Tag: Abahlali

For some time now we have been working very closely with the Congolese Solidarity Campaign. We have been working to build a politic from below that accepts each person as a person and each comrade as a comrade without regard to where they were born or what language they speak. In this struggle we have faced constant attack from the state, the ruling party and others.

We do not count to this society and this world. We can be driven from our homes, beaten, tortured and murdered with impunity. It is our responsibility to build a new politics, a politics that respects the dignity of all people, a politics that restores the land and wealth of the world to the people, a politics in which there are no people who can be freely driven from their homes and freely killed, a politics in which everyone counts.

A landmark ruling for our comrades in the Marikana Land Occupation in Cape Town issued March 20 will help us and shack dwellers all over South Africa to stop the municipalities’ relentless demolitions of poor people’s homes. These demolitions are unconstitutional, illegal and often violent. Judge Gamble’s progressive order requires that the City of Cape Town not only stop destroying people’s homes but that they must actually rebuild the homes they destroyed.