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[South Africa] We are dying for food Aug 06 21 KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng are burning Jul 14 21 Moving from Crisis in South Africa's Municipalities to Building Counte... Jul 19 19 South Africa: Police Suppress LPM Youth March, But Our Frustrations Grow Stronger southern africa |
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 Tuesday March 31, 2009 19:31 by Landless People's Movement - Protea South
 On the 26th March, the day before we, the LPM youth, were to have our march to demand that our councilor step down, the JMPD prohibited us. The reasons the police gave for this were that we are violent and unruly and that they “know” us. They referred to a march organised by the Gauteng LPM that happened in 2002 when we refused to leave Mbaziama Shilowa’s office. This march, we explained, was not organised by the youth. Regardless, they said they didn’t have the time and manpower to plan a safe and peaceful march and that if we carried out the march, they would be “hard” on us. We took this to mean that they would arrest us over the weekend and also brutalise us by beating us and shooting us with rubber bullets. The government will not meet with us, and now we believe they are even working with the police to suppress our right to express ourselves openly by marching. There is a real problem in our democracy when the government and the police have time to suppress and brutalise us, but not to help us publicly express the demands that we feel will improve our futures.  The above picture shows the LPM youth in Protea South preparing for the march the day before they were told it was prohibited. In a few weeks time, the government will want the youth to vote, but before we vote we will ask ourselves what they do to us when we try to have a march so that we can improve our futures. The answer is that they suppress us. By marching we are only expressing our right not to let our futures be held hostage by one corrupt councilor. We are also declaring that the community of Protea South must determine its own destiny. Asking our councilor to step down is not drastic and we are not the group of looters/hooligans that the police and the government like to think we are so that they can more easily suppress our demands. We are simply poor people seeking to release ourselves from the cold chains of injustice. When we met with the police and they prohibited our march, they said “the meeting is over” and then left the room. The meeting was adjourned, but our struggle remains. They can threaten to arrest us but our demands for justice will not go away. For the poor, achieving justice is an ongoing process of struggle. We are all very aware that our strength in numbers, our bodies – the same ones that the police shoot with rubber bullets and arrest - are the only strength we have to make those in power listen to us. It is this strength that the police and government so badly want to suppress. But police suppression only gives the appearance of silencing our demands momentarily, when in fact it makes us more frustrated and gives us further reason to organise a more powerful march. We are considering how we can make our march have the greatest impact without sacrificing the youths to police brutality. It is then that the government, and society, will witness just how strong we are. We have said it before and we will say it again: We are confident that justice will be served. “We Shall Overcome”
Bongani Xezwi – LPM Youth Coordinator, Protea South
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HauptseiteSupport Sudanese anarchists in exile Joint Statement of European Anarchist Organizations International anarchist call for solidarity: Earthquake in Turkey, Syria and Kurdistan Elements of Anarchist Theory and Strategy 19 de Julio: Cuando el pueblo se levanta, escribe la historia International anarchist solidarity against Turkish state repression Declaración Anarquista Internacional por el Primero de Mayo, 2022 Le vieux monde opprime les femmes et les minorités de genre. Leur force le détruira ! Against Militarism and War: For self-organised struggle and social revolution Declaração anarquista internacional sobre a pandemia da Covid-19 Anarchist Theory and History in Global Perspective Capitalism, Anti-Capitalism and Popular Organisation [Booklet] Reflexiones sobre la situación de Afganistán South Africa: Historic rupture or warring brothers again? Death or Renewal: Is the Climate Crisis the Final Crisis? Gleichheit und Freiheit stehen nicht zur Debatte! Contre la guerre au Kurdistan irakien, contre la traîtrise du PDK Meurtre de Clément Méric : l’enjeu politique du procès en appel Southern Africa | Community struggles | en Fri 19 Apr, 18:49
Abahlali base Mjondolo has always warned that the anger of the poor can go in many directions. We have warned again and again that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb. We have warned for too long that people cannot continue to live in terrible poverty only to be ignored year after year. We have made it clear that people will not allow their humanity to be vandalised forever. For too long we have been explaining that we are ruled with violence and that the public often accept this by their silence.
Freedom Day is a national public holiday in South Africa. Each year Abahlali baseMjondolo, which has more than 50 000 paid up members in good standing, holds a heretical 'UnFreedom Day' to contest dominant ideologies. Political fighting has destroyed the peace in Sebokeng township in the Vaal. Politicians are using government resources for private purposes, and parties and factions are fighting over which politicians get the most. The following is an urgent communication issued in solidarity with the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM) and other shack-dwellers of Protea South, Soweto. It is based on information obtained by telephonic and face-to-face conversations held with LPM members following violent attacks against them last night. There still seems to be confusion, however, and details are sketchy. Updates on the situation will be made available as and when they are received, as will be any factual corrections.
The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) is angered by the killing of a second working class activist youth by the Community Policing Forum (CPF) in Sebokeng in less than a year.
On Tuesday morning, 14th of August, over 1000 community members from Sebokeng's "informal settlement" attempted to blockade the Golden Highway between Sebokeng and Johannesburg in protest at the ANC government's inadequate service delivery since its election in 1994.
A field report on a trip transsecting South Africa's industrial heartland and its outlying small towns on municipal election day 2006 - and an examination of who actually wields municipal power in the country - from the ZACF journal Zabalaza #7.
An anarchist member of the Sowetan Motsoledi Concerned Residents Association (MCRA) was arrested 2 weeks ago following an open discussion with a local ward councillor.
Across South Africa, municipalities are in crisis. They are under-funded, anti-working class, anti-poor and anti-township, and riddled with corruption by elites. The working class is oppressed by the state - as well as the private bosses - and we say "Enough is Enough!" We need to build an alternative: organs of counter-power, which can demand changes and lay the foundations for a deep redistribution of wealth and power to the mass of the people: the working class and poor.
Wave after wave of community protests have been taking place in South Africa. People are angry that after twenty years of so-called freedom they are still confined to living in shacks, having to defecate in communal toilets, and having essential services terminated when they can’t afford to pay.
The hope that the end of apartheid would herald a better life for the oppressed in South Africa has evaporated. Their conditions today are materially as bad as under apartheid - and even worse in some cases. But the upper classes are having the time of their lives. Working class struggles should be intensified and linked, based on self-organising and direct democracy to bring about real change.
The xenophobic violence and looting following King Zwelithini’s statement that foreigners “pack their bags and leave” spread to cities and townships across the country. However, the recent attacks are not an isolated incident; nor is Zwelithini solely responsible for fomenting it. Local elites – particularly those linked to the ruling party – also encourage anti-immigrant attitudes and actions. This article, based on discussions with Abahlali baseFreedom Park activists, looks at how local elites stimulate ‘xenophobia’ to protect their class interests, as well as how progressive working class activists have responded.
Rising inflation means increases in food and petrol prices. Inflation is a global problem, driven partly by conglomerates maximising their profits at the expense of ordinary people. The state plays its role, continually raising prices for services.
Abahlali base Mjondolo has always warned that the anger of the poor can go in many directions. We have warned again and again that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb. We have warned for too long that people cannot continue to live in terrible poverty only to be ignored year after year. We have made it clear that people will not allow their humanity to be vandalised forever. For too long we have been explaining that we are ruled with violence and that the public often accept this by their silence.
Freedom Day is a national public holiday in South Africa. Each year Abahlali baseMjondolo, which has more than 50 000 paid up members in good standing, holds a heretical 'UnFreedom Day' to contest dominant ideologies.
The following is an urgent communication issued in solidarity with the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM) and other shack-dwellers of Protea South, Soweto. It is based on information obtained by telephonic and face-to-face conversations held with LPM members following violent attacks against them last night. There still seems to be confusion, however, and details are sketchy. Updates on the situation will be made available as and when they are received, as will be any factual corrections.
The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) is angered by the killing of a second working class activist youth by the Community Policing Forum (CPF) in Sebokeng in less than a year.
On Tuesday morning, 14th of August, over 1000 community members from Sebokeng's "informal settlement" attempted to blockade the Golden Highway between Sebokeng and Johannesburg in protest at the ANC government's inadequate service delivery since its election in 1994. |
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