DOCSLIB.ORG

Izwi Labampofu

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Izwi Labampofu December 06 Volume 1, Issue 1 Mahala Free: Please read and pass on 86 Kennedy Road, Clare Estate IZWI LABAMPOFU Durban 4098 South Africa www.abahlali.org Editorial Collective For This Issue: System Cele, M’du Hlongwa, Fazel Khan, VOICE of THE POOR Mnikelo Ndabankulu, Zama Ndlovu, Richard Pithouse, Antonis Vradis & Thoko Zikode, Special thanks to Daniel Bailey, COHRE. Newspaper of the Abahlali Basemjondolo Movement Thanks also to Anthony Collins for use of his house and eqipment. Funeral). Bazibophezele ukulwela Ngakusasa bavela e nkantolo belimele umhlaba nezindlu,ukususwa ngenk- ngenxa yokushaywa kanzima ama- Abahlali Bayanda! ani. Emashini eyasukela ku Foreman phoyisa. Unsumpa wale police station u Abahlali abawu 45.Sebeke bamenywa Glen Nayeger wathwetshulwa amanye Inhlangano yaBahlali baseMjondolo la kuKennedy wathi bakhathele ukudlala kwi nkulumo mpikiswano ne Meya ye amaphoyisa eshaya ngesihluku o Sbu no inhlangano enkulu yabantu abampofu amakhansela ebadayisa .etshela intatheli Theku u Obed Mlaba ku Asikhulume Philani ebangqubuza ezindongeni nokwa eNingizimu Afrika. Akusiyo inhlanga- u-Fred Kockott emva kwalokho Abahlali uhlelo olukumabonakude.Ngo Sep- holela ekutheni u Philani aquleke. Nase Mo- no yezepolitiki. Isebenzisana nabanye abawu1200 kuKennedy bamasha befuna themba 11, I GAGASI FM lamema u tala Heights kwenziwa isihluku esifanayo Abahlali baseMjondolo okubalwa kubo kudedelwe amalungu abo awu 14 kodwa Sbu Zikode no Philani Zungu kanye sokuhlukunyezwa kwabantu amaphoyisa, nabadayisi basemgwaqeni, Inamalungu avinjwa ngamaphoyisa ngezinja nesisa no Mnikelo Ndabankulu,ukuthi bacha- nakweminye imijondolo eminingi.Lolu emijondolo engu 34 eyehlukene .Ikhule esikhalisa unyembezi. Ngalobobusuku za kabanzi ngomzabalazo wabahlali. dlame olubhekiswe kwabampofu lusho ngokuqala kubhikishwe eKennedy Road uSbu Zikode owayengusihlalo ngaleso- Kodwa ababange besafi ka ngenxa ukuthi Abahlali Base Mjondolo basahlalel- ngoMashi 2005. Umhlaba abawuthen- sikhathi emhlanganweni womphakathi yamaphoyisa ase Sydenham police sta- we umsebenzi omkhulu wokususwa noku- jiswa ukuthi bazokwakhelwa kuwo wathi “Sisele Sodwa”. tion.Babavimba babathuka ngezikibha fudulwa kwabantu ngenkani ezindaweni bathola ukuthi usudayiselwe abace- ezibomvu babashaya,bahamba nabo e zabo.Abahlali basebenza kanzima beqoqa bile, Lokhu kwabenza bagana unwabu, Amamashi angekho emthethweni al- police station lapho bafi ke baqhubeka bafundise imphakathi ngamalungelo abo. baqonda lapho bavimba ukuthi kuqhut- andelwa amanye ayesemthethweni nokuba xhaphaza ngesibhaxu.UMnikelo Nokubhekana no Masipala ukuthi uma shekwe nokwakhiwa .Bamashela ku okwakumashelwa amakhansela an- bamkhumulisa isikibha sakhe esibomvu ebahlukumeza, kumele bamyise kanjani M19 bashisa amathayi lapho kwaboshwa gasebenzi. Yayinabantu abawu 5000 ngoba bethi asingeni e police station. eNkantolo. Umzabalazo uyaqhubeka. khona abawu 14. uAlfred Mdletshe ohla- .kwakungcwatshwa ikhansela (Mock Bathi bazosenza isikolobho sabo. worker, successfully kept the police from entering the settlement with barrages of stones. But although this was big news around the world the city kept their illegal ban on shack dwellers’ marches. They even went so far as to use the police to violently prevent Abahlali from taking up an invita- tion to send a representative to debate the mayor on Asikhulume. Another attempt was made to march into the city on 27th February. By this time the movement had grown to the point where 20000 people were expected. Sutcliffe issued another illegal ban and early on the morning of the 27th the police moved in on the three largest settlements in a military style operation using armoured vehicles and helicopters. They arrested and assaulted key people and blocked off all the exits from the settlements. But this time the Abahlali had the support of Kennedy rd marches on Breyani Councillor Yakoob Baig top lawyers and could take Sutcliffe to the Abahlali Bayanda! High Court. They won a quick victory and Abahlali baseMjondolo is the the 14 be released or else the entire com- areas. with the interdict in their hands marched largest movement of the poor in South munity be arrested because ‘If they are At the beginning of 2006 the into the city in triumph. Africa. It is not a political party. It is criminal then we are all criminal’. The elections for ward councillors were On the 11th of September (911), working for shack dwellers and other march was dispersed with more beatings, looming. It was decided to stage a collec- following a series of successful actions, poor people, like street traders. Abahlali dogs and tear gas. At a packed meeting tive boycott. The boycott was carefully Abahlali were invited to an interview on has members in 34 shack settlements in the Kennedy Road hall that afternoon thought about in a series of discussions Gagasi FM. S’bu Zikode, Philani Zungu across Durban and as far away as Piet- the chair of the Kennedy Road commit- that decided that there is a difference and Mnikelo Ndabanakulu were just about ermaritzburg and Tongaat. tee S’bu Zikode declared that ‘We are on between ‘party politics’ and ‘people’s to leave for the interview from Kennedy Abahlali grew out of a protest our own now’. politics’ and that while party politics is Road when offi cers from the notorious organised from the Kennedy Road set- The fi rst two illegal protests often about the politics of ambition and Sydenham police station pounced. When tlement. On 18 March 2005 bulldozers from Kennedy Road were followed by a control people’s politics can be about they saw that Ndabankulu was wearing started digging up a piece of land next series of legal marches on the nearby local creating democracy where people live. one of the famous red Abahlali T-shirts to the Kennedy Road settlement which councillors, some involving more than It was decided to announce the election they pulled it off him, insulted him, pushed had long been promised for housing. 5000 people. In each of these marches boycott with a march from the Foreman him around, threw the shirt into the mud, People discovered from the workers on the protestors carried a mock coffi n and Road settlement into the city and on the made a great show of standing and spitting the site that this wasn’t the beginning of then staged a performance of a funeral mayor under the slogan ‘No Land, No on it and announced that ‘there will be no the long promised housing development for the councillor outside his offi ce. On House, No Vote’. This was a step too more red shirts here’. Zungu and Zikode but that a brick factory was being built. 6 October 2005 17 men and 15 women far. Mike Sutcliffe, the city manager, il- were thrown into the police van. As they They gathered on the promised land, elected as representatives from 12 settle- legally banned the march by fax. left the police picked up Ndabankulu’s red stopped the construction and asked the ments that now had committees support- Two days later more than 3 000 shirt saying they were taking it ‘to use as a local councillor to come and explain ing the shack dwellers’ struggle met to people missed a day’s work and gathered mop in the station’. what was happening. He arrived with formally constitute themselves into a in the Foreman Road settlement which The next morning there were the police and demanded the arrest of his movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and had been surrounded by riot police. The hundreds of Bahlali in red shirts in the constituents. They are, he said, criminal. to commit themselves to stand together Foreman Road committee explained Durban Magistrates’ court. The state, tell- That night there was a mass meeting in and to fi ght together for popular democ- that marching would be very dangerous ing crazy lies, charged Zikode and Zungu the settlement. After long and careful racy and land and housing in the city. under these conditions. Speaker after with assaulting a police offi cer but the discussion a new course of action was Since then Abahlali have democratised speaker from the assembly replied that Magistrate released them without asking decided on. Early the next morning a the governance of settlements, stopped living in the settlements was just as dan- for bail. They were joyously carried out few hundred people barricaded a nearby evictions, won access to local schools, gerous and the 3000 set off up the steep of the court on the shoulders of their com- 6 lane road with burning tyres and held it won some victories around services like dirt track that leads out of the settle- rades. Both men had visible wounds and against the riot police for 4 hours suffer- water, toilets and refuse removal; got top ment singing Yonk’ indawo umzabalazo explained that they had been personally ing 14 arrests. Alfred Mdletshe told Fred class legal support and won a number uyasivumela. As they stepped onto the assaulted by Superintendent Glen Nayager Kockott, the fi rst journalist on the scene, of victories in court; made the voice of tarred road that marks the beginning of who had hurled political abuse on them as that ‘We are tired of living and walking shack dwellers very strong in the media; the rich world they were attacked, shot he bashed their heads against the wall. A in shit. The council must allocate land set up crèches, a sewing co-operative at with pistols and rubber bullets and se- group of policemen had enthusiastically for housing us. Instead they are giving it and vegetable gardens; enabled collec- verely beaten. There were a number of photographed Nayager’s assault which to property developers to make money’. tive bargaining with the state and capital serious injuries, many with permanent only ended when Zungu was knocked un- The day after the road blockade and seriously challenged the city’s slum consequences, and 45 arrests. But the conscious and could not be revived. 1200 people staged an illegal march on clearance project that wants to move police violence could not break the spirit most shack dwellers out of the city and of the marchers.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Anna Selmeczi Central European University Selmeczi [email protected]
    “We are the people who don’t count” – Contesting biopolitical abandonment Anna Selmeczi Central European University [email protected] Paper to be presented at the 2010 ISA Convention in New Orleans, February 17-20th Panel: Governing Life Globally: The Biopolitics of Development and Security Work in progress – please do not cite without the author’s permission. Comments are most welcome. 2 “We are the people who don’t count” – Contesting biopolitical abandonment 1. Introduction About a year before his lecture series “Society Must be Defended!”, in which he first elaborated the notion of biopolitics, in a talk given in Rio de Janeiro, Foucault discussed the “Birth of the Social Medicine”. As a half-way stage of the evolution of what later became public health, between the German ‘state medicine’ and the English ‘labor-force medicine’, he described a model taking shape in the 18th century French cities and referred to it as ‘urban medicine’. With view to the crucial role of circulation in creating a healthy milieu, the main aim of this model was to secure the purity of that which circulates, thus, potential sources of epidemics or endemics had to be placed outside the flaw of air and water nurturing urban life. According to Foucault (2000a), it was at this period that “piling-up refuse” was problematized as hazardous and thus places producing or containing refuse – cemeteries, ossuaries, and slaughterhouses – were relocated to the outskirts of the towns. As opposed to this model, which was the “medicine of things”, with industrialization radically increasing their presence in the cities, during the subsequent period of the labor force medicine, workers and the poor had become to be regarded as threats and, in parallel, circulation had been redefined as – beyond the flow of things such as air and water – including the circulation of individuals too (Ibid., 150).
    [Show full text]
  • Ungovernability and Material Life in Urban South Africa
    “WHERE THERE IS FIRE, THERE IS POLITICS”: Ungovernability and Material Life in Urban South Africa KERRY RYAN CHANCE Harvard University Together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches . we shall liberate this country. —Winnie Mandela, 1986 Faku and I stood surrounded by billowing smoke. In the shack settlement of Slovo Road,1 on the outskirts of the South African port city of Durban, flames flickered between piles of debris, which the day before had been wood-plank and plastic tarpaulin walls. The conflagration began early in the morning. Within hours, before the arrival of fire trucks or ambulances, the two thousand house- holds that comprised the settlement as we knew it had burnt to the ground. On a hillcrest in Slovo, Abahlali baseMjondolo (an isiZulu phrase meaning “residents of the shacks”) was gathered in a mass meeting. Slovo was a founding settlement of Abahlali, a leading poor people’s movement that emerged from a burning road blockade during protests in 2005. In part, the meeting was to mourn. Five people had been found dead that day in the remains, including Faku’s neighbor. “Where there is fire, there is politics,” Faku said to me. This fire, like others before, had been covered by the local press and radio, some journalists having been notified by Abahlali via text message and online press release. The Red Cross soon set up a makeshift soup kitchen, and the city government provided emergency shelter in the form of a large, brightly striped communal tent. Residents, meanwhile, CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 30, Issue 3, pp. 394–423, ISSN 0886-7356, online ISSN 1548-1360.
    [Show full text]
  • Ccs Events and Activities, May - August 2006
    CCS EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES, MAY - AUGUST 2006 1 With goodnatured mirth and to knowing laughter, Ashwin Desai offered our July 21 Social Movements Research Workshop a caustic assessment: ‘Patrick seems to think that by scheduling a bewildering series of seminars this month, somehow we’re going to get closer to The Truth.’ Still, discounting a mild case of institutional burnout, perhaps we did get a bit closer during the middle third of 2006. This was CCS’s most active period to date, and this newsletter records conferences, workshops, major lectures, seminars, publishing outputs and other projects. But we also began to take time for reflection on CCS’s trajectory, in the form of our first Phase (2001- 06) review. This led to some innovative strategies for the second Phase, which we will be sharing with our associates and broader community in coming weeks. Highlights included several Economic Justice project debates in June, including one that brought us the views of ANC/Alliance leaders and intellectuals; the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) biannual congress; and in late July, the Workshop on the World Social Forum cohosted with the Bangkok/Manila/Mumbai thinktank Focus on the Global South (attended by 200), four ecological seminars and the International Sociological Association (ISA) quadrennial world congress. Detailed reports are below. The Phase 1 review included two aspects thus far: a draft report – Inquiring Activism: CCS Five Years On – authored by the highly regarded civil society analyst David Sogge, who is associated with the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa; and a local follow-up workshop report on implications for strategy by local organisational development expert Catherine Collingwood.
    [Show full text]
  • The Struggles of Abahlali Basemjondolo As an African Philosophy in the Making
    A journal dedicated to the scholarship of teaching and learning in the ‘global South’ Volume 4 , Issue 1 April 20 20 Pages: 26 -36 Peer-reviewed article Living Ubuntu: The struggles of Abahlali BaseMjondolo as an African philosophy in the making Motlatsi Khosi University of South Africa [email protected] Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology Abstract What does it mean to engage in a philosophy of struggle and emancipation in our South African context? As part of my MA research I took an internship with Abahlali BaseMjondolo, a shack dwellers’ movement whose office is based in central Durban. Their members reside in various settlements within KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape. Whilst interning at the movement I conducted interviews with some of their members, using this experience to gain insight into the movement’s theory and philosophy. Here I was challenged by what it means to do research using narrative as the foundation of my work. It is through narrative that one can tackle the problematic representations of black people in academia and society. I argue that in this movement a philosophy is at work. Their philosophy is based on the lived experience of struggle. As producers of knowledge, I argue that they represent the workings of Ubuntu. Using Maboge B. Ramose’s (2002) explanation of ‘Ubuntu as philosophy’ I show how it can help us understand what it means to be human and how this is being affirmed in spaces of struggle. As agents of struggle we (black people) must be recognised for how we create knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of Asian and African Studies
    Journal of Asian and African Studies http://jas.sagepub.com/ Abahlali's Vocal Politics of Proximity: Speaking, Suffering and Political Subjectivization Anna Selmeczi Journal of Asian and African Studies 2012 47: 498 DOI: 10.1177/0021909612452703 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jas.sagepub.com/content/47/5/498 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Journal of Asian and African Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jas.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jas.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://jas.sagepub.com/content/47/5/498.refs.html >> Version of Record - Oct 1, 2012 What is This? Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com at Rhodes University Library on October 19, 2012 JAS47510.1177/0021909612452703Journal of Asian and African StudiesSelmeczi 4527032012 Article J A A S Journal of Asian and African Studies 47(5) 498 –515 Abahlali’s Vocal Politics of © The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: Proximity: Speaking, Suffering sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0021909612452703 and Political Subjectivization jas.sagepub.com Anna Selmeczi Central European University, Hungary Abstract Using as its point of departure the claim that today the urban is the main site for the abandonment of superfluous people, this article explores the emancipatory politics of the South African shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Based on a notion of political subjectivization as the appropriation of excess freedom, I argue that Abahlali disrupt the order of the ‘world-class city’ when they expose the contradiction between the democratic inscriptions of equality and the lethal segmentation of the urban order.
    [Show full text]
  • Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa
    Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa examines the role that popular media could play to encourage political debate, provide information for develop- ment, or critique the very definitions of ‘democracy’ and ‘development’. Drawing on diverse case studies from various regions of the African continent, the chapters employ a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to ask critical ques- tions about the potential of popular media to contribute to democratic culture, provide sites of resistance, or, conversely, act as agents for the spread of Ameri- canized entertainment culture to the detriment of local traditions. A wide variety of media formats and platforms are discussed, ranging from radio and television to the Internet, mobile phones, street posters, film and music. Grounded in empirical work by experienced scholars who are acknowledged experts in their fields, this contemporary and topical book provides an insight into some of the challenges faced throughout the African continent, such as HIV and AIDS, poverty and inequality, and political participation. Examples are grounded in a critical engagement with theory, moving beyond descriptive studies and therefore contributing to the intellectual project of internationalizing media studies. Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa provides students and schol- ars with a critical perspective on issues relating to popular media, democracy and citizenship outside the global North. As part of the Routledge series International- izing Media Studies, the book responds to the important challenge of broadening perspectives on media studies by bringing together a range of expert analyses of media in the African continent that will be of interest to students and scholars of media in Africa and further afield.
    [Show full text]
  • KEEPING STOLEN LAND KWAZULU-NATAL's LAND, LABOR & HOUSING STRUGGLES a Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate
    KEEPING STOLEN LAND KWAZULU-NATAL’S LAND, LABOR & HOUSING STRUGGLES A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Professional Studies in Africana Studies by Jeffrey Lee Purcell August 2007 © 2007 Jeffrey Lee Purcell ABSTRACT This thesis explores the common roots of several contemporary social movements in Durban, South Africa. My point of departure is a series of community meetings in May, June, and July 2006, during which geographically separated Black and Indian community organizations expressed remarkably similar grievances against the municipality and government, all rooted, I argue, in the colonial dispossession and alienation of Africans, and later in the enforced marginalization of Indian communities. Largely, these dispossessions occurred in the 19th century and early in the 20th century – decades before the policy Apartheid begin in 1948. It is the continued relationship of exclusion and repression in relation to land and space in Natal, I argue, that accounts for the common struggles of these movements. I shall cite Antonio Gramsci extensively in order to argue that his conceptions of “consent” and “coercion” explain the perpetual success of policies designed to preserve colonial and Apartheid dispossession. Moreover, several labor struggles will be considered in order to illustrate the degree to which the majority’s consent has been secured, and to offer evidence that Gramsci’s theories are powerful assistance to us. Mahmood Mamdani’s identification of “subject” and “citizen” will factor, as the transition from Apartheid to ANC rule has essentially cemented the status of landless South African subjects.
    [Show full text]
  • Yousuf Al-Bulushi
    THE STRUGGLE FOR A SECOND TRANSITION IN SOUTH AFRICA: UPRISING, DEVELOPMENT AND PRECARITY IN THE POST-APARTHEID CITY Yousuf Al-Bulushi A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Geography. Chapel Hill 2014 Approved by: John Pickles Altha Cravey Michael Hardt Scott Kirsch Eunice Sahle ©2014 Yousuf Al-Bulushi ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Yousuf Al-Bulushi: The Struggle for a Second Transition in South Africa: Uprising, Development and Precarity in the Post-Apartheid City (Under the direction of John Pickles) This dissertation explores the limitations of post-apartheid liberation in the specific environment of Durban, South Africa. It takes a social movement of shack dwellers, Abahlali baseMjondolo, as a looking glass into urban debates concerned with the wellbeing of some of South Africa’s most marginalized communities. As the country struggles to deal with the ongoing crises of mass poverty, inequality, and unemployment, the government has responded with a range of developmental projects. At the same time, poor people around the country have protested injustice in record numbers, rivaling levels of unrest in any other part of the world. A mix of state repression and increased governmental redistribution of wealth has been the official response. This study explores these contentious issues by placing them in the context of South Africa’s Second Transition. More broadly, the approach situates the study at multiple geographical scales of analysis from the global to the continental, and the regional to the city.
    [Show full text]
  • Our Struggle Is Thought, on the Ground, Running” the University of Abahlali Basemjondolo1
    “OUR STRUGGLE IS THOUGHT, ON THE GROUND, RUNNING” THE UNIVERSITY OF ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO1 CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY RESEARCH REPORT NO.40 RICHARD PITHOUSE2 CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY, UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL [email protected] The Centre for Civil Society publishes and distributes regular peer reviewed research reports in order to stimulate debate and reflection in civil society. Most of these research reports are work in progress and are later formerly published in academic books and journals although some are republished with permission.We 1 The quote is taken from a comment made by S’bu Zikode at a meeting at the Kennedy Road settlement, 15 March 2006. I have heard two explanations of the origins of the word umjondolo. The first is that this initially colloquial word for shacks comes from John Deere – the first shacks built in Durban when white control of the city began to falter in the 1980s were made from discarded and then salvaged and traded packing crates for John Deere tractors. This origin of the word is thought to speak to life lived from within detritus. The second explanation, which Mark Hunter has brought to my attention, is that umjondolo has an older origin and comes from the word umjendevu, which means spinster, and speaks to the settlements as sites of gendered transgression. The transgression inheres in the fact that settlements, against apartheid rules that largely reserved access to the city to male migrant workers, enabled women to become migrant workers outside of life in domestic labour and, thereby, enabled a new degree of access to city life by umarried women.
    [Show full text]
  • Anger Over E-Toll Billing Errors People Are Being Billed Who Do Not Own
    Anger over e-toll billing errors People are being billed who do not own cars, credit-card details get lost and e-tags do not work. Angelique Serrao 23 December 2013 Many motorists are complaining about problems with the e-toll system - from bills delivered to people who don’t own cars to credit card details being lost and e-tags that won’t work. Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance chairman Wayne Duvenage said its website had been inundated with people writing in about strange happenings with their e-toll accounts. People are also turning to social media platforms to vent their anger as well as customer service rating centres such as Hello Peter. Heimrich Swart lives in Mokopane, Limpopo, and has not been in Gauteng since the beginning of the year. His wife does not have a car registered in her name. But last week she received SMSes from the e-toll violations processing centre informing her she was behind on her account. Swart said he called the customer call centre to enquire about the messages but none of the four people he spoke to could help him. “After being on the phone for 21 minutes without getting any help, I put the phone down.” Alastair Dooley registered for an e-tag the day before e-tolling started on 2 December. He travels through seven gantries to get to work. He registered online and the South African National Roads Agency Limited confirmed his credit card details were correct by processing a R1 transaction on his account. But a few days later, Dooley got an e-mail from Sanral saying his credit card had been declined, and then the call centre told him his credit card had expired.
    [Show full text]
  • The Politics of Shack Fires
    A Big Devil in the Jondolos: The Politics of Shack Fires Abahlali baseMjondolo Mov ement SA 0 Prepared by Matt Birkinshaw, August 2008 A Big Devil in the Jondolos: What is this report? This report was prepared at the request of Abahlali baseMjondolo over July and August 2008. It looks at the problem of fire for people living in shacks. It uses information from discussions with shack dwellers, and others, to explore the causes and effects of fires as well as municipal responses to fires. It closes with demands for action. Contents 1. Summary 1 2. Shack settlements 2 3. Causes of shack fires 3 4. Effects of shack fires 6 5. Municipal responses 9 6. Abahlali demands 15 Appendix: Shack fire data 16 1. Summary Shack fires are not acts of God. They are the result of political choices, often at municipal level. There is not enough affordable housing for everyone and low cost housing is rarely built close to the city centre. For this reason transport costs make even low-cost housing unaffordable for many people. Growing shack settlements are the result. Local government policy appears to be designed to force shack dwellers to live in ‘camps’ and to prevent the inclusion of shacks in the city. Refusal to allow shack settlements access to electricity leads to the use of dangerous sources of light and heat, such as paraffin stoves and candles. Unwillingness to provide security of tenure stops shack dwellers from informally upgrading their homes with less flammable building materials. Very minimal water supply makes it impossible for shack dwellers to effectively fight fires themselves.
    [Show full text]
  • Crisis Y Movimientos Sociales En Nuestra América: Cuerpos, Territorios E Imaginarios En Disputa”, Lima, Programa Democracia Y T
    See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329227801 Mar Daza, Raphael Hoetmer y Virginia Vargas (Eds.), "Crisis y Movimientos Sociales en Nuestra América: Cuerpos, Territorios e Imaginarios en Disputa”, Lima, Programa Democracia y T... Article · May 2014 CITATIONS READS 0 202 1 author: Edgar Guerra Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE) 38 PUBLICATIONS 21 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Drug Policy Indicators View project Activism within Regions of Violence and State Capture View project All content following this page was uploaded by Edgar Guerra on 28 November 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Interface: a journal for and about social movements Contents Volume 6 (1): i - iv (May 2014) Interface volume 6 issue 1 Reinventing emancipation in the 21st century: the pedagogical practices of social movements Interface: a journal for and about social movements Volume 6 issue 1 (May 2014) ISSN 2009 – 2431 Table of contents (pp. i – iv) Editorial Sara C Motta, Ana Margarida Esteves, Reinventing emancipation in the 21st century: the pedagogical practices of social movements (pp. 1 – 24) General material Call for papers (volume 7 issue 1): Movement practice(s) (pp. 25 – 26) The pedagogical practices of social movements Jonathan Langdon, Kofi Larweh and Sheena Cameron, The thumbless hand, the dog and the chameleon: enriching social movement learning theory through epistemically grounded narratives emerging from a participatory action research case study in Ghana (peer reviewed article, pp. 27 - 44) EN Sandra Maria Gadelha de Carvalho e José Ernandi Mendes, Práxis educativa do Movimento 21 na resistência ao agronegócio (peer reviewed article, pp.
    [Show full text]