Category Archives: Rubin Phillip

Statement on the Assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo

Statement on the assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo by the Right Reverend Rubin Phillip, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Natal.

23 May 2018

Statement on the Assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo

On Tuesday night, 22 May 2018, S’fiso Ngcobo was assassinated in eKukhayeni, in Marianhill outside Durban. Ngcobo was the chairperson of the local branch of the shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Earlier on Tuesday another member of the movement, Ndumiso Mnguni, was shot and seriously wounded in the Foreman Road settlement in Clare Estate.

The eKukhayeni branch had held a well-attended mass meeting on Saturday 19 May and had reported threats. This is typical of a pattern of impressive local organisation followed by threats and then violence, including assassinations. Abahlali baseMjondolo have endured considerable violence, including a horrifying number of assassinations over the years. Continue reading →

Unfreedom Day Rally: Freedom a figment of elite imagination, say 50,000 shack dwellers

Dennis Webster, Daily Maverick

Abahlali used its UnFreedom Day rally to repeat a call for progressive political movements in South Africa to transcend the limits of the factory floor or the shack settlement. 

Morakane Moloi left her home in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni at midnight on Saturday, 21 April, bound for Abahlali baseMjondolo’s annual UnFreedom Day rally more than 600km away.

Moloi was among Abahlali members who gathered for the rally at the foot of the now historic Kennedy Road shack settlement, outside Durban, where the shack dwellers’ movement began in 2005.

It was her first UnFreedom Day. She made the trip to Sunday’s rally at the Springfield Park sports ground together with the other members of a fledgling Abahlali branch in Vusimuzi shack settlement, east of Johannesburg. Continue reading →

Remembering Biko: A bright and guiding light in dark times

Leave a reply

Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement

Remembering Biko: A bright and guiding light in dark times

Commemoration from 12 noon on Wednesday 19 September 2012

Steve Biko was murdered by the apartheid state on 12 September 2012. Today state murder stalks our land once again. In these dark times we will gather to honour the memory of Steve Biko – a memory that is a shining light.

We plan to retrace the route that Biko and his comrades took when they walked out of the NUSAS meeting at Rhodes University in 1967. We will walk from the campus to the church where they slept that night. We will carry 36 candles – one for each of the striking miners murdered by the state at Marikana.

We will be addressed by Aubrey Mokoape (former leader in SASO and the BPC), Bishop Rubin Phillip (former Deputy-President of SASO), Barney Pityana (former President of SASO and BCP) Richard Pithouse (activist in contemporary struggles) and Pauline Wynter (radical ecologist and lifelong activist who currently works with the Steve Biko centre in Brazil). The programme will commence at 12 noon on Wednesday 19 September 2012. We will gather under the arch at the entrance to Rhodes University and then proceed to Saint Phillip’s Church in Fingo Village.

All people that wish to honour the memory of Biko are most welcome to attend.

For further information please contact:

Asanda Ncwadi (UPM chairperson): 071 010 5441
Ayanda Kota (UPM spokesperson): 078 625 6462
Siyanda Centwa (UPM activist): 078 571 5507