Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo is a movement of shack dwellers in South Africa which started with a road blockade in the city of Durban in early 2005.[1]The words Abahlali baseMjondolo are isiZulu for people who stay in shacks.
Abahlali refuses to participate in party politics or any NGO style professionalisation or individualisation of struggle and instead seeks to build democratic people's power where people live and, to a lesser extent, where people work. Abahlali has members in just under 40 shack settlements most of which are in and around the cities of Durban, Pinetown and Pietermartizburg.
Growth and influence of the movement
Since the 2005 road blockade its membership has grown from the entire population of the 6 000 strong Kennedy Road settlement in the Clare Estate area of Durban to the point where 13 entire settlements have voted to collectively affiliate to Abahlali and govern themselves autonomously from state politics. There are also a further 23 branches in other settlements in Durban and the nearby town of Pinetown that are not collectively affiliated to Abahlali but which do allow independent political activity. The movement now also works with street traders and has a further 3 branches of street traders, all of which are in Pinetown. It also has members in eMmaus and Motala Farm who live in poor quality houses rather than shacks and who joined because their communities are adjacent to Abahlali shack settlements. Recently branches have also been opened in the cities of Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town. The movement's red t-shirts have become famous and Abahlali is often simply known as Izikipa ezibomvu (the red shirts). Individuals in the state, and linked to a local NGO, have alleged that the shirts are provided by some nefarious source. But Abahlali members, as well as visiting academics who have spent time with the movement, and some journalists, report that the shirts are, in fact, most often made in the shacks on rented pedal power sewing machines by the Abahlali Women's Sewing Collective.
Activities of the movement
The movement is best known for having democratised the internal governance of many settlements and having organised numerous large marches on local councillors, as well as the mayor and the provincial Minister of Housing. The organisation has also fought against evictions and forced removals by mass mobilisation and court action; successfully used access to information law to force the city to reveal its plans for the forced removal of many shack settlements and its land holdings; demanded the electrification of shack settlements to stop the regular fires and trained people to make illegal electricity connections safely; campaigned for access to water and sanitation; fought for land and housing in the city; started creches; held quarterly all night music, poetry and drama evenings; produced a number of choirs and bands that have developed explicitly political forms of various traditional musics; run a 16 team football league; provided HIV/AIDS care; started a ten thousand copies per issue newspaper; undertaken various education projects; vigorously opposed what it sees as authoritarianism from government, business and some vanguardist left NGOs[2]; won major and sustained media attention particularly in the Zulu language media; campaigned in support of shack dwellers in Zimbabwe and Haiti; campaigned for access to schools, sports facilities and libraries; and sought to win popular control over decision making that affects poor communities. One of their key slogans (along with 'Land! Housing!, 'Sekwanele!' etc.) is 'Talk to Us, Not about Us!'. Abahlali has produced 6 or 7 shack dwelling public intellectuals who regularly comment and, in some instances, write in the local media in English, Zulu and Xhosa.[3]. There have been no evictions from or demolitions of shacks in Abahlali settlements since December 2006 but the state has not announced any moratorium on evictions and demolitions.
Office holders at branch, settlement and movement level are elected annually in open assemblies. At least half of all elected positions are filled by women. Office holders are given mandates for action at open weekly meetings, are subject to recall and the secretariat can credibly claim to represent approximately 30,000 people. People elected into office are not elected to make decisions on particular issues but rather to ensure democratic decision making on questions and matters related to those issues and to carry out mandates received this way. People who present the movement to the media and who travel to represent the movement elsewhere are always elected, mandated and rotated and at least half of the people elected to fulfil these responsibilities are women. At large assemblies male and female questioners and speakers are alternated. One of the movement's founding principles, which is regularly reaffirmed publicly, is that no one in the movement will ever make any money from the movement. The movement accepts no money from political parties, governments or from those NGOs which seek to use donor funding to substitute their own voices and projects for those of the poor and is 100% run by unpaid volunteers. Funds are raised by a small annual membership fee of R7 (1$ US) and occasional irregular small donations and are strictly used for movement (not individual) expenses such as transport, printing, bail costs etc. Donations are only accepted when the movement's meetings (rather than the donor) will have full control over how the money is used.
The movement has a number of sub-committees and internal organisations such as a Churches Sub-Committee, a Youth League, a Women's League, a Book Collective, etc, etc.
The movement has formal and vibrant relationships with the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town, the Landless Peoples' Movement and the Combined Harare Residents' Association in Zimbabwe and a number of other movements.
Harassment
Individuals in the ruling party, including the eThekwini City Manager Mike Sutcliffe and Mayor Obed Mlaba and many others, have very often accused Abahlali of being manipulated by a white man, a 'third force', or a foreign intelligence agency. No empirical evidence has ever been adduced for these claims but they have created a climate that justifies violent repression. The movement has suffered sustained illegal harassment from the state[4] that has resulted in more than 200 arrests of Abahlali members and repeated police violence in people's homes, in the streets and in detention. On a number of occasions the police have used live ammunition, armoured vehicles and helicopters in their attacks on unarmed shack dwellers. In 2006 the local city manager, Mike Sutcliffe, implemented a complete ban on Abahlali's right to march which was eventually overturned in court. The movement has also laid numerous assault, as well as theft and wrongful arrest charges against the police. On 4 December 2006 a pregnant women lost her child and a man was killed when the police attacked residents of the Siyanda settlement who had blockaded a major road. Police harassment has been strongly condemned by human rights organisations including, most notably, the Freedom of Expression Institute which has issued a number of statements in strong support of Abahlali's right to speak out and to organise protests. Police violence against Abahlali has been quite widely covered in the mainstream international media (e.g The New York Times[5], The Times (London), Economist, Le Monde etc). Not one of the arrests of Abahlali members has ever led to a trial and no member of Abahlali has ever been convicted of any offence.
A number of Abahlali members have come under major pressure at work due to their activities in the movement and some have been forced out of jobs in both the public and private sectors including S'bu Zikode, the current elected head of the movement. Abahlali have organised against police brutality and after a march on Supt. Glen Nayager of the Sydenham Police Station in April 2005, a march that received strong church support, there seems to have been an improvement. No one arrested after that march has been assaulted.
Controversies
In October 2006 Abahlali marched on the Social Movements Indaba (SMI), a collection of social movements and activists from throughout the country, while they were meeting at the University of KwaZulu Natal. Abahlali carried banners declaring 'The University of Abahlali baseMjondolo' and wearing t-shirts reading 'Talk to us, not for us'.[Video footage of the protest]
Abahlali disrupted the meeting for 44 minutes demanding a myriad of things including movement control over movement forums and a clear definition on the distinction between social movements and NGOs. Amongst their claims was a demand for the reinstatement of three academics who had greatly contributed to the movement (Richard Pithouse, Raj Patel and Richard Ballard) and who were believed to have lost their jobs due to their association with Abahlali.
2010 World Cup
In the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, shackdwellers have been considered by some in government as a blight. City Hall has promised to 'clear the slums' by 2010 and there are real fears that in Durban, as in other South African cities like Cape Town, shack dwellers will face forced removals and evictions on a major scale in the run up to the World Cup.
For further study
The situation in South Africa is not unique. There are many examples of similar settlements, be they called favelas, flophouses, shanty towns, ghettos or colonias. Examples include New Village in Malaysia, Cité Soleil in Haiti, and Kibera in Kenya. For more information on shack settlements around the world, see the work of researchers Robert Neuwirth and Mike Davis as well as the special issue of Mute Magazine on shanty town struggles.
External links
- Abahlali baseMjondolo Website
- A collection of articles by Abahlali baseMjondolo members
- Pictures by Abhalali women
- Picture & video galleries on Abahlali.org
- A Digital Archive of Abahlali baseMjondolo History from March 2005 to November 2006 (with links to pictures, articles, press releases etc) at the MetaMute site
- Academic article giving a broad overview of the first 18 months of Abahlali baseMjondolo
- Articles by and on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Zulu