Mzwakhe Mdlalose, UnFreedom Day 2014
Sindy Mkhize, UnFreedom Day, 28 April 2014
An Invitation to all Political Parties except the ANC
Wednesday, 23 April 2014
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement
An Invitation to all Political Parties except the ANC
Abahlali baseMjondolo has boycotted every election, local and national, since
2006 as part of the ‘No Land! No House! No Vote!’ campaign. We made it clear
that we were not interested in being used as ladders for any political parties
or any politicians, that we were aware that no political party is prepared to
form a genuine partnership with the poor and that no political party had a
progressive position on shack settlements. We understood clearly that poverty
is a question of power and that we therefore had to build our own power
through organising ourselves as the strong poor and to be very careful not to
give up our power to any political party or politician (or NGO).
M&G: Police must work with communities, not political elite – Wiser debate
by Sarah Evans
Housing activists in KwaZulu-Natal are being killed, beaten and tortured by police who prevent them from marching legally, who they say often act on behalf of local politicians. This is according to Abahlali baseMjondolo co-founder S'Bu Zikode, who told a University of Witwatersrand seminar on Monday night that his organisation's efforts to march legally are flouted by local policing authorities.
The seminar, the first in a series of seminars called "Public Positions", hosted by the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, or Wiser. The topic of Monday night's seminar was "Police against the people". Wits researcher Julia Hornberger presented a short paper calling for a "complicit police".
The Abahlali baseMjondolo Football Team Won their Game Seven Nil Today!
Welcome to Hell: A march through the SA townships
Welcome Welcome to Hell: A march through the SA townshipsto Hell: A march through the SA townships
Welcome to Hell: A march through the SA townships
Way of Life Church Press Release
For immediate release – 19 March 2014
Start: Uluntu Centre, Klipfontein Rd in Gugulethu
Finish: Way of Life Church, 1 Joe Modise St in Mandela Park, Khayelitsha
Date: 19 April 2014
Time: 09:00
South Africa's Townships are nothing but glorified refugee camps, rat infested hellholes that must be dismantled. Let it be known across the breath and length of this country that this is the continuation of separate development; it perpetuates the notorious group areas act of yesteryear.
On the 19 April 2014, a significant weekend in the Christian calendar which commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (a story of suffering and hope), it is fitting that South Africans be reminded of the gruesome violence of township life. Through our 11.5km march from Gugulethu to Mandela Park, we want to bring to the attention of this nation the abnormality we have become too familiar with and desensitized to. We must interrupt the ongoing hypnosis that makes us accept such abhorrent living conditions.
All people who care about justice are invited to join us in the March as we highlight the historic evil intent in the design of South African townships.
It is our view that social ills such as unemployment, poverty, HIV / AIDS, overcrowded classrooms and clinics emanate and are exacerbated by this human settlement we call townships and informal settlements. We must remind the government of its primary function: that of creating favorable conditions for its citizens, ensuring that everybody has an equal and fair chance to make something of themselves.
For more information please contact:
Way of life Church office: 021 837 1239
Email: wayoflifec@gmail.com
Zimkitha Zilo: 078 954 0099
M&G: Shack dwellers movement offers voting bloc for living conditions guarantee
http://mg.co.za/article/2014-04-28-56-shack-dwellers-movement-considers-change-of-pace
Kwanele Sosibo
The apolitical Abahlali baseMjondolo is considering backing a political party for the first time since 2006, but their clout comes at a price.
For the first time since 2006, the shack dwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, is not staging a "no land, no house, no vote" campaign as it has done for several editions of UnFreedom Day – an unofficial South African holiday – that it commemorates each year on April 28.
A few days before this year's event at the Siyanda informal settlement in KwaMashu, Durban, Abahlali launched a talk shop that invited political parties to give presentations on why they should get Abahlali's vote instead.
The event, according to spokesperson Mnikelo Ndabankulu, was somewhat of a success, drawing the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Democratic Alliance (DA), National Freedom Party (NFP) and the Workers and Socialist Party.
Another March on Mlaba violently attacked by police, 28 September 2007
(Pictures by Mnikelo & Richard – in chronological order – now with updates from Fazel & Fillipo)
Click here to read S'bu Zikode's response to the attack on the march:'Silencing the Right to Speak is Taking Away Citizenship', here for the Memorandum that Mlaba didn't bother to come and collect, here for an article in the Independent on Saturday, here for an eyewitness account by Mark Butler, here for comment from Mnikelo Ndabankulu,here for comment from Brother Fillipo Mondini (here for a response by Jacques Depelchin, here for an open letter to Lindiwe Sisulu from 'Citizens Against Privatization' in New Zealand and here for an article in the Italian magazine Carta.
Click here for the arrest and injury lists which include Mr Kikine (53 years old) from Joe Slovo who was arrested after being shot 5 times in the back and once on the back of the left arm at close range with rubber bullets. She is obviously frail and was obviously in great pain but did not receive any medical attention while in custody. Her only crime – being too old to be able to run away quickly enough from an unprovoked police attack on a peaceful march.
GroundUp: Don’t vote for these messiahs
http://www.groundup.org.za/content/dont-vote-these-messiahs
We have the vote but the political parties do not represent the aspirations of the people, writes Ayanda Kota, founder of the Unemployed People’s Movement.
Elections should be the season of hope. Steve Biko declared that our fight was for an open society, a society where the colour of a person's skin will not be a point of reference or departure, a society in which each person has one vote.
We have the vote but the political parties do not represent the aspirations of the people. Millions of black people remain poor and oppressed. When we organise outside of the ANC we are violently repressed.