Category Archives: Treatment Action Campaign

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Replies to the Treatment Action Campaign

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The statement by TAC et al is here.

ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO MOVEMENT OF SOUTH AFRICA (WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE)

Home Website: khayelitshastruggles.com or www.abahlali.org

Email: abmwesterncape@abahlali.org office admin: 073 2562 036/ 078 760 5246

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Replies to the Treatment Action Campaign

As Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape we have noted the statement by the Treatment Action Campaign and its subsidiary organisations condemning our call for a week of informal settlement’s strike.

We respect the important victories that TAC has won for health care over the years and we respect the work that they have done in solidarity with migrants and LGBT people. We are clear that our enemies are those who put the interest of the elites, be they in business or politics, before the interests of the poor and we are clear that we wish to build as much unity as possible between organisations of the working class. We have always organised on the basis that respects the autonomy of different formations.

However we are very disappointed that TAC chooses to attack our campaign in public without first meeting with us as a fraternal organisation to discuss any concerns that they may have had. We are always willing to meet with any fraternal organisations to discuss agreements, differences and ways forward.

We have our own critique of TAC, of its relationship to the ANC and thereby to a repressive, violent and often criminal government, of its political liberalism, of its internal organisation and hierarchies, of the way that it dealt with the internal revolt in the organisation in 2007 and so on but we do not use these critiques to attack the organisation in public. We will never support the state against TAC but they are supporting the state against us and setting the stage for repression against us to be justified. This is disgraceful.

There are some things that we agree with in the TAC statement.

· We agree with TAC that the government has failed the people and that the predatory elite have more freedom than ever.

· We agree with TAC that mass organisation is necessary and that people need to organise across the city to build their own power against the elites. We agree also that this is a long and difficult process.

We have called for an informal settlement’s strike in Cape Town and we have welcomed the blockading of roads. It has been said that around the world the road blockade is the strike of the unemployed. We have explored all means of engaging the government over many years and have been continually ignored. We did not come quickly or lightly to the decision that it was necessary to cause disorder in order to force the government to take us seriously. We came to this decision after years of being ignored and repressed. We are not alone in coming to this decision. Communities and organisations across the country are blocking roads. This has been going on for many years now. Most of the protests in Cape Town are not by us.

TAC puts in its headline that we are calling for violence. We have never called for violence. Violence is harm to human beings. Blockading a road is not violence. We have long experience of the state calling protests in which no person is harmed violent. We did not expect a social movement to make the same mistake. TAC is being hysterical and dishonest when they say that we are calling for violence. We note that TAC has never issued any statement when we have been violently evicted from our homes by the Land Invasions Unit or when we have been assaulted by the police. This double standard on the part of TAC is very disappointing. They say that they are concerned about damage to property but they have never issued any statement when our property, our homes, are illegally demolished by the state.

It is an insult to say, as TAC does, that our struggle is not thought through and is not disciplined. Yes we have chosen a different form of struggle to TAC in this campaign. But that does not mean that we did not come to this campaign after careful thinking.

We disagree very strongly with TAC when they caricature the wave of protest that is sweeping Cape Town, and for years before that the whole country, as mindless violence. This is an insult to struggling communities everywhere. We know very well that the state only takes us seriously when we force them to take us seriously and this is what people are doing – forcing the state to take us seriously. We have learnt through years of struggle that this is what works.

It is dishonest and insulting for TAC to say that the leaders of these protests are self-appointed. This is the language of the state. Our leaders are all democratically elected.

It is dishonest to say that we are using young people to activate our campaign. This is also the language of the state. People choose to support our campaign because they think it is the right thing to do.

It is also just wrong for TAC to say that our campaign is being supported by elements in the ANC Youth League. We are very well aware that the ANC Youth League tries to support every protest in Cape Town because they want to undermine the DA. But we know very well that the ANC elsewhere has the same policies as the DA here and we do not allow the ANC to exploit our own struggles for their own gain.

There are three main differences between us and TAC.

1. We as Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape feel that it is legitimate to create a short period of disorder, just like a strike at a work place does, as a tactic of struggle. If TAC disagree with us on this they should engage us in a discussion of tactics rather than condemn our campaign in a way that can justify state repression.

2. We feel that it is essential that we are organised autonomously from the ANC. This is our democratic right and we will not be intimidated into accepting the leadership of ANC aligned organisations.

3. We are not a professional organisation with millions of rands of donor funding that can operate in the middle class world. We are a movement of, for and by the poor. We therefore have to struggle where we are and with what we have. If that means burning tyres on Lansdowne Road then that is how we will struggle. We will not be intimidated into accepting that only the donor funded organisations know how to struggle properly.

We invite TAC to meet us any time. In the meantime our campaign continues until 28 October when we march on parliament.

Mercury: Time is perfect for rethink on housing policy

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5210685

Time is perfect for rethink on housing policy

October 21, 2009 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

THE Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of the application brought by Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) and declared a section of the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act, introduced with much fanfare in 2007, to be unconstitutional.

The judgment means the Act will now not be reproduced in the other provinces, as mandated by the Polokwane resolutions. And, perhaps more importantly, the whole policy of eradicating slums by forcibly removing shack dwellers to peripheral transit camps lies in tatters.

In 2004 the government introduced the Breaking New Ground (BNG) housing policy in the wake of a widespread realisation that post-apartheid housing policy was replicating apartheid social planning.

The new policy allowed for shack settlements to be upgraded on site via participatory development techniques. It was a major break with the tendency to seek the eradication of shack settlements via forced removal to the urban periphery. The policy was welcomed across civil society as a major advance over the first decade of post-apartheid housing planning.

However, with the exception of the innovative deal signed between ABM and the eThekwini Municipality in early 2009, the new policy was never implemented.

The state ignored its progressive new policy and instead returned to the apartheid language of “slum eradication” and the apartheid strategy of forcibly removing shack dwellers to peripheral transit camps.

This was often undertaken with considerable violence on the part of the state.

Shack dwellers’ organisations across the country have opposed the return to apartheid-style urban planning and have often successfully appealed to the courts to stop evictions.

The KZN Slums Act was an attempt by the state to legalise its return to repressive urban planning practices.

The Constitutional Court has now ruled that the act is illegal and made it impossible for the state to legitimate its turn to repressive practices.

The government now has to rethink its housing policy. The obvious solution would be to actually implement the BNG policy.

The deal negotiated between the eThekwini Municipality and ABM between September, 2007 and February 2009 shows that it can be made to work if there is enough political will.

This deal provides for services to be provided to 14 settlements and for the upgrade of three, including the Kennedy Road settlement, via BNG.

ABM’s achievement in stopping the Slums Act in the Constitutional Court and, simultaneously, working out viable alternatives in negotiations with the eThekwini Municipality is a remarkable achievement.

The movement has, like the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), achieved a fundamental challenge to bad policy and practice.

It has also, again like the TAC, found and perhaps even developed progressive forces within the state to realise its objectives.

Organisations such as the TAC and ABM are precious resources for our democracy. They are both, in different ways, able to speak and act with great effect for groups of people marginalised from mainstream society.

They have, justly, both been celebrated here and around the world for their contribution to human rights. We should all, therefore, be deeply concerned about those who think that the ABM had no right to question authority and to take the government to court.

As the many democrats within the ANC will certainly agree, the kind of engagement that ABM has engaged in is the very stuff of democracy and is the right of any citizen, organisation or movement.

Open debate and judicial overview of key decisions enrich our democracy and are always to be welcomed.

There was also a time when the TAC was under attack from the state. TAC protests were violently attacked by the police in Queenstown and here in Durban and all kinds of slander was circulated about the movement – including the bizarre allegation that a movement that began its work by campaigning against the drug companies was being funded by the same drug companies.

But there is now a broad recognition that the TAC’s challenge to the ANC has resulted in a deep improvement in the ANC’s response to the Aids pandemic.

As the government, hopefully in partnership with civil society, reconsiders its housing policy in the wake of the judgment against the Slums Act, there needs to be a similar recognition of the enormous social value of the work undertaken by ABM.

In recent weeks there has been an incredible outpouring of civil support for ABM across South Africa and around the world.

No doubt this support will step up in the wake of the organisation’s achievement in the Constitutional Court.

Democrats in the ANC need to affirm the right of civil society organisations to freely advance the interests of their members even when this brings them into disagreement with the government of the day.