Category Archives: Shamita Naidoo

Film: ‘A Place in the City’ is now online

http://www.fahamu.org/publications/item/a_place_in_the_city/

A Place in the City

Nearly 15 years since apartheid ended, millions of black South Africans still live in self-built shacks – without sanitation, adequate water supplies, or electricity.

But A Place in the City will overturn all your assumptions about ‘slums’ and the people who live in them.

In this film, shot in the vast shack settlements in and around Durban, members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the grassroots shackdwellers’ movement, lay out their case – against forcible eviction; for decent services – with passion, eloquence, and sweet reason. The film captures the horrible conditions in which shackdwellers live – but it also captures Abahlali’s bravery and resilience, in a political climate where grassroots campaigners like them are more likely to be met with rubber bullets than with offers to talk.

‘For the first time now’, says S’bu Zikode, Abahlali’s elected leader, ‘poor people have started to speak for themselves. Now, that challenges those who are paid to think for us – who are paid to speak for us.’

At the heart of Abahlali’s struggle is the struggle for meaningful citizenship rights for South Africa’s poor majority. ‘Or does freedom in South Africa,’ asks Abahlali volunteer organiser Louisa Motha, ‘only belong to the rich?’

Price: £9.99
Publisher: Made with assistance from Fahamu through a grant from TrustAfrica
Date: Nov 2008
ISBN(13): ISBN: 978-1-906387-41-9

Edited at VET, Hoxton Square, London
Editor: Duncan Harris
Filmed, produced and directed by Jenny Morgan
Grey Street Films 2008

Daily News: World Cup for All! People Before Profit

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South Africa: `World Cup for all! People before profit!’


http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=551758

By Kamcilla Pillay

June 17, 2010, Durban — Daily News — The sound of vuvuzelas cut through the air in Durban on June 16 — but for one large group there was little to celebrate. Amid cries of phansi ngama-fat cats, phansi (down with fat cats, down) and a sea of banners proclaiming the government cared only for the rich, civil rights organisations took to the streets protesting against poor service delivery and the World Cup.[Photos below.]

Abahlali Base Mjondolo, KwaZulu-Natal Subsistence Fisher’s Forum, Clairwood Social Forum and about 17 other organisations gathered for what they dubbed an “anti-Thiefa” protest march which started at Dinizulu Park and ended at City Hall yesterday.

“The R40 billion the government has spent on the World Cup could have comfortably housed three million homeless South Africans”, said Alice Thomson of the Durban Social Forum. “Soccer will not make a better life for all — it will only make the rich richer and the poor poorer,” Thomson said.

This week, Thomson was arrested for distributing anti-FIFA pamphlets at the Fifa Fan Fest in Durban.

Bongani Mthembu, of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, said that the decision to hold the protest on Youth Day was deliberate. “Youth Day is an opportunity for us as the youth to air our grievances and raise our concerns. We can show the foreigners here the truth about what’s happening behind the World Cup”, he said.

Chairman of KZN Subsistence Fisher’s Forum Essop Mohamed said: “Some people were ‘tired of falling by the wayside’. We are marching against oppression.”

They let FIFA come here and do what they want, but they won’t let us fish”, he said, referring to a city ruling to bar fishing in certain areas along the beachfront.

Said Shamitha Naidoo, community chairwoman in Pinetown of Abahlali Base Mjondolo: “We need to show them (tourists) what’s happening. How will these poor people benefit from the World Cup?”

Protester Kirubavathi Pillay, 68, was also angry at what she said was the inability of the eThekwini Municipality to deliver adequate services. “No one worries about us. We can’t manage without some help from the government,” Pillay said. “They are not fighting for us. We must fight for us”, added Jaysh Ramphul, another marcher.