Durban

The Industrial & Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) – a trade union, rural peasant movement, and urban squatters’ movement – formed on the docks in Cape Town in 1919. Within a decade, the ICU had expanded across Southern Africa without regard for national borders and counted people from various African countries and the Caribbean in its leadership, as well as people who were Indian and mixed race. The largely forgotten history of the ICU is well worth recovering in a time of escalating chauvinism and xenophobia. Our Dossier #20 offers an introduction to this extraordinary popular movement.

This article examines the life and thought of South African radical philosopher Richard “Rick” Turner (1941–1978), a crucial figure in the 1973 anti-apartheid political conjuncture known as the “Durban Moment.” Though steeped in existentialist philosophy, Turner’s real contribution to New Left thought in South Africa came elsewhere. Turner’s receptivity to “Black Consciousness,” his vision of radical pedagogy, and his commitment to participatory democracy and “workers’ control” all made a deep imprint on Black working class mobilization and the birth of a democratic trade union movement in South Africa.

Abahlali baseMjondolo continues to be subject to assassination in Durban. This article, from the Daily Maverick in Johannesburg, reports on recent threats to the movement.

An article from the mainstream media on the annual 'UnFreedom Day' rally held each year by Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban as a counter event to the national public holiday 'Freedom Day'. Thousands of people, from various parts of the country, participated in the event. The movement affirmed its commitment to the collective ownership and democratic management of land, outside of the logic of capital.