Thursday 8th November 2012

Abahlali Base Mjondolo

Thursday
8th November 2012

[ Map ]
Accessible entrance at back door at 73 Beech Avenue

Sumac is hosting talk by Lindela Finglan from Abahlali Base Mjondolo (abahlali.org), the South African Shack Dwellers Movement.

The Movement's key demand is for "Land and Housing within the city" but it has also successfully politicised and fought for an end to removals and for access to education, and the provision of water, electricity and sanitation and refused removal as well as bottom up democracy.

Come along and show your solidarity to this impressive movement. There will be a talk, some food for donation and the bar will be open.

Abahlali Base Mjondolo is the largest shack dweller's organization in South Africa and campaigns to improve the living conditions of poor people and to democratize society from below. Its key demand is that the social value of urban land should take priority over its commercial value and it campaigns for the public expropriation of large privately owned landholdings. The key organising strategy is to try "to recreate Commons" from below by trying to create a series of linked communes.According to The Times, the movement "has shaken the political landscape of South Africa." However the movement has faced considerable repression. ref:Wikipedia

Sumac.
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Website: http://www.sumac.org.uk

The Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers) Movement began in Durban, South Africa, in early 2005. Although it is overwhelmingly located in and around the large port city of Durban it is, in terms of the numbers of people mobilised, the largest organisation of the militant poor in post-apartheid South Africa. Its originary event was a road blockade organised from the Kennedy Road settlement in protest at the sale, to a local industrialist, of a piece of nearby land long promised by the local municipal councillor to shack dwellers for housing.

The movement that began with the road blockade grew quickly and now has tens of thousands of supporters from more than 30 settlements. In the last year and a half the movement has suffered more than a hundred arrests, regular police assault and ongoing death threats and other forms of intimidation from local party goons. It has developed a sustained voice for shack dwellers in subaltern and elite publics and occupied and marched on the offices of local councillors, police stations, municipal offices, newspaper offices and the City Hall in actions that have put thousands of people on the streets. The movement also organised a highly contentious but very successful boycott of the March 2006 local government elections under the slogan ‘No Land, No House, No Vote’. Amongst other victories the Abahlali have democratised the governance of many settlements, stopped evictions in a number of settlements, won acces to schools, stopped the industrial development of the land promised to Kennedy Road, forced numerous government officials, offices and projects to ‘come down to the people’ and mounted vigorous challenges to the uncritical assumption of a right to lead the local struggles of the poor in the name of a privileged access to the 'global' (i.e Northern donors, academics and NGOs) that remains typical of most of the NGO based left. The movement’s key demand is for ‘Land & Housing in the City’ but it has also successfully politicised and fought for an end to forced removals and for access to education and the provision of water, electricity, sanitation, health care and refuse removal as well as bottom up popular democracy. In some settlements the movement has also successfully set up projects like crèches, gardens, sewing collectives, support for people living with and orphaned by AIDS and so on. It has also organised a 16 team football league and quarterly all night multi genre music competitions.

Getting To Sumac

Accessible entrance at back door at 73 Beech Avenue . Full directions: http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html

Postcode: NG7 6HX . Mapping websites: http://maps.google.co.uk . http://www.streetmap.co.uk . http://www.multimap.com (photo)
Note: Maps are based on postcodes which can cover a wide area, especially for rural locations.

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