Thapelo Mohapi (Abahlali baseMjondolo) speaks to issues of anti-xenophobia solidarity

"There is Marikana everyday in South Africa" - an interview with Abahlali baseMjondolo

S'bu Zikode's full talk on repression in Durban, Rhodes University, 10 October 2013

No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way

No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way by TigersEye99

Lindela Figlan Speaking in Edinburgh

A fantastic talk by Lindela Figlan, spokesperson from Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shackdwellers' movement of South Africa. In Edinburgh October 2012, co-hosted by Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) and Edinburgh Anarchist Federation.

Lindela 'Mashumi' Figlan

Lindela 'Mashumi' Figlan, Abahlali baseMjondolo

Lindela Figlan was born on the 27th of December 1970 in J.B. Location in Flagstaff in Pondoland in what was then the Transkei bantustan.

His mother was from the Radebe family and she kept the home. His father was secretary of the congress that went into revolt on Ngquza Hill in 1960. More than 4 000 men occupied Ngquza Hill. They were determined to fight for their land and for their dignity. The apartheid state sent in the military and there was a massacre. The courage of the men on Ngquza Hill is always remembered in Pondoland today. The songs from that struggle, like 'Asiyifuni idompas', are still sung today. When Lindela was a young boy the police used to come to their home from time to time, kick in the door and kidnap his father. Sometimes they would take him to a place known as Betani where they would force him to dig potatoes with his hands saying that they did not want to risk damaging their tools. When he came home his fingernails would be red.

Short Film on the Unemployed People's Movement in Grahamstown by Andiswa Leve

Mr. Velile Mafani Will Throw Three Stones Through the Window of the High Court in Grahamstown Tomorrow

5 January 2012

Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement

Our movement has been approached by Mr. Velile Ben Mafani. He informed us that tomorrow he will throw three stones, one white, one black, and one red, through the window of the High Court in Grahamstown. He will tie a letter stating his demands around the stones.

S’bu Zikode’s Presentation at the Fanon Colloquium, Rhodes University July 9, 2011 (rough transcription)

The idea that shack dwellers can think and that Abahlali can sustain its autonomy has created a crisis. There is a price to be paid for such thinking, for such autonomy.

The university is slowly opening spaces for grassroots organizations and some of us have fought hard for a relationship of equality between grassroots organizations and the university. We appreciate that Nigel Gibson has brought Fanon into conversation with us, with our struggle and our thinking. The conversation has been very rich and also difficult. We speak of Fanon from our own working environment. What hasn’t been covered in these 4 days is that Fanon was an activist, committed to daily work with people, talking with people.

To Resist All Degradations & Divisions

S’bu Zikode interviewed by Richard Pithouse, Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 April 2009

Click here to read an annotated version of this interview in pdf and here to read a summary.

Tell me something about where you were born and who your family were.

I was born in a village called Loskop which is near the town called Estcourt. It is in the Natal Midlands. I was born in 1975. I have a twin sister, her name is Thoko. We are now the last born. I have two other sisters. I also had a brother who passed away so I am the only son.

Living Learning

Click here to download the Living Learning booklet in pdf.

Living Learning

Just two days before Abahlali baseMjondolo was violently attacked in Kennedy Road, the movement was in celebratory mood as hundreds of shackdwellers crowded into the eMmause Community Hall on Heritage Day, 24th September, for the launch of a new booklet, Living Learning.

Video Interviews from the Church Land Programme Fanon Event in May 2011

S'bu Zikode
Itumeleng Mosala
Ntombifuthi Shandu
Nigel Gibson
Zodwa Nsibande
Richard Pithouse
Rev. Mavuso
Michael Neocosmos
Busi Ngema

SA, we cannot say we are free

by Ayanda Kota, Mail & Guardian

On April 27 1994 the people of this country stood in long queues for many hours, waiting to cast their vote for the first time. In some parts of the country the weather was hostile, freezing cold, while in other parts it was scorching hot.

Our people were voting for the first time, voting for an end to racism and for democracy and a better life -- for jobs, free education and decent housing. Over and above their vote for their material needs to be met, they were voting for their freedom. Or so they were made to believe.

Decolonization in the Heart of Empire: Some Fanonian Echoes in France Today

 by Stefan Kipfer, Antipode, 2011 (Click here to download this paper in pdf.)

This paper offers a translation of key texts by the contemporary Mouvement des Indigènes de la République (MIR) and its key intellectuals: Sadri Khiari and Houria Bouteldja. Following Khiari, post-colonial situations are best understood as recompositions: territorially mediated re-articulations of colonial pasts with other social relations. To respond to the complexities of this post-colonial recomposition, MIR propose an ambitious politics of “autonomy” and “mixity”. “Autonomy” (externally in relationship to the state and organized politics and internally for feminist groups) is seen as an indispensable precondition for a socio-politically mixed, and potentially universalizing, political formation politics. More counter-colonial than post-colonial in orientation (Hallward), MIR attempt to give direction to three decades of revolt emanating from France's racialized popular neighbourhoods, including the uprising of 2005. I argue that MIR's interventions take up themes from the analyses by Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi and Suzanne and Aimé Césaire to make countercolonial critique “live” in France today.

Ayanda Kota on Julius Malema & the Pitfalls of National Consciousness in Contemporary South Africa

Julius Malema is a Demagogue and his Nationalization Would be Nothing but a Massive Public Subsidy for the Rich

The mass movements that have raised progressive governments to power in Latin America, the global financial crisis, the recent uprisings in the Arab world and the ongoing rebellion of the poor in our own country have all created more space for the left. The days when so many people believed that there was no alternative to capitalism and imperialism are passing. Socialism is back on the agenda. It is clear to many people that we cannot continue to organise our economy around the interests of big capital while leaving the people to suffer as they are.

Fanonian Practices in South Africa by Nigel Gibson

South Africa has been widely heralded as an African success story in the wake of the 1994 democratic elections. But in recent years the world’s media have too often carried stark images of South African police attacking protestors or scenes of xenophobic violence. Has post-apartheid South Africa been unable to chart a course away from the all too familiar script of a postcolonial crisis, rooted in the narrow nationalism and neocolonialism that Fanon so vividly described? This is not another meditation on Fanon’s continued relevance. Instead, it is an inquiry into how Fanon, the revolutionary, might think and act in the face of contemporary social crises.

Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces

Dispersing Power

by Raúl Zibechi, 2010

"Zibechi goes to Bolivia to learn. Like us, he goes with questions, questions that stretch far beyond the borders of Bolivia. How do we change the world and create a different one? How do we get rid of capitalism? How do we create a society based on dignity? What is the role of the state and what are the possibilities of changing society through anti-state movements?... the most important practical and theoretical questions that have risen from the struggles in Latin America and the world in the last fifteen years or so.... The book is beautiful, exciting, stimulating.... Do read it and also give it your friends."—John Holloway, from the Foreword

Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment

by Peter Hallward, 2008

Once the most lucrative European colony in the Caribbean, Haiti has long been one of the most divided and impoverished countries in the world. In the late 1980s a remarkable popular mobilization known as Lavalas, or “the flood,” sought to liberate the island from decades of US-backed dictatorial rule.

No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way

by the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers, 2011

'A beauty, extraordinary in every way.'
Naomi Klein, author of 'The Shock Doctrine' and 'No Logo'.

Matilda, Sarita, Jerome and Michelle talk to 3cr community radio about their time on Symphony Way and what happened when they were evicted.

An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-Event

This chapter from Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) is online here.