#FeesMustFall: Democracy Under Fire

Adam Haupt argues that both the corporatisation of universities and repression of student protests erode constitutional freedoms. The Con

The rise of the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa has revealed key fault lines. I would like to offer two arguments here. The first is that the use of police brutality against peaceful protesters on campuses undermines citizens’ rights to free speech. The second is that the corporatisation of public institutions produces the same negative effects on the public sphere as state repression of dissent. Public institutions’ mandate to preserve an information commons is undermined by an economic system that places a low premium on public spending. Universities are thrown at the mercy of the market and, effectively, cost barriers to education are introduced. It is in this way that any talk of a national democratic revolution is reduced to empty rhetoric. Continue reading →

Urgent Request for Intervention in the Crisis in Grahamstown

26 October 2015

Press Statement from Voices of the Foreigners’ Wives

Urgent Request for Intervention in the Crisis in Grahamstown

We are all wives of men who came to South Africa from other countries. There are more than a hundred of us. Our husbands come from Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Most of us are Muslims. We pray at the Mosque on the university campus. People call us ‘the kwarra wives’.

Our husbands came to South Africa from other countries looking for a better life. They are now South Africans. They have IDs and passports. They have the right to vote. Our husbands came here for a better life and they work here and have families here. But they are treated like dogs. Their lives count less than a packet of chips. Continue reading →

Kafila: South African student protests and re-emergence of people’s power

Camalita Naicker, Kafila

The #nationalshutdown of all major universities in South Africa continues, even after a historic victory yesterday, when, after several days of mass mobilisation by students and workers President Jacob Zuma was forced to concede a zero-percent fee increase in university tuition fees next year. Yet, it was bittersweet for the more than twelve thousand people who marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria who were, once again, tear-gassed and shot at with rubber bullets and stun grenades. The police turned violent when students began demanding, after waiting for several hours, that the President address them. Instead, Zuma chose to speak to the media in a press briefing and leave the students to the police. In Cape Town, students marched to the airport to show their solidarity with those in Pretoria; there too police fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and stun-grenades even as students fled into the neighbouring residential areas. For many, the victory it is only a partial one, a short-term solution deferring the problem to another day. It does not resolve the issue of unaffordable education nor does it address other important issues that the national action has been tied to like the outsourcing of labour on university campuses or the general discontents of the lack of transformation at higher education institutions in the country. Continue reading →

Statement of Solidarity with Protesting Students

20 October 2015
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Statement of Solidarity with Protesting Students

The whole country is watching the struggle of the students at universities around the country.

When we began our struggle ten years ago we felt that we were on our own. Today workers and students are also in struggle. Many are now organised outside of the ruling party that has so brutally repressed our struggle and many other struggles. We no longer feel that we are on our own. This is a time of new hope. Continue reading →

The Times: Victory for KZN shackdwellers

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/10/19/Victory-for-KZN-shackdwellers

Shackdwellers clinched a victory in the Durban High Court on Monday when the court ruled against a proposed scheme to evict them.

The KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works’ application to appeal the court’s decision to disallow the eviction of inhabitants of 1568 properties throughout the eThekwini Municipality was dismissed with costs.

The broad scope of the MEC’s scheme and his department’s failure to notify the vast majority of the individuals who would face eviction was cited as the main reason for the decision. Continue reading →

The First Annual Thuli Ndlovu Lecture

The First Annual Thuli Ndlovu Lecture

Sunday, 11 October 2015

Delivered by S’bu. Zikode

Ndlovu family, mama ka Thuli, Thuli’s daughters Slindile and Freedom, Comrades, friends and colleagues. Today we gather here not to mourn but to celebrate Thuli Ndlovu’s life. Today we also gather here to remember and to celebrate the life of Nqobile Nzuza, the life of Nkululeko Gwala and the life of Thembinkosi Qumbela.

All four comrades were murdered in cold blood by senseless killers who have no heart for human life. Comrades both Thuli and Nqobile were murdered in the month of September. Thuli Ndlovu was murdered on the 29th of September 2014 and Nqobile was murdered on the 30th of September 2013. Comrades it was on the 26th and 27th of September 2009 that our movement and our leaders were attacked by ANC associated thugs after winning a case against the then Slums Act at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg. Continue reading →