Abahlali Gender equality workshop

Abahlali Gender Equality Workshop

Sunday, 31 July 2016

The workshop was attended by at least 120 women, men and youth. The workshop was held as a significant mark of closing ‘’men’s month of July’’ and the beginning of August focusing on women’s power and rights.

Purpose of the workshop: For a very long time Abahlali have been very sensitive to gender equality issues. The movement has always had high respect for women and has made an enormous effort to promote and support women’s power and women’s activities within the movement. We have always been clear that the strength of the movement is founded on women’s power. However although all leadership positions in the movement are elected positions there has been a challenge in women occupying leadership position in the movement. At the branch level there have been many women leaders. But at the level of the movement’s overall structures there have always been more men than women in leadership. So the workshop aimed at breaking and exposing the fear of the unknown as well as some of the hidden bearers that we may not be aware of as Abahlali. The discussion was much broader and went beyond the question of men and women and included a discussion on LGBTI rights. Continue reading →

City Press: ANC’s pre-election olive branch to Abahlali

Paddy Harper, City Press

The ANC chairperson and mayoral candidate in eThekwini, Zandile Gumede, has offered an olive branch to Abahlali baseMjondolo, the movement representing shack dwellers, on the eve of the local government election.

It is a move that may shift its 17 000 members situated around Durban to vote for the governing party.

Her commitment to engagement with the movement, and her assurances that “demolitions are not the answer”, may give the ANC the upper hand in a number of wards located in formerly Indian areas around the city, where Abahlali has a strong presence – including the Kennedy Road and Cato Crest areas, as well as Siyanda, north of the city. Continue reading →

Daily Vox: This is why extreme weather conditions are an issue of inequality

Mohammed Jameel Abdulla, The Daily Vox

The extreme weather conditions gripping the country this winter are also exposing the country’s faultlines. We’ve had hail storms, floods, tornadoes and landslides but there is, and has always been, a distinct pattern to who is affected by these conditions. The poor, especially those living in informal settlements, bear the brunt of facing hazardous weather conditions and natural disasters.

Shack-dwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) lost two of its members on Monday 25th July, during a landslide caused by the storms in eNsimbini, a settlement near Durban. The deceased, Nkosinathi Raphael Myeki and Ntombifuthi Prudence Sithole, were trapped beneath their collapsed shacks, rubble and debris. Their bodies could only be recovered on Tuesday after residents worked throughout the day digging in search of them. Thembani Ngongoma, an ABM spokesperson, told the Daily Vox that many were traumatised by the loss of life on Monday and that a mass gathering was currently taking place to decide on a way forward. Continue reading →

Our lives count for nothing as we are left to die in the shacks

27 July 2016

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Our lives count for nothing as we are left to die in the shacks

Rain is usually considered as a blessing. It is often considered as a gift from the Almighty and amaDlozi. During the drought we were all waiting for the rain to come. But the storms in Durban hit impoverished people, and especially shack dwellers, very hard. Peoples’ possessions and homes were damaged and destroyed. Lives were lost.

Our lives do not count as human lives to this society. It is sad and shameful that we are living the life that we are living. Continue reading →

General Assembly 17 July 2016

Zandile Gumede attended this meeting. She committed to not evicting us any more and apologised for wrong doings to AbM and to shack dwellers by the ANC. This is the first time that a leader from the ANC attended an AbM meeting. Our position on the election in August remains the same.

Attachments

Isolezwe: uMama uGumede uxolise kubantu basemjondolo

M&G: Tatane, Macia, Marikana: South Africa’s own #BlackLivesMatter moment is long overdue

Tatane, Macia, Marikana: South Africa’s own #BlackLivesMatter moment is long overdue

Sipho Hlongwane

In 2012, after Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was gunned down in the street by a neighbourhood watch captain who went on to escape criminal sanction, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi founded the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

It has since grown to dominate the response to police brutality meted out against the African-American community in the United States and has become a powerful political message that has made its way into statements and speeches given by President Barack Obama. Continue reading →

Evictions at gun point continue at the Kennedy Road settlement

14 July 2016
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement

Evictions at gun point continue at the Kennedy Road settlement

We have faced many evictions in the city of Durban since our movement was formed in 2005. Almost all these evictions have been violent, unlawful and criminal.

We have stopped almost all these evictions through organised resistance, mass protest and action in the courts. When the state has attempted to change the law to make it easier for them to evict us we have defeated them in court. In 2009 we won against the “Slums Act” at the Constitutional Court. Last year we also won against the “blanket order” sought by the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Human Settlements. The “blanket order” was intended to authorise mass evictions and to prevent the occupation of at least 1 568 properties in KwaZulu-Natal. Continue reading →

The Political and Economic Challenges Facing the Provision of Municipal Infrastructure in Durban

12 July 2016
Wits and University of Michigan Workshop on the Politics of Municipal Infrastructure held at the Durban University of Technology

The Political and Economic Challenges Facing the Provision of Municipal Infrastructure in Durban

S’bu Zikode

I wish to take this opportunity to thank the organisers of this workshop for recognising the struggle of Abahlali baseMjondolo. Today I wish to extend my gratitude to Wits and to Michigan for inviting me to share Abahlali‘s experience in our dignified struggle which includes struggle for land, housing, water, sewerage, electricity and transport. Continue reading →

ANC legacies? Retrieving and deploying emancipatory values today

Raymond Suttner, The Daily Maverick

For many decades and for many people, the name “ANC” conjured up selflessness, sacrifice in the service of the oppressed people of South Africa and the meaning of freedom itself. People bent every effort to link themselves with the message of the ANC. They risked police attention and possible arrest by listening to the ANC broadcasts on Radio Freedom, beamed from Lusaka and other African states in the period of illegality. They read any scrap of paper or document or listened to any message broadcast from the ANC in exile, for the organisation represented their hope for freedom. It enjoyed great legitimacy and authority in the imagination of very many South Africans. Continue reading →

The Burning Season is Here

05 July 2016
Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA

The Burning Season is Here

Shack fires are a constant danger. But that danger becomes more serious in winter. This is because during winter people who are living in shacks are trying to keep warm. As a result people resort to making fires which increases the risk of their homes being burnt. There was a serious fire in the Foreman Road settlement in Durban in the past month leaving hundreds of people destitute. On Sunday five people lost their lives in the fire that burnt down the Plastic View settlement in Pretoria. On the same day another fire broke out in the Kenville settlement in Durban which left 76 families without homes and their documents, work clothes and school uniforms burnt. Continue reading →