks. Twenty years of shack life is a disgrace in a democracy.
Corruption is also a disgrace. In Durban you get nothing without a membership card for the ANC. All development goes through the councillors and their ward committees and ANC branch executive committees. Development is there to make ANC leaders rich and to control the rest of us by only making it available to ANC members. Development is not for the people. This kind of corruption is a disgrace in a democracy.
But an even bigger disgrace is the repression that we have faced from the ANC, its members, its leaders and its assassins. They have banned our marches; attacked our marches; arrested us on trumped up charges; assaulted us in detention; used armed men to drive us from our homes with police support; used death threats, attacks in our homes and torture in police stations to intimidate people to manufacture evidence against us; detained us for months and months while we wait for a trial that gets thrown out of court because there is no evidence against us; used their anti-land invasion unit to evict us for political reasons and beaten and shot us in our communities. Senior members of the ANC and the Municipality have made public death threats against us. Two activists were assassinated in Cato Crest last year and another, an unarmed teenage girl, was executed by the police.
UPM: Election 2014: Our Position
Monday, 05 May 2014
Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement
Election 2014: Our Position
The Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) has endorsed the 'Sidikiwe! Vukani! Vote No!' campaign. We are calling on our members to refuse to vote for the ANC and vote for any of the small parties, but not the DA, or to spoil their votes if they cannot bring themselves to support any of the small parties.
We have received a number of calls from people wanting to know our stance on the decision by Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) in Durban to offer a tactical vote to the DA in response to the serious repression that they have experienced from the ANC.