Social movements
RSS FeedSouth Africa: Occupy Cape Town distances itself from COSATU
2012-02-05, Issue 568
The Occupy Cape Town movement has distanced itself from a Cosatu event held at Rondebosch Common. 'Our principles clearly state: We do not recognise leaders or celebrity speakers. We are not party political. We are not destructive - we want to protec...
South Africa: Rondebosch common becomes site of battle over inequality
2012-01-30, Issue 567
Scores of people were bundled into police vans on Friday when police forcibly prevented organisations from setting up a planned three-day summit on Jobs, Land and Housing on Rondebosch Common as a means of highlighting inequality in South African soc...
South Africa: About the People's Land! Housing! and Jobs! Summit
2012-01-30, Issue 567
Visit the Take Back the Commons website to read about the People's Land! Housing! and Jobs! Summit that was due to take place 27 - 29 January, but instead led to a number of arrests. The summit was to di...
South Africa: UPM activist released
2012-01-16, Issue 565
A number of South African social movements issued statements following the arrest of Ayanda Kota from the Unemployed People's Movement (UPM) and reports that he had been assaulted while in police custody. Kota has now been released, but statements ab...
South Africa: Poor people’s movements and the law
Speech by S'bu Zikode to a seminar on social movements and the law
2011-12-20, Issue 563
'It is very dangerous for the poor to think that the law will provide all the answers to political questions. It is very dangerous for people to think that they can stop struggling because now they have a lawyer. It is very dangerous for people to al...
South Africa: Occupations currently underway in Hillary, KwaMashu and Pinetown
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
2011-11-28, Issue 559
'As a movement we are struggling to build a society in which there is an economic system where human beings come before profit and a political system in which leaders take direction from below. We are struggling to build a society in which there will...
South Africa: Floods, destruction and despair in the shacks
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release
2011-11-28, Issue 559
'Abahlali welcomes the world in our country, our province and in our city. We also welcome progressive delegates to our homes, our settlements and our flooded shacks. Last night after heavy rain some of our shack settlements were flooded leaving shac...
Egypt: Global consciousness is shifting
2011-09-14, Issue 547
Arguably the repression of activists and journalist by Egypt’s interim military government is a sign of how strong citizens’ movements are and how frightened the regime is of losing power as the country moves toward elections and drafting a new const...
Angola: Democracy protesters arrested
2011-09-05, Issue 546
At least 24 people were arrested for trying to stage a rally calling for more democracy and the resignation of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos. The rally, organized in Luanda by a youth movement, gathered about 200 at Independence Square, i...
Nigeria: Justice in Nigeria now
Gbaramatu women disrupt Chevron operations
2011-09-09, Issue 546
Hundreds of placard-carrying women, from about 10 Gbaramatu communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, laid siege to the project site of Chevron Nigeria Limited at Chanomi Creek and disrupted the laying of pipelines for the...
South Africa: Cape Town backyarders call for Housing MEC’s resignation
2011-07-27, Issue 542
Mandela Park Backyarders say they have 'proof of corruption' in a Khayelitsha housing project and have called for the 'immediate' resignation of Western Cape Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela. The call follows the organisation’s online publ...
South Africa: The smoke that calls: Insurgent citizenship, collective violence and the struggle for a place in the new South Africa
2011-08-01, Issue 542
There are several innovations to the research projects captured in this report. Firstly, it consists of studies of both xenophobic violence and community protests, drawing the links both empirically as one of collective action spawns or mutates into ...
South Africa: Philippi electricity protest rages on
2011-07-24, Issue 540
Residents of a Philippi informal settlement and police have clashed again as protests over electricity supply entered their third day. Three police Nyalas cordoned off the corner of New Eisleben and Sheffield roads on 21 July when protests flared up ...
South Africa: A demand for basic sanitation in Cape Town
An Open Letter to Mayor De Lille from the Social Justice Coalition
2011-06-08, Issue 534
'While many take having a toilet that is clean and safe for granted, it remains a luxury for a great deal of our most vulnerable communities. Approximately 10.5 million people in South Africa still do not have access to basic sanitation services. Acc...
Global: Social movements present demands on economy and finance
2011-06-13, Issue 534
Representatives from various organisations in the region and nationally agreed to submit a series of observations and demands to the finance ministers and central bank presidents of the Union of Nations of South America, UNASUR, during the first meet...
South Africa: Survey shows 2011 quiet year for service protests
2011-05-23, Issue 530
Municipal elections appear to have had a dampening impact on service delivery protests, according to research by Municipal IQ, which carries out a Municipal Hotspots Monitor. Municipal IQ reported that there were 10 protests in 2004. This jumped to 3...
South Africa: Bricks, bullets fly in land grab
2011-05-16, Issue 529
An open field in Tafelsig turned into a war zone at the weekend as a group of land invaders pelted police and city law enforcers with rocks and bottles. The officers retaliated by firing rubber bullets and blasting the invaders with a water cannon to...
South Africa: Open Letter to MEC for Human Settlement, M.R Bonginkosi Madikizela
2011-04-14, Issue 525
'Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape has observed with great concern...unlawful activities on demolishing people’s structures and evicting people without any order from the court. This tendency seems to be growing... this undermines the prevention of ...
South Africa: Cape Town protests set to continue
2011-04-18, Issue 525
Residents have vowed to continue their protest against the eviction of a poor family and against Thursday’s (14 April) police brutality that has left three residents seriously injured, says a Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign press statement. Resid...
South Africa: Joe Slovo informal settlement court judgement welcomed
2011-04-04, Issue 523
Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape has welcomed the Joe Slovo Constitutional Court Judgement which was handed down on Thursday last week, which set aside an eviction order granted in June 2009. 'While this is a victory for people of Joe Slovo who did not want to be evicted to Delft, we also note that:...
South Africa: Two lost to shack fires in Grahamstown
2011-03-14, Issue 520
The Unemployed People's Movement (UPM) reports that two people from the eThembeni shack settlement died in a fire. The organisation said the community could not successfully fight the fire on their own as the taps are very few and very far away. The ...
South Africa: Tyres burnt in Cape housing protest
2011-02-09, Issue 516
Black smoke billowed across morning rush hour traffic as angry backyarders in Nyanga blockaded Lansdowne road with burning tyres on Tuesday, forcing commuters to find alternative routes to work.The Backyarders from Nyanga’s Mau-Mau, Old Location and ...
South Africa: The rebellion of the poor
Press Statement by the Unemployed People's Movement, Grahamstown
2011-02-15, Issue 516
'The rebellion of the poor has been spreading from town to town, from squatter camp to squatter camp, since 2004. Last week it arrived in Grahamstown. There is no third force, political party or communist academic behind our struggle. It is oppressio...
South Africa: Homes destroyed, activists arrested
Mandela Park Backyarders Press Release
2011-02-07, Issue 515
Around 09h30 yesterday (4 February), the MEC for Housing Bonginkosi Madikizela, came with police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit. No one consulted with anyone in the community. They came without warning, without the necessary court documents, and de...
South Africa: Time for a new democratic left politics
2011-01-24, Issue 513
It is time that the people take their destiny into their own hands, writes Mazibuko Jara. 'Can poor and working people, working with middle class people committed to social change, open the path to a new politics that can change this country? Can a m...
South Africa: Towards a united democratic left front
2011-01-24, Issue 513
This paper, from the just-concluded Conference of the Democratic Left, presents a perspective and argument for organising the democratic left initiative as an anti-capitalist political front. It is anchored in the premise of maximising the unity of social and ideological forces against post-apartheid and global capitalism. To stimulate debate, discussion and resolution on the political form question for the democratic left initiative this document covers the following themes:...
South Africa: Building the solidarity economy from below
2011-01-24, Issue 513
The ecological and economic crisis of South Africa’s transnationalising capitalist economy is also reflected in increasing hunger, increasing food prices, unhealthy diets and polluting agro-processing food production. Advancing an Anti-Hunger and Foo...
South Africa: Democratic left demands on housing
2011-01-24, Issue 513
There is a need to outline a programme of demands in the area of housing. Through struggle in the Western Cape some demands have come to the fore, and they might be considered to be elements of a programme in the area of housing. The discussion avail...
Global: Social movements and poverty in developing countries
2011-01-17, Issue 512
This paper explores social movements’ roles in challenging relationships of poverty and inequality. It begins by examining the motivations, emergence and strategies of these movements. The author then argues that movements are highly relevant to pove...
South Africa: Up to 500 people left homeless in Cape Town fire
Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape press statement
2010-12-09, Issue 509
'We do not accept that shack fires are natural disasters. Shack fires are the result of the social abandonment of the poor. We will continue to politicise shack fires and we will continue to fight for our full social inclusion in this society.'...
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