On October 11, 2012, United Workers, the Public Justice Center, Baltimore Occupy Our Homes, and the Baltimore Right to Housing Alliance hosted a screening in Baltimore of the new documentary "Dear Mandela." The film tells the story of Abahlali baseMjondolo, South Africa's shack dweller's movement, and their fight for their homes, challenging state evictions on the streets and in the courts.

After the screening, two members of Abahlali baseMjond

Can Youth Show the Way?

Zodwa Nsibande
(Talk to the 'Democracy Forum', UKZN, Pietermaritzburg, Friday 13 May 2011)

Yes we can. In isiZulu we have a saying that says “Inkunzi isematholeni” - The bull is in the calves. If we are taking about the youth that have made a mark in our history we should not end the conversation without talking about the youth of 1976. And then you will ask the question “Where are youth of today?”. You will get the answer within the blink of the eye, “They are in the taverns”. Yes some of them are there. But they are not all there by choice. Many are there due to this capitalist system that is governing our country and puts some of us in heaven on earth and others in hell on earth. Many people are drinking to dull their pain in a world that offers them no future. But there are others who are committed to uplifting their communities. In our movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and in many of the struggles around the country that have made the rebellion of the poor young people have been in the forefront.

http://www.isolezwe.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5705565

Abantu bafuna abezindaba babike ngenkululeko

October 28, 2010 Edition 1

NQOBILE MASIMULA

BASABISE ngokubuyela emgwaqeni bamashe zonke izinsuku uma izikhalo zabo zingezwakali abagqugquzeli |be-Right2Know, okuwumkhankaso okuhloswe ngawo ukuphikisa umthethosivivinywa wokufihlwa kolwazi.

Laba bantu abalinganiselwa emakhulwini amathathu bebegcwele izitaladi zeTheku izolo bebhikisha njengengxenye yalo mkhankaso osabalele ezweni lonke.

Omunye wabagqugquzeli balo mkhankaso, uMnuz Desmond D'sa, uthe imashi ihehe abantu abasemazingeni ahlukene empilo kwazise ukuthi kuzobathinta bonke abantu ukuphasiswa kwalo mthetho.

This article has now been translated into Spanish, Italian, French and Russian.

Friday, 16 July 2010
Serving our Life Sentence in the Shacks

People all over South Africa have been asking the leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo as to why the government continues to ignore the demands of the shack dwellers. They have been asking why after all the marches, statements, reports and meetings the Kennedy Road settlement continues to get burnt down through the endless shack fires. They have been referring in particular to the recent Kennedy Road shack fire on Sunday, 4 July 2010 that took four lives, leaving more than three thousand people displaced and homeless.

http://www.fahamu.org/publications/item/a_place_in_the_city/

A Place in the City

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.

Living Learning is the collected notes from an extraordinary series of discussions between militants of two key movements in contemporary South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Rural Network. When, in late 2008, they made the decision to publish them, these authors explained that “this Living Learning is a living testimony and a record of how we made reflections and distinctions about what we face in life and in our learning. Living Learning is part of a living politics”.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/58602

Accountability and keeping promises
An interview with Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo with Sokari Ekine
2009-09-10, Issue 447

Sokari Ekine recently met in London with two members of the South African shackdwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, Mnikelo Ndabankulu, a founding member and spokesperson, and Zodwa Nsibande, the general secretary of the Abahlali Youth League. In their interview they were joined by David Ntseng of the Church Land Programme, an NGO based in KwaZulu-Natal province which works on land rights issues. They discuss a range of issues from movement building and successes and the 2008 'Slums Act', to the decision not to vote in national elections and combating xenophobia in South Africa.