Abahlali Base Mjondolo Movement march

Here are some pictures from yesterday's march. I'll update the blog with the full story later today.

Standoff with police at Jadhu Road

Rally at City Hall

A Memorandum of Demands
Monday, 27 February, 2006

We the shackdwellers of Durban, democrats and loyal citizens of the Republic of South Africa, note that this country is rich because of the theft of our land and because of our work in the farms, mines, factories, kitchens and laundries of the rich. We can not and will not continue to suffer the way that we do. Our voices cannot be stifled. Today, like every day, we braved heat, hunger, thirst, exhaustion and police repression. Today, we had our day in court. Today, we won a recognition of our right to speak. Today we march on the city because today we stand up for our right not only to speak, but to live, to breathe, to eat, to sleep and to work in dignity and safety.

Today, we demand adequate land and housing to live in safety, health and dignity.

Today, we demand the creation of well-paying and dignified jobs.

Today, we demand the writing-off of all rental arrears.

Today, we demand participation in genuinely democratic processes of consultation and citizenship.

Today, we demand safe and secure environments in which we can work, play and live.

Toay, we fight HIV/AIDS and today we demand well-resourced and staffed health facilities.

Today our children are in danger, and today we demand attention to the needs of our communities' youth.

Today we cannot afford electricity, and today demand that these services be made free for the poor.

Today we suffer without toilets or water, and today we demand our rights.

Today, people from around the city and the country are uniting in support of our struggle we express our support for our comrades elsewhere. We have stood with, and will continue to stand with our comrades in Chatsworth, Crossmoor, Marianridge, Merebank , Shallcross, Emandeni, Clarewood, and Wentworth in their fight against the eThekwini Municipality's attempts to evict them from their municipal flats. We will also continue to stand with the people of South Durban in their struggle against environmental racism; with poor students facing exclusion from technikons and universities and with comrades all over the country fighting for land, housing, work, education, healthcare, safety and democratic development. We affirm that their struggle to resist eviction from their homes and to win basic services is just. We stand with them against the repression of their legitimate struggle.

Today, we demand answers. We have approached the municipality on many occasions, and have been promised the earth. Yet still we have no land. The municipality says it will house us. We demand to know when. We demand to know where. We demand to know how many houses. We demand to know who will be resettled. We demand all this today.

Today, we have fought and won. Today we beat Mike Sutcliffe. Today Obed Mlaba tried to silence us and we would not go quietly. Today the police tied us up, and we broke free. Today, and every day, until the government acts, we will raise our voices for the poor, and we will fight for justice.

Fruitful struggle?

Being here is always so difficult. I have so many conflicting emotions about what I am doing, how I can find ways of being supportive and keep an awareness of the position and baggage with which I come. Already I'm worried about how to fit in, if I should try to fit in these struggles at all, how I can support and learn in ways that will not be disruptive or divisive to the struggles that are happening here. I worry about the academic vacuum that I’m being pulled into (letting myself be pulled into?) that engenders so much division. I worry also about whether i really have a right to be here, to be welcomed here. Have I earned it? Not really. But perhaps it isn't something that needs to be earned, but rather acknowledged and humbled by. All this travel, opportunity and privilege need to lead somewhere and not just become a perpetuation of a statused position. It concerns me a lot and I hope I can keep my wits about me to not fall into the many traps and trappings of privilege afforded to me. An american woman, Steph, I met here a few days ago was very inspiring in her analysis. She is mostly shadowing and reporting on the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement, and she seems to have a very good analysis of her role (or lack thereof) in the struggles of people here. Through Steph I also stumbled on a blog by Richard, a researcher and activist here, who has some amazing insight into these questions. He writes about Fanon's ideas that "the intellectual must be in the unstable zone of actually existing rebellion. (And fully in it, on its terrain, speaking in its language etc.)" which seems very true. It will be a struggle to understand how (and whether) to do this kind of research and support, but I hope, it will be a worthwhile and fruitful searching.

Economy, Society and Nature Colloquium

Starting Tuesday, the Centre for Civil society will be hosting a colloquium to launch their 2006 focus on Economic Justice research projects. The colloquium is titled Economy, Society and Nature. As they write, "we will launch this theme by reviewing some of the finest traditions of South African, regional and global political-economic theory and contemporary analysis". I'm really excited to be able to take part in this event. It means a lot of reading, listening and learning in order to keep up with the deep political economic analysis I'm sure will be at work here.

They describe the colloquium as follows:

We are mainly concerned with market-nonmarket interactions and new forms of 'primitive accumulation'. Given the sustainability and volatility problems that capitalism faces today, the time is opportune to consider whether formal markets, the informal economy and other nonmarket aspects of society and nature are divorced or interconnected. Under contemporary conditions of 'globalisation', does the fight against exploitation, racism, sexism and ecological destruction require contesting the market itself? If so, how?

Four scholar-activists - Harold Wolpe in South Africa, Guy Mhone and José Negrão in Southern Africa and Rosa Luxemburg in Europe - developed consistent arguments about the way market forces systematically exploit other modes of production, society (especially women's unpaid labour, via racist colonialism) and the natural environment. In Pretoria, government explains this legacy as 'first and second economies' and claims a 'developmental state' is being built to fix matters. How do we understand it - and what do we do about it?

Social scientists will be addressing the problems from 28 February through 2 March, in an event open to the public. On 3-4 March, activists from across KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and the region are especially invited to help move from analysis to praxis, with open discussions and strategic debates in the framework of the Rosa Luxemburg Political Education Seminar.

Shack Dwellers from all over Durban and beyond to march on Monday

SHACK DWELLERS' MARCH
27 February 2006

Houses First, the Man Later

No House! No Land! No Vote!

WHEN: 8:00a.m. Monday 27 February 2006
WHERE: The march will start at Botha Park and will proceed to the city hall where our demands will be presented to Mike Mabuyakhulu.

WHY: Why are people marching in their thousands? We need answers to our questions about housing * when, how, where and how many houses do they plan to build? How can we be sure that we can get houses after all these lies for all these years? The government must give us proof because they have been telling us lies for a long time.
ORGANISERS: The shack dwellers of this country. We invite all other poor people everywhere to join us and say “enough is enough!”

SUPPORTERS: This march is organized by Abahlali baseMjondolo and is also supported by, and will include representatives from community organisations including the Banana City Informal Settlement Area Committee; the Bayview Flats Residents' Association; the Combined Staff Association (UKZN); Eastwood Community Forum (‘Maritzburg), Groundwork; the Mandela Park Anti-eviction Campaign (Cape Town); the Right to Work Campaign; the Socialist Students' Movement (UKZN); the Sydenham Heights Flats Resident’s Association; eThekweni Eco-peace Party; the eThekweni Social Forum; the Wentworth Development Forum and the Westcliff Flat Residents' Association as well as people from Cato Crest, KwaMashu, eMandeni, Umlazi, Palmiet, Clermont, Puntan’s Hill, the Reservoir Hills Taxi Association, the Clare Estate Taxi Association and Durban Informal Traders.


The Shack Dwellers’ Struggle

Many promises to people living in shacks have been broken. Across South Africa shack dwellers have been blocking roads and saying ‘Enough!’ There were more than 6000 protests last year. In Durban, in Wards 23 and 25, thousands of people marched on councillors Yacoob Baig and Jayraj Bachu to demand that promises to provide land, housing and basic services like water, electricity and toilets be kept. People have also been marching against plans to move shack dwellers out of the city to rural places like Verulum far away from work, schools, clinics and police stations. The media have understood that people are suffering and have supported the marches very strongly. Other struggling communities have also offered strong support.

Mabuyakulu must know that our councillors are rouges.

We cannot continue to suffer like this. The time has come to say “Enough!” and to demand that the promises made to us be kept. The time has now come to march on Mike Mabuyakhulu. We must tell Mabuyakhulu that if we don’t get satisfactory answers to the questions that we have asked about land, houses and basic services then we will not vote in the elections.

THEY ARE SELLING US!
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

NO LAND, NO HOUSE, NO VOTE!

Durban South Photography project

The day after I arrived here I was whisked away to give a presentation at the Visual Methodologies for Social Change conference that Claudia Mitchell, Nadyene Delange, Jean Stuart and the bunch at the Visual Methodologies Center at UKZN's Education faculty had organized. The presentations were really interesting overall and it was amazing to be in a space with an entire group of people basically working in the same area as we are.

One interesting presentation was made by Marijke Du Toit about the Durban South Photography project. Jenny Gordon is the photographer and she takes some quite interesting pictures of people in their environments in Wentworth (South Durban). This series is about the physical impact of the Engen oil refinary on these people's lives. A disproportionately high number of people in the community suffer from asthma and other respitory illnesses.

the first days of durban

I have only been here a few days but i'm already drowning in the politics of this place. As of today, I've got a desk at the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's main campus. Everything is madness here as the university has just been on strike last week and there is still a great deal of negotiating to be done. The university has four unions, many of which are sending different messages to their membership. The Centre is very involved in all this as an oppositional voice, and I'm still trying to understand the role they play here.

At the same time everyone is dealing with Ashwin Desai's case, the activist/academic who was barred from the university by the vice-chancellor Makgoba (ironically just before the strike).

I'm finally meeting the other people here at the Centre, and I already feel intimidated and awe inspired by everyone's knowledge, passion and conviction. We have started making plans for video workshops to happen and I'll also be filming the upcoming march on monday of the shackdwellers movement. It will be an exciting and busy time here I think.