Category Archives: S’bu Zikode
Al Jazeera: Has Zuma lost his grip on South Africa?
Niren Tolsi, Al Jazeera
In the Pretoria High Court 2D, Advocate Kemp J Kemp hunched his shoulders and pushed his head out like a heron about to snaffle its prey.
The 2009 decision to drop more than 700 fraud, corruption, racketeering and money-laundering charges against his client, President Jacob Zuma, was a “message”, Kemp argued, that the National Prosecuting Authority’s “enormous powers” would never again be used to “decide who will be the president of the country” or “to engineer political results”. 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
Keynote address delivered at Curries Fountain Sports Ground, Durban, by S’bu Zikode
3 October 2015
Tenth Anniversary of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA
Keynote address delivered at Curries Fountain Sports Ground, Durban, by S’bu. Zikode
I want to start with people that matter the most: Respected members of Abahlali basemjondolo. Leadership of Abahlali, supporters and friends of our movement. Comrades from the Congolese Solidarity Campaign, comrades from Rural Network, comrades from the United Residents’ Front, comrades from the United Front, comrades from South Durban Community Alliance, Unemployed People’s Movement, comrades from the R2K, comrades from Church Land Programme, comrades from the Norwegian People’s Aid, comrades from the Socio-Economic Right Institute of South Africa, church leadership that has accompanied us and continues to journey with us. Comrade Richard Pithouse, comrade Marie Huchzermeyer and comrades who have travelled from other parts of South Africa to be with us today. There are comrades from Cape Town and Johannesburg who are amongst us here. There are comrades who have travelled from abroad that I want to acknowledge – comrade Nigel Gibson from Boston, USA. Continue reading
Workers’ Liberty: “Poor people can think for themselves”
http://www.workersliberty.org/node/24902
In South Africa, the governing African National Congress (ANC) considers itself the only legitimate voice of the poor. Self-organising among the poor is met with brutal repression by the state and its organs.
Christoph Plutte and Anja Hertz talked to Ndabo Mzimela and S’bu Zikode of Abahlali base Mjondolo, a grassroots organisation of people living in informal settlements in South Africa who struggle for the dignity of shack dwellers and against evictions and repression by the state and its organs.
In 2014, South Africa celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first democratic elections. What does it mean to be poor in the “new South Africa”?
The word “democracy” is a nicer word for the oppression we face today, so that people will be loyal to the ruling class. We are still being excluded from the processes where the rules that affect our lives are being made. We are still in shacks because of the same system that is ruling the country today, controlled by the ruling class, so we can’t fool ourselves and say we are free. Continue reading