Abahlali baseMjondolo

South African shack dwellers' movement in Durban with staunch belief in anti-electoral, grassroots confrontational politics.

In recent days the shack settlements around Johannesburg have been torn apart by appalling violence against foreign born squatters. More than 20 people have been killed and many more raped, wounded and left homeless. This press statement from Abahlali baseMjondolo, the militant shack dwellers movement with more 30 affiliated settlements in the cities of Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Pinetown, responds to the horrific outbreak of anti-foreigner violence and notes the culpability of the state.

The poor of Motala Heights, affiliated to Abahlali baseMjondolo since 2006, are fighting a bitter battle against eviction against a local gangster business man and the local state. There have recently been death threats and threats of arson and the local cops are acting as the gangsters' enforcers.

Freedom Day, 27 April, is the major national holiday in the civic religion of post-apartheid South Africa. The poor are usually herded into stadiums to be lectured on their good fortune by their leaders while the rich head for the malls. This year, for the 3rd time, Abahlali baseMjondolo will be hosting an UnFreedom Day. Heresy is alive & well....

Abahlali baseMjondolo has long sought to politicise fire & shit: to show that people suffer fires because electricity is refused, to show that people suffer diarrhoea because clean water is refused. This press release responds to the active and of course armed withdrawal of electricity from the Kennedy Road settlement in February 2008.

Press release of Abahlali baseMjondolo in the run up to a march on the mayor of Durban to protest his refusal to supply electricity to the shack dwellers' settlements.

A major and widely influential new theoretical statement on the rising tide of anti-state politics by a major radical African intellectual.

Article based on interviews with South African shack dwellers about their views of what constitutes 'democracy', stressing the need for those in struggle to set their own agenda rather than have it set by professional activists.

This is a longer version of an article by Richard Pithouse first published in Voices of Resistance from Occupied London in October 2007. It gives a useful basic overview of Abahlali baseMjondolo from its founding in early 2005 to late 2007.

Abahlali baseMjondolo press release in response to media confusion between Abahlali and the World Bank sponsored NGO Slum Dwellers International (SDI), critiquing mainstream development discourse. A press release from SDI is also provided.

Six activists from the Abahlali baseMjondolo in court on murder charges have been released with all charges dropped.

S'bu Zikode wrote this article in early 2007 when he was finally forced out of his job at a petrol station as punishment for his political activities with Abahlali baseMjondolo. As of March 2008 he remains unemployed.

Article restating Abahlali baseMjondolo's anti-statist, anti-electoral politics seen as more or less treasonable by the state and 'ignorant' by the NGO left, some of whom suggested that Abahlali militants should be given 'voter education' so that they could be taught to 'understand democracy'.

Philani Zungu's article arguing against the lip-service of politicians of 'service delivery' to South Africa's poor.

S'bu Zikode's article after Abahlali baseMjondolo's successful anti-electoral campaign in 2006.

This list of police abuses suffered by Abahlali baseMjondolo between 19 March 2005 and 13 November 2007 is an important document of record.

This article by Richard Pithouse, first published in Monthly Review, charts the rise of the militant South African shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo which first emerged in 1995 and has gone from strength to strength since then despite severe state repression.

S'bu Zikode's article in response to the attempts of the South African government to attack the shack dwellers' movement.