Abahlali baseMjondolo

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Quarry Road Protest 2005

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Foreman Road Protest, This Land is our Land.2005

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Baba Dhlomo's Funeral, September 2006.

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Queuing to vote in the Abahlali elections, November 2006.

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The City's mark of coming disaster and a sign of resistance, 2007.

Abahlali baseMjondolo is a democratic movement of shack dwellers which started with a road blockade in Durban, South Africa in early 2005.Abahlali refuses to participate in party politics and instead seeks to build people's power where people live and work.Abahlali baseMjondolo is Zulu for people who live in shacks. Since 2005 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 21 branches in other settlements that are not collectively affiliated to Abahlali but which do allow independent political activitiy. The movement now also works with street traders and has a further 3 branches of street traders, all of which are in Pinetown. The representatives of the movement are elected each year, are given mandates for action at open weekly meetings, are subject to recall and can credibly claim to represent approximately 30,000 people. One of the movement's founding principles, which is regularly reaffirmed publically, is that no one in the movement will ever make any money from the movement. The movement accepts no money from political parties or governments and is 100% run by unpaid volunteers

The movement has organised numerous large marches on local councillors, as well as the mayor and the provinvial minister of housing. The organisation has fought against evictions and forced removals demanded the electrification of shack settlements to stop the regular fires, 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, provided HIV/AIDS care, started a ten thousand copies per issue newspaper, vigorously opposed what it sees as authoritarianism from government, business and some left NGOs and sought to win popular control over decision making that affects poor communities . One of their key slogans (along with 'Land! Housing!') is 'Talk to Us, Not about Us!'. Abahlali has produced 6 or 7 shack dwelling public intellectuals who regularly comment and write in the local media in English and in Zulu.

The movement has suffered sustained illegal harrasement from the state that in 2006 resulted in a complete ban on Abahlali's right to march from the local city manager, Mike Sutcliffe and has resulted in more than 150 arrests of Abahlali members. The movement has laid numerous assault charges against the police. Police harrasment has been storngly condemned by human rights organisations including, most notably, the Freedom of Expression Institute which has issued a number of statements in support of Abahlali's right to speak out and to organise protests. Police violence against Abahlali has been quite widely covered in the international media (e.g The New York Times 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. However the movement has won a number of victories against the Municipality in the local courts successfully interdicting them against banning marches and demolishing settlements.

Nevertheles individuals in the state (and in late 2006 individuals linked to a local NGO, the Centre for Civil Society) have presented the organisation as a group of criminals under the malevolent influence of a white man. A number of local academics have responded by arguing that there is no empirical evidence for this assertion and that it a racist interpretation very similar to the manner in which the state and white civil society typically described mass movements of the African poor under apartheid.

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.

External links

Abahlali History

Many articles, press releases, photographs etc can also be found by searching IndyMedia South Africa, Abahlali.Org,Independent Newspapers - check the Durban titles, The Freedom of Expression Institute, Robert Neuwirth's blogg and Durban City Council.

A Selection of Key Online articles in English by People in Abahlali

A Selection of Free Access Online Articles in English on Abahlali

For articles by and about Abahlali in Zulu visit theisiZulu page at Abahlali.org or search Isolezwe.

A Selection of Online Picture Galleries

Online Video Clips

See also

External links