AbM: South Africa’s Great Change

S’bu Zikode’s talk at the 30th anniversary of the 1981 protests against the Springbok tour of New Zealand

I wish to thank Global Peace and Justice, in Auckland, for inviting me to New Zealand to speak on the progress of post-apartheid South Africa and the birth of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA. I also wish to thank Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA, the movement that I am part of, for trusting me with the responsibility of representing it.

I also wish to extend our deepest gratitude to the anti-apartheid movement here in New Zealand who stood firm with the people of South Africa in the fight against apartheid. Many of our older comrades remember watching, on TV, the protests that you organised against the Springbok tour in 1981. There were thousands of you, many thousands of you. You were attacked by the police. Many of you were beaten and arrested. Your protests were a deep shock to the racists in South Africa. It made them realise that although Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher accepted their racism ordinary people in New Zealand did not. Your protests also gave courage to the people struggling against apartheid in South Africa. You were workers, priests, teachers, housewives and students. You were men and women. You were old and young. You were people in New Zealand who made people in South Africa know that they were not alone in this world. The comrades who were of that generation remember how your brave protests made their hearts sing with joy and hope back in 1981.

Interview with Symphony Way about their new book

** Special interview by 3CR Community Radio in Melbourne, Australia.  They interviewed the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers on their new book: No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way

** Click link to download the interview which is in .m4a format *

Book synopsis:

Many outside South Africa imagine that after Mandela was freed and the ANC won free elections all was well. But the last two decades have led to increased poverty and inequality. Although a few black South Africans have become wealthy, for many the struggle against apartheid never ended because the ethos of apartheid continues to live.

Early in 2007 hundreds of families living in shacks in Cape Town were moved into houses they had been waiting for since the end of apartheid. But soon they were told that the move had been illegal and they were kicked out of their new homes. They built shacks next to the road opposite the housing project and hundreds organised themselves into the Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign, vowing to stay on the road until the government gave them permanent housing.

Opinion: Freedom’s prisoners

NIREN TOLSI | DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA – Dec 23 2009 06:00

Among the debris of the Abahlali base­Mjondolo president’s destroyed home lie the remains of freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

Almost three months ago Sbu Zikode had to flee his shack in Durban’s Kennedy Road after armed mobs rampaged through the settlement in a frenzy of ethno-political cleansing that left two people dead.

S’bu Zikode speaks at UKZN

S’bu Zikode will give the Forum Lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal at 12:20 today.

This will be his first public address since the armed attack on AbM in the Kennedy Road settlement on the night of 26 September, the systematic destruction of the homes of all AbM leaders living in the settlement and the ongoing death threats against AbM activists – which have now spread beyond the Kennedy Road settlement to include activists living elsewhere with a particular emphasis on those who have spoken in the media.

Kennedy olive branch a sham

NIREN TOLSI | DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA – Oct 11 2009 06:00

Mail & Guardian

The hatchet job on Durban’s Kennedy Road informal settlement continued this week with an alleged “healing process” by the KwaZulu-Natal government.

Its stated purpose was to effect reconciliation in Kennedy Road, home to about 7000 people, after last week’s violence that left two confirmed deaths, displaced several hundred and destroyed the homes of Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) president Sbu Zikode and other ABM members, who were forced into hiding.

Media: Modern-day ‘Robin Hood’ is disillusioned with ANC

October 09, 2009 Edition 1 – The Mercury

SOME describe him as a Robin Hood of the shack dwellers and others see him as “a silent striker”.

Either way, S’bu Zikode has emerged as an influential figure both locally and internationally through his Abahlali baseMjondolo movement and has come a long way from his days as a boy scout.

AbM Statement on the Kennedy Road Attacks and their Aftermath

Tuesday, 06 October 2009

Press Statement by the Kennedy Road Development Committee, Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Poor People’s Alliance

Our Movement is under Attack

We are under attack. We have been attacked physically with all kinds of weapons – guns and knives, even a sword. We have been driven from our homes and our community. The police did nothing to stop the attacks on us despite our calls for help. Four people were killed. The attacks, which began on the night of Saturday 26 September, were carried out by local ANC members together with shebeen owners from the Kennedy Road settlement. They were saying that our movement was ‘selling them’ to the AmaMpondo. It is a fact that our movement, at the local branch level and at the movement level, has no concern for where people were born or where their ancestors were born. We are a movement of the poor and that means that we do not make divisions between the poor. We have always been clear about this. This is our politics and we will stick to it.

Opinion: How a poor people’s movement was crushed

06 October 2008 – The Sowetan
BOLEKAJA! – Andile Mngxitama

“THE ANC has invaded Kennedy Road. We have been arrested, beaten, killed, jailed and made homeless by their armed wing.”

Media: ‘Violent attacks hit shack land’

29 September 2009
Mary Papayya – Sowetan

Homeless leaders’ homes destroyed

TWO people were killed and shack dwellers have been forced to flee their homes after a mob of 40 men armed with knobkerries, spears and guns attacked homes in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in Durban.

Media: Xhosa attack ‘far more sinister’

Note: Why were so many AbM members who are both Zulu and Xhosa attacked, injured, and had their homes destroyed if it were just about ethnic violence?  The ANC are calling it ethnic violence to distract attention from their role in organising the attacks.

29 Sep 2009
Sharlene Packree – The Witness

SECURITY has been increased in Durban’s Kennedy Road settlement after two men were murdered in a mob attack linked to tensions between Zulu and Xhosa shack dwellers.

Mthokozisi Ndlovu and Ndumiso Mnguni were killed when a mob told all Xhosas to leave the settlement. Chaos broke out just after 7 pm on Sunday night when the mob ran through the settlement looking for Xhosa residents.