The Shack Dwellers Movement – South Africa

Kairos Center

July 6, 2014

Category: From the Front Lines

Abahlali baseMjondolo – South Africa’s Shack Dwellers Movement – began in Durban, South Africa in 2005. Today it is the largest organization of the poor in post-Apartheid South Africa with 12,000 members in more than 60 settlements. Its vision is of a world in which wealth and power are shared fairly and human dignity comes before private property. The movement’s immediate demands are for land and housing. In 2005, the organization formed as members of Durban’s Kennedy Road settlement organized a road blockade to protest the sale to an industrialist of a plot of land that had been long promised to them for housing. Since then, Abahlali has brought thousands to the streets, occupying and marching on offices of local councilors, police stations, municipal offices, newspaper offices and City Hall. Its members led a successful boycott of the March 2006 local government elections under the slogan ‘No Land, No House, No Vote.’
In October 2009, Abahlali won a major legal victory for the right to housing and shelter when the Constitutional Court of South Africa upheld their application that the KwaZulu Natal Slums Act was unconstitutional. As they struggle for housing and land, Abahlali has also stopped evictions and industrial development, gained access to schools, forced numerous government officials to meaningfully work with local people, and built opportunities for bottom-up democracy. They have successfully politicized and opposed housing removals, and increased access for shack dwellers for basic rights to education, water, electricity, sanitation, health care, and trash removal. In settlements, the movement sets up childcare centers, gardens, sewing collectives, support for people living with and orphaned by AIDS. Abahlali sponsors a 16-team soccer league and quarterly all-night multi-genre music competitions.
As a movement of and for Shack Dwellers, Abahlali has worked to develop the public voice of shack dwellers. It consistently challenges donors, NGO leaders, academics and others who assume that the poor cannot lead themselves. The ruling party, the ANC (African National Congress), however, has responded to Abahlali with massive and brutal repression. Its leaders are threatened with assassination and their homes have been destroyed. Abahlali’s President S’bu Zikode continues to lead the movement even from hiding.
Filmmakers and Poverty Scholars Dara Kell and Chris Nizza have worked with Abahlali for nearly a decade, producing the award-winning film Dear Mandela (see the trailer above). With their leadership, the Poverty Initiative and Abahlali have built a strong relationship through numerous visits, exchanges, and strategic dialogues. In 2009, together with the Poverty Initiative, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and two dozen grassroots organizations working to end poverty in the United States, Abahlali baseMjondolo members led an an eight-city screening tour of Dear Mandela. In every U.S. city visited – Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore and more – young people asked how they could help the situation in South Africa. Mnikelo replied, “Don’t help Africa and ignore injustice at home.” He quoted Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Take action!

Call the South African Consulate in New York to demand an end to the forced evictions in Madlala Village, Cato Crest and across South Africa. Read more about the recent wave of forced evictions at abahlali.org and phone the South African consulate now: (212) 213-4880.