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[i]London anarchist, Antonios Vradis lived in the community for a while in late 2006 from and it was here that the anarchist magazine Voices of Resistance from Occupied London was conceived.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release
Monday 21 April 2008

Abahlali baseMjondolo to Mourn UnFreedom Day Once Again

Time: 9:00 a.m., Sunday 27 April 2008
Venue: Community Hall, Kennedy Road Shack Settlement, Clare Estate, Durban

Friday, 15 February 2008
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release

City Escalates Its War on the Poor
Mass Disconnections from Electricity at Gun Point in the Kennedy Road Settlement

[b]On 28 September 2007 around 3 000 Abahlali baseMjondolo members marched on the mayor of Durban, Obed Mlaba. In previous Abahlali baseMjondolo marches mock coffins were carried and local councillors symbolically buried as a rejection of their top down party authority over bottom up people's power.

by Michael Neocosmos

Abstract

A commitment to justice and democratic governance requires that we listen carefully as much as we speak loudly and act decisively.

Since 2004 South African cities have been convulsed by a series of municipal revolts organised from shack settlements. They have most often taken the form of blockading roads with burning barricades and have generally targeted municipal party councillors. Across the country many of the more militant settlements have refused electoral politics and declared 'No Land, No House, No Vote'.

[b]Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is a global NGO strongly supported by the World Bank, USAid and the Gates Foundation. In South Africa the state, which is highly repressive to shack dwellers and their organisations, has a formal partnership with SDI.

Abahlali baseMjondolo began in the 7000 strong Kennedy Road shack settlement and it is here were the state has concentrated repression. One year and one week ago six key activists in the settlement were arrested on a trumped up murder charge (the same tactic was used against the Landless People's Movement in Johannesburg the year before).

People have different definitions of democracy.

Some people say that democracy means freeing everyone to do whatever they want, regardless of rule or controls, with no instructions or boundaries, no importance to whether what is done is wrong or right.

When Choices Can No Longer Be Choices

by S'bu Zikode

The No Land, No House, No Vote Campaign Still on for 2009

by M'du Hlongwa

I hope that one day it will be realised by our government officials how much betrayal they have served to the floors on which they stand and where they belong. It is very sad that our politicians forget that their power started with people like us, people like the red shirts.

[i]This article by S'bu Zikode appeared in Durban's elite bourgeois newspaper, the Mercury, in July 2006. After Abahlali baseMjondolo put twenty thousand people on the streets in support of a boycott of the February 2006 local government elections in the face of major militarised state intimidation the middle classes began to concede some space to the voices of the militant poor.

The Police & Abahlali baseMjondolo

A List of Key Incidents of Police Harassment Suffered by Abahlali baseMjondolo
- compiled by Stephanie Lynch and Zodwa Nsibande

Broken Promises
On November 9, 1993, the African National Congress (ANC) issued a press statement condemning the housing crisis in South Africa as “a matter which falls squarely at the door of the National Party regime and its surrogates.” It went on to describe conditions in the informal settlements as “indecent” and announced that

[b]This article was written by S'bu Zikode in 2005 at a time when the political elite was responding to the emergence of a militant shack dwellers' movement with paranoia and conspiracy theory. The main allegations was that a 'Third Force' (i.e. renegade apartheid security personnel) was 'behind' the movement.

The High Court upheld Thubelisha Homes and the state’s eviction order against the community, which the residents decided to appeal at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.

Organised with Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, the residents have been occupying the homes, demanding a right to adequate housing, and have vowed to peacefully resist any attempts at being evicted. If the eviction is successful, 8,000 residents with no alternative accommodation will be thrown onto the streets.