Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, , in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist

shack A shack (or, in some areas, shanty) is a type of small shelter or dwelling, often primitive or rudimentary in design and construction. Unlike huts, shacks are constructed by hand using available materials; however, whereas huts are usually ru ...

dwellers' movement in South Africa which organises land occupations, builds communesThe gospel according to Abahlali baseMjondolo: Land occupiers' group starts 'socialist' commune in eThekwini
Des Erasmus, ''Daily Maverick'', 18 April 2021 and campaigns against evictions and xenophobia and for public housing.Abahlali baseMjondolo: Living Politics
Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, September 2022 It has been described as "certainly the largest, most independent, militant and progressive social movement in post-apartheid South Africa" and "the largest urban social movement on the planet". According to the Socio-Economic Rights Institute "Since its formation, Abahlali has dedicated itself to a radical land reform project that insists on the de-commodification of land and for its distribution and use based on need."The Abahlali baseMjondolo experience exposes South Africa’s shrinking democratic space
Thato Masiangoako, ''Daily Maverick'', 18 October 2022 As of June 2021 it claimed to have "86 branches across five provinces". As of October 2022 it claims to have more than 115 00 members in good standing. The movement has a history of conflict with the ruling

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...

(ANC)The bloody battle for land and rights in Cato Manor
Greg Arde & Benita Enoch, ''GroundUp'', 11 October 2022 More than twenty activists killed in eThekwini battle for land
Paddy Harper, ''Mail & Guardian'', 13 October 2022 and claims that more than twenty of its leaders have been murdered, something it blames on the ANC. Abahlali BaseMjondolo: Living Politics
Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, September 2022 The murder and assassination of Abahlali baseMjondolo members and leaders was discussed at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2022.

History

In 2001, the

eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality created in 2000, that includes the city of Durban, South Africa and surrounding towns. eThekwini is one of the 11 districts of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The majo ...

, which governs the city of Durban and surrounding places including

Pinetown Pinetown is a large area that is part of the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, inland from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Pinetown is situated 16 km west of Durban at an elevation of 1,000 to 1,300 feet (305 to 395 m). History Pin ...

, embarked on a

slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...

program. Shack settlements were demolished and there was a refusal to provide basic services (for example electricity and sanitation) to existing settlements on the grounds that all shack settlements were now temporary. Following these demolitions, some shack dwellers were simply left homeless and others were subjected to unlawful forced evictions then moved to the rural periphery of the city. Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) formed out of a series of housing protests in 2005.Social Movement Media in Post-Apartheid South Africa, by Wendy Willems,''Encyclopaedia of Social Movement Media'' (Ed. John D. H. Downing, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 2011) Firstly, 750 people from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

blockaded the N2 freeway for four hours with a burning barricade. There were 14 arrests. The group's original work from 2005 onwards was primarily committed to opposing demolitions and forced removals and to struggling for good land and quality housing in the cities. In most instances, this involved a demand for shack settlements to be upgraded or for new houses to be built close to where the existing settlements were. AbM argued that basic services such as water, electricity and toilets should be immediately provided to shack settlements while land and housing are negotiated and also engaged in mass actions providing access to water and electricity. AbM quickly had a considerable degree of success in stopping evictions and forced removals, winning the right for new shacks to be built and gaining access to basic services.Durban breaks new ground in participatory democracy, Imraan Buccus
. Thoughtleader.co.za. Retrieved on 4 December 2011. The

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

expressed serious concerns in early 2008 about the treatment of shack dwellers in Durban. In late 2008, the AbM President

S'bu Zikode Sibusiso Innocent Zikode is the current president of the South African shack dwellers' movement, which he co-founded with others in 2005. Abahlali baseMjondolo claims to have an audited paid up membership of over 80 000 across South Africa. His ...

announced a deal with the eThekwini Municipality which would see services being provided to 14 settlements and tenure security and formal housing to three. The municipality confirmed this deal in February 2009.The Work of violence:a timeline of armed attacks at Kennedy Road
, Kerry Chance ''School of Development Studies Research Report'', 83, July 2010.] AbM has been involved in considerable conflict with the eThekwini Municipality and has undertaken numerous protests and legal actions. Its members have been beaten and its leaders arrested by the

South African Police Service The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1,154 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in eac ...

in Sydenham, Durban. AbM has often made claims of severe

police harassment The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and ...

, including

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

. On a number of occasions, these claims have been supported by church leaders and human rights organisations. AbM has successfully sued the police for unlawful assaults on its members. In October 2009, it won a court case on appeal which declared the

KZN Slums Act The KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act, 2007 (the "KZN Slums Act") was a provincial law dealing with land tenure and evictions in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.Landmark judgment for the poor
, Niren Tolsi, Mail & Guardian, 18 October 2009]. Mg.co.za (18 October 2009). Retrieved on 4 December 2011. There was acute conflict between AbM and the

Cape Town City Council The City of Cape Town ( af, Stad Kaapstad; xh, IsiXeko saseKapa) is the metropolitan municipality which governs the city of Cape Town, South Africa and its suburbs and exurbs. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 3,740,026. The remot ...

in 2009. This centred on the Macassar Village Land Occupation. There was similar conflict in 2013 around the Marikana Land Occupation. There was also concern about the possibility of evictions linked to the

2010 FIFA World Cup , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...

. Academic work on Abahlali baseMjondolo stresses that it is non-professionalised (i.e. its leaders are nonsalaried), independent of NGO control, autonomous from political organisations and party politicsAnalysing Political Subjectivities: Naming the Post-Development State in Africa Today by Michael Neocosmos, ''Journal of Asian & African Studies'', pp.534–553, Vol. 45, No. 5, October 2010 and democratic.Nigel C. Gibson, Living Fanon: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2011: London, Palgrave Macmillan) Sarah Cooper-Knock describes the movement as "neurotically democratic, impressively diverse and steadfastly self-critical". Ercument Celik writes that "I experienced how democratically the movement ran its meetings." A 2006 article in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' stated that the movement "has shaken the political landscape of South Africa." Academic Peter Vale writes that Abahlali baseMjondolo is "along with the

Treatment Action Campaign The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is a South African HIV/AIDS activist organisation which was co-founded by the HIV-positive activist Zackie Achmat in 1998. TAC is rooted in the experiences, direct action tactics and anti-apartheid background ...

the most effective grouping in South African civil society." Khadija Patel has written that the movement "is at the forefront of a new wave of mass political mobilisation".Shack dwellers take the fight to eThekwini – and the ANC takes note
, Khadija Patel, ''The Daily Maverick'', 16 September 2013 Abahlali baseMjondolo is the largest

dweller's organisation in South Africa and campaigns to improve the living conditions of poor people and to democratise society from below. AbM makes considerable use of cellphones to organise, generates its own media where possible and has made use of films too. The award-winning documentary feature film '' Dear Mandela'' tells the story of three young activists in Abahlali baseMjondolo. AbM also runs formal education courses and issues certificates. The University of Abahlali baseMjondolo teaches through song and discussions, and archives the knowledge production process.Transforming the basis of knowledge
, Budd Hall, ''University World News'', 25 May 2013 It also hosts regular seminars.Nigel Gibson, 'Upright and free: Fanon in South Africa, from Biko to the shackdwellers' movement (Abahlali baseMjondolo)', ''Social Identities'' (Volume 14, Issue 6 November 2008 , pages 683 – 715)

Campaigns

Since 2005, the movement has carried out a series of large scale marches, engaged in direct action such as land occupations, self organised water and electricity connections and made tactical use of the courts.Judgment a victory for 38 families
, ''Daily News'', 20 September 2012 The movement has often made

anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economi ...

statements, has called for "a living communism", and has demanded the

expropriation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of private land for public housing. During the

COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa The COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa is part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). On 5 March 2020, Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize had conf ...

, AbM called a halt to all its planned events, including the annual UnFreedom Day rally. It also warned that most precautions against the virus assumed that people had access to sanitation and running water, a situation that was not the case for many of its members living in shacks.

Ronald Lamola Ronald Ozzy Lamola (born 21 November 1983) is a South African lawyer and politician, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, and a member of the African National Congress (ANC). He has also been serving as a Member of the National Assembl ...

Minister of Justice and Correctional Services The Minister of Justice and Correctional Services is the justice minister in the government of South Africa. He is the political head of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DoJCD), the Department of Correctional Services (DC ...

, introduced a moratorium on evictions during lockdown (which began 27 March 2020) yet the

carried out evictions in Durban affecting around 900 people. Three of the settlements were Azania,

eKhenana Commune The eKhenana Commune ( en, Canaan Commune) is a prominent land occupation in the historic working-class area of Cato Manor in Durban, South Africa. According to the Socio-Economic Rights Institute "The eKhenana settlement is organised as a coop ...

and Ekuphumeleleni, all affiliated with AbM. Azania was squatted on 26 February 2019 and it was completely evicted, affecting around 300 people, two of whom were shot with live ammunition.

Land and housing

Abahlali baseMjondolo campaigns for well-situated urban land for public housing and has occupied unused government land. A primary demand of the movement has been for decent, public housing and much of its work takes the form of opposing evictions. The movement has often used the phrase '

The Right to the City The right to the city is an idea and a slogan first proposed by Henri Lefebvre in his 1968 book . This idea has been taken up more recently by social movements, thinkers, and certain progressive local authorities as a call to action to reclaim th ...

' to insist that the location of housing is critically important and demands that shack settlements are upgraded where they are and that people are not relocated to out of town developments. The movement rejects technocratic approaches to the housing crisis and stresses the need for dignity to be central to the resolution of the housing crisis. It is opposed to shack dwellers being moved into 'transit camps'. The movement opposes all evictions and forced removals and has campaigned vigorously on this score via public protest and, also, legal action. Land occupations organised by Abahlali baseMjondolo include

Macassar Village The squatter's movement Abahlali baseMjondolo occupied a piece of vacant state owned land in Macassar Village, near Somerset West outside of Cape Town on 18 May 2009. The occupation was later destroyed by the city's anti-land invasion unit. Bac ...

(2009), Marikana (Cape Town) (2013) and Marikana (Durban) (2013). AbM activists set up the eKhanana Land Occupation in 2018, in Cato Crest, Durban. The Anti-Land-Invasion Unit demolished and burnt 50 shacks, but the occupation continued. In 2019 the occupiers won the right to remain on the land.

Service delivery

Abahlali baseMjondolo has also campaigned for the provision of basic services to shack settlements. Between 2003 and 2008, there are on average of ten shack fires every day and someebody perished every second day. AbM has campaigned on this issue demanding, amongst other things, the electrification of shacks. It has also connected thousands of people to electricity. The movement campaigns for equal access to school education for poor children. AbM has organised a number of mutual aid projects: crèches, kitchens and vegetable gardens.

Fighting the KZN Slums Act

Abahlali baseMjondolo Protest the Slums Act at the Constitutional Court

The KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act was introduced in 2007 by the Provincial Government of

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

. It gave landowners and municipalities increased powers to evict tenants and squatters. AbM went to court in an attempt to have the act declared unconstitutional, but lost the case. On 14 May 2009, it took the case on appeal to the Constitutional Court. The judgment was handed down on 14 October 2009 and the movement won the case with costs.

Xenophobia and police brutality

AbM took a strong stand against the xenophobic attacks that swept the country in May 2008. There were attacks in townships against migrants from Mozambique and Zimbabwe, resulting in over fifty deaths. AbM released a statement in Afrikaans, English, isiZulu, German and Portuguese, declaring, "a person cannot be illegal ..don't turn your suffering neighbours into enemies." Sociologist

Michael Neocosmos __NOTOC__ Michael Neocosmos is a Marxist philosopher. He is an emeritus professor in humanities at Rhodes University, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute and a fellow at the Centre for Humanities R ...

saw this as the "most important statement on the xenophobic violence" and praised the fact that it was a shack-dweller group addressing the issue. There were no attacks in any Abahlali settlements. The movement was also able to stop an in-progress attack in the (non-Abahlali affiliated) Kenville settlement and to offer shelter to some people displaced in the attacks. The movement has organised numerous actions against police racism and brutality and has often demanded fair access to policing services for shack dwellers.

2010 FIFA World Cup

The

was hosted by South Africa. In the leadup to the event, with 450,000 people expected to visit, there were concerns that the interests of the poor were being ignored as roads were rebuilt and new stadiums built. Thousands of people were evicted and in October 2009, armed men attacked a shanty town in Durban, killing two people and demolishing thirty homes. S'bu Zikode commented in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' "The government is focusing on the international visitors rather than poor communities. The role of the poor is seemingly to work hard in hotels, soccer stadiums and other facilities for the world's benefit, but then be kicked out of the cities and not share in the profits." A security plan costing 1.3 billion rand (£98 million) involved sites being protected by 41,000 police officers equipped with water cannons, drones and helicopters. Whilst the cup cost an estimated £4 billion in total to put on, 43% of South African adults remained unemployed.The real winners and losers: of the beautiful game
, ''Sunday Herald'' 9 August 2009 The Western Cape branch of AbM threatened to build shacks outside of the Cape Town stadium to draw attention to their situation.A Quiet Coup: South Africa's largest social movement under attack as the World Cup Looms
Toussaint Losier, ''Left Turn Magazine'', June 2010 However, they were not able to make good on this threat.

Philosophy

Abahlali baseMjondolo describes itself as "a homemade politics that everyone can understand and find a home in" and stresses that it moves from the lived experience of the poor to create a politics that is both intellectual and actional. A slogan of the group is 'Don't Talk About Us, Talk To Us'. Its key demand is that the social value of urban land should take priority over its commercial value and it campaigns for the public expropriation of large privately owned landholdings. The key organising strategy is to try "to recreate

Commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...

" from below by trying to create a series of linked

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

s. Its philosophy has been sketched out in a number of articles and interviews. The key ideas are those of a politics of the poor, a living politics and a people's politics. A politics of the poor is understood to mean a politics that is conducted by the poor and for the poor in a manner that enables the poor to be active participants in the struggles conducted in their name. Practically, it means that such a politics must be conducted where poor people live or in places that they can easily access, at the times when they are free, in the languages that they speak. It does not mean that middle-class people and organisations are excluded but that they are expected to come to these spaces and to undertake their politics there in a dialogical and democratic manner. There are two key aspects to the idea of a living politics. The first is that it is understood as a politics that begins not from external theory but from the experience of the people that shape it. It is argued that political education usually operates to create new elites who mediate relationships of

patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...

upwards and who impose ideas on others and to exclude ordinary people from thinking politically. This politics is not anti-theory – it just asserts the need to begin from lived experience and to move on from there rather than to begin from theory (usually imported from the

Global North Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

) and to impose theory on the lived experience of suffering and resistance in the shacks. The second key aspect, of a living politics, is that political thinking is always undertaken democratically and in common. People's politics is opposed to party politics or politicians' politics (as well as to top down undemocratic forms of NGO politics) and it is argued that the former is a popular democratic project undertaken without financial reward and with an explicit refusal of representative roles and personal power while the latter is a top down, professionalised representative project driven by personal power. While the movement is clear that its key immediate goals are 'land and housing' it is equally clear that it sees its politics as going beyond this.Politics of Grieving
, by Drucilla Cornell, ''Social Text'', 2011 S'bu Zikode has commented that: "We have seen in certain cases in South Africa where governments have handed out houses simply to silence the poor. This is not acceptable to us. Abahalali's struggle is beyond housing. We fight for respect and dignity. If houses are given to silence the poor then those houses are not acceptable to us." 'Abahlalism' has on occasion been described as anarchist or

autonomist Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendenci ...

in practice. This is primarily because its praxis correlates closely with central tenets of

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...

, including decentralisation, opposition to imposed hierarchy, direct democracy and recognition of the connection between means and ends. However, the movement has never described itself as either anarchist or autonomist. Zikode has said that the movement aspires to "an ethics of living communism".

Elections

Abahlali baseMjondolo, together with similar grassroots movements in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

and

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, has traditionally taken a critical stance towards state elections in South Africa. It boycotted the local government elections in 2006, the national government elections in 2009 and the 2011 local government elections under the banner of

No Land! No House! No Vote! No Land! No House! No Vote! is the name of a campaign by a number of poor people's movements in South Africa that calls for the boycotting of the vote and a general rejection of party politics and vote banking. The name is meant to imply that i ...

. It has a history of conflict with both the

and the Democratic Alliance. Academic work contends that in this way the movement has protected its autonomy from political parties and NGOs. The ''

Mail & Guardian The ''Mail & Guardian'' is a South African weekly newspaper and website, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa. It focuses on political analysis, investigative reporting, Southern African news, local arts, music and popular cultu ...

'' reported that "Nearly 75% of South Africans aged 20–29 did not vote in the 2011 ocal governmentelections" and that "South Africans in that age group were more likely to have taken part in violent street protests against the local ANC than to have voted for the ruling party". S'bu Zikode commented "The government and academics speak about the poor all the time, but so few want to speak to the poor...It becomes clear that our job is just to vote and then watch the rich speak about us as we get poorer" and Abahlali baseMjondolo's Deputy President, Lindela Figlan, has argued that "voting someone into government just gives them power to oppress and exploit us." Despite this sentiment, at the AbM "Unfreedom Day" rally held in Kwa-Mashu on 27 April 2014, the movement's President Sbu Zikode announced that they "would abandon their No Land, No House, No Vote campaign and cast a "strategic vote" in the May 7 elections". A few days later Zikode signed a pact with the centrist Democratic Alliance (DA), stating that "We encourage our comrades and our membership to vote for the Democratic Alliance so that we can get rid of corruption".DA signs pact with KZN landless people
SAPA, ''The Daily News'', 2 May 2014 Zikode clarified that "Abahlali are not joining DA or any political party. We will remain independent from all kinds of mainstream political parties. But this time around it's a tactical partnership where the aim is to really get rid of the party that has become a threat to the society".Abahlali throws support behind DA
Thrishni Subramoney and SAPA, ''East Coast Radio'', 2 May 2014 The DA welcomed Abahali's endorsement, stating that this had come after two years of engagement. The group announced in 2019 that the only political party which had its support in the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

was the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP). which performed poorly, A spokesperson said "We still maintain that we are a movement that fights for people's rights and dignity. SRWP is the only party which speaks the same language as us, and although our vote is for them, we remain an independent civic organisation". The party did not win any seats in the election.

Repression

In the early years of Abahlali baseMjondolo, individuals in the ruling party often accused it of being criminals manipulated by a malevolent white man, a third force, or a foreign intelligence agency. The movement, like others in South Africa,Dissent Under Thabo Mbeki
Jane Duncan, May 2011 suffered sustained illegal harassment from the state. There were more Than 200 arrests of Abahlali members in the first last three years of the movement's existence and repeated

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...

in people's homes, in the streets and in detention. On a number of occasions, the police used live ammunition, armoured vehicles and helicopters in their attacks on unarmed shack dwellers. In 2006 the local city manager,

Mike Sutcliffe Michael Sutcliffe is the former municipal managerA look back ...

, unlawfully implemented a complete ban on Abahlali's right to march which was eventually overturned in court. Abahlali were violently prevented from accepting invitations to appear on television and radio debates by the local police. The Freedom of Expression Institute has issued a number of statements in strong support of Abahlali's right to speak out and to organise protests. The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions and a group of prominent church leaders have also issued public statements against police violence, as has Bishop Rubin Philip in his individual capacity, and in support of the right of the movement to publicly express dissent. In March 2008, ''

The Mercury Mercury most commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * M ...

'' newspaper reported that both

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

and

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

were investigating human rights abuses against shack dwellers by the city government.Alt URL
Repression began to take a new from in 2009 when a youth meeting was attacked in the Kennedy Road settlement on 26 September 2009. A mob of 40 people entered the settlement wielding guns and knives and attacked an Abahlali baseMjondolo youth meeting.Political tolerance on the wane in South Africa
, Imraan Buccus, ''SA Reconciliation Barometer'', September 2010 Two people were killed in the resulting conflict. following which twelve members of a dance group affiliated to the movement were arrested and charged with murder. The ''

'' newspaper described the arrests as Kennedy Road as a "hatchet job." On 18 July 2011, the case against the twelve accused was eventually thrown out of court. The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa issued a statement saying that the "charges were based on evidence which now appears almost certainly to have been manufactured" and that the Magistrate had described the state witnesses as ""belligerent", "unreliable" and "dishonest". Amnesty International noted that the court had found that "police had directed some witnesses to point out members of Abahlali-linked organisations at the identification parade". IRIN, the newsletter of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported in April 2010 that "The rise of an organised poor people's movement bahlali baseMjondoloin South Africa's most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, is being met with increasing hostility by the ruling

(ANC) government" and in April 2013 the movement successfully sued the Minister of Police for violence against three of its members. On 26 June 2013,

Nkululeko Gwala Nkululeko Gwala (died 2013) originally from Inchanga in KwaZulu Natal, was a resident of Cato Crest, which is part of Cato Manor in Durban and a supporter of the Marikana Land Occupation (Durban). He was also a prominent member of the shackdweller ...

, an AbM leader in Cato Crest, was the first member of the movement to be assassinated. Hours before the murder, an ANC politician had said he was a trouble-maker. In the same year

Nqobile Nzuza Nqobile Nzuza was a resident in the Marikana Land Occupation in Cato Crest, which is part of Cato Manor in Durban, South Africa. She was a member of the shackdwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. Death On 30 September 2013, at the age of ...

was shot dead by police at the Durban Marikana land occupation in September 2013, at the age of 17. The following year Thuli Ndlovu, the chairperson of the movement's branch in KwaNdengezi was assassinated in her home on 29 September 2014. AbM accused the councillor of having a hand in the assassination. On 27 February 2015, the local councillor, Mduduzi Ngcobo, was arrested on suspicion of being behind the murder. Ngcobo and Velile Lutsheko (another ANC councillor) were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. Mlungisi Ndlovu, the gunman they had hired, was handed a sentence of 12 years in jail. Following these three killings numerous murders of AbM members were reported. After a call was made for eThekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede to step down to face charges of racketeering and fraud, the Durban offices of AbM were burgled in May 2019. No money was taken but two computer hard drives were stolen. When Zikode said he was concerned by the timing of the burglary, the mayor's representative replied: "This is an old, repeated, fabricated allegation by Abahlali ... they must approach relevant security agencies if they have evidence instead of the media". As of 2022 the movement claims that 24 of its members have been killed. According to Nomzamo Zondi, director of a pro-bono law firm, "From the 24 Abahlali activists who have been killed; 14 of them were assassinated by izinkabi (hired assassins), six of them were killed by security forces and one child who was two weeks old was killed while sleeping from teargas fumes during a violent eviction in Foreman Road." The assassination of Abahlali baseMjondolo activists was discussed at the 51st sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2022.

Church support

Abahlali baseMjondolo has received strong support from some key church leaders such as Bishop of Natal, Rubin Phillip. In a speech at the AbM

UnFreedom Day UnFreedom Day is an unofficial annual event that is marked every year on or around 27 April. UnFreedom Day is organised to counter the official South African holiday called Freedom Day, an annual celebration of South Africa's first democratic el ...

event on 27 April 2008 Phillip said: The Italian theologian Brother Filippo Mondini has attempted to develop a theology based on the political thought and practices developed in Abahlali baseMjondolo.

The Poor People's Alliance

In September 2008, Abahlali baseMjondolo, the

Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign was a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa.

, the

Landless People's Movement The Landless People's Movement was an independent social movement in South Africa. It consisted of rural people and people living in shack settlements in cities. The Landless People's Movement boycotted parliamentary elections and had a histor ...

and the Rural Network (Abahlali baseplasini) formed

The Poor People's Alliance The Poor People's Alliance is a network of radical grassroots movements in South Africa. It was formed in 2008 after the Action Alliance, formed in December 2006, was expanded to include two more organisations. The following organisations are ...

. The Anti-Eviction Campaign's chairman said "We are calling it the Poor People's Alliance so our people can identify with it". The coalition has repeatedly clashed with the ANC. The Poor People's Alliance refuses electoral politics under the slogan "

". Abahlali baseMjondolo has also organised in solidarity with the Unemployed Peoples' Movement.

International solidarity

Worldwide, Abahlali baseMjondolo has solidarity links with many other groups, such as Sendika in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

and the Combined Harare Residents' Association in

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

. In the US, it is connected to Domestic Workers United, The Poverty Initiative, Picture the Homeless and the

Movement for Justice in el Barrio Movement for Justice in El Barrio is a community organization based in East Harlem, New York City that is a reaction to, and organizes against, gentrification in the neighborhood. Organisational profile The Movement defines itself as follows: ...

in New York. It is also supported by the Movement Alliance Project in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and

Take Back the Land Take Back the Land is an American organization based in Miami, Florida, devoted to blocking evictions, and rehousing homeless people in foreclosed houses. Take Back the Land was formed in October 2006 to build the Umoja Village shantytown on ...

in Miami There is an AbM Solidarity Group in England and the movement has links with the London Coalition Against Poverty and War on Want. In Italy, AbM is connected to

Clandestino ''Clandestino'' is the first full-length solo album by Manu Chao, released in 1998. The album contains many soundbites throughout, two of which are bits of a speech by Subcomandante Marcos and, like Chao's subsequent albums, was mostly recorded ...

and the

Comboni Missionaries The term ''Comboni Missionaries'' can refer to either of two religious orders founded by Saint Daniele Comboni: * Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus Bold text The Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus ( la, Missionarii Comboniani Co ...

Criticisms

According to eThekwini city manager Dr. Michael Sutcliffe, the essence of the tensions between Abahlali baseMjondolo and the city lie in the movement's "rejection of the authority of the city." When the Durban High Court ruled that his attempts to ban marches by AbM were unlawful he stated that: "We will be asking serious questions of the court because we cannot allow anarchy having anyone marching at any time and any place." According to Lennox Mabaso, spokesperson for the Provincial Department of Housing, the movement is "under the sway of an agent provocateur" who is "engaged in clandestine operations" and who has been "assigned to provoke unrest". City Officials continue to argue that the movement is a Third Force seeking to undermine the ruling

for nefarious purposes. In December 2006, AbM and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, disrupted a meeting of the Social Movements Indaba (SMI) at the

University of KwaZulu Natal The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is a university with five campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was formed on 1 January 2004 after the merger between the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville. ...

. A member of the SMI collective said to the

"they insulted us, using abusive language and all that macho lingo" whilst S'bu Zikode asserted denied any verbal violence. Since then, AbM has refused to work with SMI. AbM has also criticised the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and from 2006 onwards has refused to work with it. AbM of the Western Cape called for a month of direct action in October 2010.

Mzonke Poni Mzonke Poni is an activist in Cape Town. He is the former chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape and was previously a leader of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. The ''Sunday Times'' has described him as "the face of an AN ...

, the chairperson of the Cape Town structure at the time, publicly endorsed road blockades as a legitimate tactic during this strike. The

(TAC) and the

South African Communist Party The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing Na ...

, the latter a major ally of the ruling ANC, issued strong statements condemning the campaign and labelling it 'violent' and, 'anarchist' and reactionary'. AbM responded by saying that their support for road blockades was not violent and that "We have never called for violence. Violence is harm to human beings. Blockading a road is not violence." They also said that the SACP's attack was really due to the movement's insistence on organising autonomously from the

. After the strike by AbM Western Cape, there were some protests in TR section of Khayelitsha in which vehicles were damaged. AbM WC ascribed these protests to the

ANC Youth League The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC). As set out in its constitution, the ANC Youth League is led by a National Executive Committee (NEC) and a National Working Committee (NW ...

as did

Helen Zille Otta Helene Maree (''née'' Zille ; born 9 March 1951), known as Helen Zille, is a South African politician. She has served as the Chairperson of the Federal Council of the Democratic Alliance since 20 October 2019. From 2009 until 2019, she w ...

and the Youth League itself. According to ''Leadership Magazine'' "The ANC Youth League in the province has hijacked the peaceful service-delivery protests organised by the social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo in Khayelitsha in a violent, destructive and desperate attempt to mobilise support for the ANC against the province's Democratic Alliance provincial and municipal governments."ANC's reshuffle
. Leadershiponline.co.za (23 November 2010). Retrieved on 4 December 2011.

List of notable current and former Abahlali baseMjondolo activists

References

External links

Abahlali baseMjondolo
official website
A Digital Archive of Abahlali baseMjondolo History
from March 2005 to November 2006 (with links to pictures, articles, press releases etc.) at the MetaMute site
Revolutionary Ubuntu – The shack dwellers and poor people of South Africa
(pdf)

Films about Abahlali baseMjondolo

Amnesty International Film on Abahlali baseMjondolo

Dear Mandela
by Dara Kell & Christopher Nizza, 2011
Txaboletan bizi direnak
by Elkartasun Bideak, 2009 (English dialogue with Basque subtitles)
Amandla Awethu
by Elkartasun Bideak, 2009
From the Shacks to the Constitutional Court
by Dara Kell & Christopher Nizza, 2009
A Place in the City
by Jenny Morgan, 2008
The Right to Know: The Fight for Open Democracy in South Africa
by Ben Cashdan, 2007
Nayager Falls, Abahlali Rises
by Sally Gilles and Fazel Khan, 2007
Breyani & the Councillor
by Sally Gilles and Fazel Khan, 2006
Kennedy Road and the Councillor
by Aoibheann O'Sullivan, 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Abahlali Basemjondolo Affordable housing advocacy organizations Anarchism in South Africa Civil disobedience Communism in South Africa Durban Homelessness organizations Housing in South Africa Land rights movements Political organisations based in South Africa Politics of South Africa Shack dwellers' movements Social movements in South Africa Squatters' movements Zulu words and phrases