Padkos: Pan-African Heritage of Struggle – Firoze Manji on Amilcar Cabral (24 September)

Church Land Programme is privileged to host Firoze Manji on Heritage Day, 24th September, from 10:30am till lunchtime at the CLP office.

Firoze Manji, of the Pan-African Baraza, has recently co-edited an amazing book on Amilcar Cabral – “revolutionary, poet, liberation philosopher, and leader of the independence movement of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde” (Manji, 2013). Based on that new book, Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral (co-edited with Bill Fletcher Jr. and published to mark the 40th anniversary of Cabral’s assassination), Firoze will share some thoughts on the heritage of Cabral’s political thought and praxis for us here and now.  Firoze and his colleagues have been gracious hosts and key supporters of emancipatory struggles from our corner of the African continent, and it’s a real pleasure to re-connect with him. Continue reading →

Attachments


Manji: Despotic governments in Africa
Introduction to Amílcar Cabral (English & Zulu)
The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral

Notes on Praxis for the RGS Panel on the Co-Production of Urban Contestation, London, August 2014

Notes on Praxis for the RGS Panel on the Co-Production of Urban Contestation, London, August 2014

Richard Pithouse

Rigorous ongoing reflection on praxis is an essential practice for all participants in any struggle. There can be no effective emancipatory political action on a sustained basis without this reflexivity. It is simultaneously ethical and strategic work. It is necessary to strive to ensure that this is a collective practice within struggles as well as taking it on as an individual obligation.

An Element of the Contradiction

It is not unusual for academics in popular struggles, or linked to popular struggles, to fail to take full measure of the political weight of their own location. One of the common reasons for this is that academic engagement with popular struggles is often mediated through NGOs, or NGO like formations in the university. Contemporary liberal ideology presents NGO based ‘civil society’ as a democratic and representative space when it is plainly not. In fact civil society is often an acutely raced and entirely undemocratic space that has a far less credible claim to representivity than, say, the African National Congress which, despite all its flaws, is elected. Nonetheless despite the often striking degree to which civil society is a space of (often raced) elite power the ideology that presents civil society as, by definition, enlightened and representative is often strong enough, and sufficiently normalised, to inhibit the development of a sufficiently critical attitude to the NGO form. Academics are also often seduced by fantasies, sometimes acutely narcissistic and driven by a will to their own power, that enable the academic to imagine him or herself as part of an enlightened vanguard – be it socialist, feminist, anarchist, autonomist or nationalist – that has an a priori right to lead, and in some instances, to dominate others in the name of their own emancipation. When this fantasy is materially sustained via privileged access to donor funding rather than popular consent it frequently reinscribes what Jacques Rancière describes as the ‘stultification’ that is consequence to any situation where “one intelligence is subordinated to another”. It can become an instance of the sort of domination that Paulo Freire describes as “Manipulation, sloganizing, ‘depositing’, regimentation, and prescription”. In South Africa it can take the form of a set of practices in which, to borrow a phrase from Steve Biko, there is the sort of “stratification that makes whites perpetual teachers and blacks perpetual pupils”. Continue reading →

GroundUp: What the law has to say about evictions

by Sandra Liebenberg, GroundUp

On 4 October 2014, it will be 14 years since the Constitutional Court handed down its landmark judgment in the Grootboom housing case. The judgment explained some of the key duties imposed on the State by the right of access to adequate housing in section 26 of the Constitution.

This ruling has helped to transform evictions law in South Africa. But what do the Grootboom judgment and housing legislation mean in practice for people facing eviction or demolition of their homes?

Of particular importance is section 26 (3) of the Constitution which reads: “No one may be evicted from their homes, or have their homes demolished, without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances. No legislation may permit arbitrary evictions.”

This article explores the relevant principles applicable to evictions in our constitutional era, and examines the progress that has been made and some of the key challenges that remain. Continue reading →

GroundUp: Police use live ammunition on shackdwellers

Police used live ammunition against unarmed shackdwellers who fiercely resisted eviction in Philippi East today. It was the most violent day of clashes between police, City of Cape Town Law Enforcement and shackdwellers since forcible evictions started off Symphony Way, in response to a land invasion, two weeks ago. At least one person was shot with live ammunition from, according to eyewitnesses, a police service pistol.

Daneel Knoetze, GroundUp

GroundUp tracked the victim, 31-year-old Patrick Sobutyu, to Delft Day Hospital. He was in the trauma unit, seated in a wheelchair, and awaiting transfer to Tygerberg Hospital. He had been shot in both legs. The paramedic who treated Sobutyu's wounds confirmed to GroundUp that they were from a bullet.

Continue reading →

Solidarity with Comrades from the Democratic Republic of Congo

21 August 2014

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

 

Solidarity with Comrades from the Democratic Republic of Congo

The Abahlali baseMjondolo General meeting last weekend was attended by eight comrades from the DRC lead by Pastor Raphael. The General Meeting discussed various ways of working in solidarity with the Congolese comrades.

The comrades from the DRC who are here in South Africa made a shocking presentation on the history of the Congo from the year 1887 which led to the genocide that they are now facing. Devastating photos were shown and spoke volumes to the narrated story.

Questions and answers were held followed by a tense conversation about what needs to be done thereafter. All of us were deeply touched and felt helpless. Comrades asked about the role of South African government and its troops in DRC. We asked the role of the African Union and the South African Human Rights Commission and of course the role of civil society and the UN and the US. Some of the answers were that genocides continue in the presence of more than 4 000 South African deployed troops in the DRC. There were also claims that Khulubuse Zuma, who we all know is related to our President Jacob Zuma, has shares in some companies in the DRC. Noted was also the role of neighbouring countries such as Uganda and Ruanda. Also noted is that DRC remains colonized. It is clear that foreign companies and their government are working with governments of neighbouring countries to oppress the Congolese people in the most horrific way to steal the mineral resources of Congo. We must ask serious questions about the role of the governments of Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, South Africa and the US in the DRC. Continue reading →