EDITED BY AMANDA ALEXANDER AND RICHARD PITHOUSE INTRODUCTION S’BU ZIKODE THE THIRD FORCE RESEARCH REPORT NO. 40 RICHARD PITHOUSE ‘OUR STRUGGLE IS THOUGHT, ON THE GROUND, RUNNING’: THE UNIVERSITY OF ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO RESEARCH REPORT NO. 41 JACOB BRYANT TOWARDS DELIVERY AND DIGNITY: COMMUNITY STRUGGLE FROM KENNEDY ROAD RESEARCH REPORT NO. 42 RAJ PATEL A SHORT COURSE IN POLITICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO RESEARCH REPORT NO. 43 ALEX LOFTUS & FIONA LUMSDEN REWORKING HEGEMONY IN THE URBAN WATERSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY BY WOMEN OF KENNEDY ROAD, FOREMAN ROAD & JADHU PLACE, DURBAN IZIMPILO ZETHU / OUR LIVES RESEARCH REPORT NO. 44 MARK HUNTER INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS AS SPACES OF HEALTH INEQUALITY: THE CHANGING ECONOMIC AND SPATIAL ROOTS OF THE AIDS PANDEMIC, FROM APARTHEID TO NEOLIBERALISM RESEARCH REPORT NO. 45 STEPHEN SPARKS A LONG HISTORY: CIVIL SOCIETY, POLLUTION AND THE WENTWORTH OIL REFINERY RESEARCH REPORT NO. 46 BARUTI AMISI AN EXPLORATION OF THE LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES OF DURBAN CONGOLESE REFUGEES RESEARCH REPORT NO. 47 ARI SITAS 30 YEARS SINCE THE DURBAN STRIKES: BLACK WORKING CLASS LEADERSHIP AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN TRANSITION RESEARCH REPORT NO. 48 DOROTHEE HÖLSCHER & VISHANTHIE SEWPAUL ETHICS AS A SITE OF RESISTANCE: THE TENSION BETWEEN SOCIAL CONTROL AND CRITICAL REFLECTION COVER PHOTOGRAPH: by ZANELE TSWANINGE IZIMPILO ZETHU / OUR LIVES 2006, Photographic print WWW. UKZN. AC. ZA/ CCS CONTENTS PG INTRODUCTION v THE THIRD FORCE 1 S’bu Zikode RESEARCH REPORT NO. 40 5 Richard Pithouse ‘Our struggle is thought, on the ground, running’: The University of Abahlali baseMjondolo RESEARCH REPORT NO. 41 49 Jacob Bryant Towards delivery and dignity: Community struggle from Kennedy Road RESEARCH REPORT NO. 42 81 Raj Patel A short course in politics at the University of Abahlali baseMjondolo RESEARCH REPORT NO. 43 101 Alex Loftus & Fiona Lumsden Reworking hegemony in the urban waterscape IZIMPILO ZETHU / OUR LIVES 127 Photography by women of Kennedy Road, Foreman Road & Jadhu Place, Durban RESEARCH REPORT NO. 44 145 Mark Hunter Informal settlements as spaces of health inequality: The changing economic and spatial roots of the Aids pandemic, from apartheid to neoliberalism RESEARCH REPORT NO. 45 169 Stephen Sparks A long history: Civil society, pollution and the Wentworth oil refinery RESEARCH REPORT NO. 46 197 Baruti Amisi An exploration of the livelihood strategies of Durban Congolese refugees RESEARCH REPORT NO. 47 233 Ari Sitas 30 years since the Durban strikes: Black working class leadership and the South African transition RESEARCH REPORT NO. 48 251 Dorothee Hölscher & Vishanthie Sewpaul Ethics as a site of resistance: The tension between social control and critical reflection CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY RESEARCH REPORTS, 2006, VOLUME 1 Introduction The March 2006 local government elections in Durban were neither free nor fair. There were two primary challenges to the ANC from within the poor and working class African constituencies that it claims as its own. In the shack settlements nestled into the valleys in the suburbs of Clare Estate and Reservoir Hills, longstanding ANC supporters were unhappy with their councillors Yakoob Baig and Jayraj Bachu and decided to boycott the election under the slogan ‘No Land, No House, No Vote’. Across town in Umlazi township, a group of longstanding ANC and SACP activists were unhappy with their councillor, Bhekisasa Xulu, and claimed that he had withheld ANC membership cards to engineer his re-nomination despite widespread unhappiness with his conduct. They decided to put up an independent candidate, Zamani Mthethwa, to oppose Xulu. In both instances the response to these refusals to toe the party line was brutal and illegal action. In the lead up to the election, armed shacklords in settlements including Lacey Road, Foreman Road and Burnwood sought to ban organising outside of party control on the threat of death. Systematic threats from the state reinforced the shack dwellers’ originary slogan of ‘we are on our own’. City Manager Mike Sutcliffe first banned a shack dwellers’ march on 14 November 2005, and while he continued to ban marches shack dwellers were subject to various incidents of illegal police assault and detention. Shack dwellers were able to garner the resources to take Sutcliffe to the Durban High Court on 27 February 2005. The Freedom of Expression Institute had repeatedly described Sutcliffe’s march bans as ‘illegal and unconstitutional’ and the judge quickly issued an interdict against the City and the police preventing them from interfering with the shack dwellers’ right to march. After their dramatic court victory, thousands of waiting shack dwellers left their settlements, into which they had been barricaded by police, and marched into the city in triumph. In Umlazi, supporters of the Mthethwa campaign claimed that there was widespread intimidation in the lead up to the election including death threats, assaults and whippings. They also alleged that there had been blatant fraud during the election. On the day after the election, Umlazi residents staged a small protest against the alleged electoral fraud. The Public Order Policing Unit shot dead a young woman, Monica Ngcobo, near the protest and shot and seriously wounded S’busiso RESEARCH REPORTS 2006: VOLUME 1 v Mthethwa in his home. The police claimed that Ngcobo had been shot in the stomach with a rubber bullet but the autopsy showed that she had been shot in the back with live ammunition. A new organisation called Women of Umlazi was formed and as its first act organised a large march on 31 March in protest against these police shootings. Komi Zulu and Sinethembe Myeni, SACP activists who worked closely with the organisers of the march, were later assassinated in separate carefully planned attacks. Others survived assassination attempts. MEC for Safety and Security Bheki Cele insisted that, aside from the police shooting of Ngcobo, none of the attacks were in any way political. Women of Umlazi responded by organising weekly mass meetings, attended by hundreds of residents, to which the Umlazi SAPS were invited. On 1 June, the Umlazi SAPS entered Councillor Xulu’s fortified house and arrested two of Xulu’s employees for the murder of Komi Zulu. Thousands of residents of E-Section are now organising to ensure that there is a fair trail and to push for the arrest and prosecution of Xulu. The police beatings of shack dwellers, and the drama of their court victory over Sutcliffe and triumphant march into the city, received considerable press coverage. This was probably because the drama began in an elite suburb, moved to the High Court and ended with the powerful spectacle of a sea of red shirts outside the City Hall. But there has been no sustained reflection on what this blatant suppression of basic constitutional rights means for democracy. There has been no action against Sutcliffe or the police. The shootings and murders in Umlazi happened in a working class township far from elite eyes and have received limited media attention. Human rights NGOs and academics have been largely silent. Aside from Bheki Cele’s now infamous comment, there has been no statement on the Umlazi shootings from any politician. The scandal is that there is no scandal. Imagine the outcry if these political assassinations had happened in a rich white or Indian suburb like Westville or Reservoir Hills. Imagine the outcry if senior members of the ANC or business elite were being shot on a regular basis. It is clear that in South Africa the lives of ordinary people continue to count for very little in elite circles. It is equally clear that thirty years after the Soweto Uprising attempts are still made by those in power to resolve some political disputes, and in particular those in which ordinary people have a real stake, by men with guns. For as long as we remain collectively complicit in the general failure to take these facts seriously we fail to take our democracy seriously. However, thousands of people are struggling, with renewed vigour, to redeem the promises of democracy. On 27 April 2006, thousands of Durban residents mourned South Africa’s first UnFreedom Day. In the weeks leading up to Freedom Day – the holiday commemorating South Africa’s first democratic elections on 27 April 1994 – a burgeoning coalition of Durban’s poorest residents had spirited vi CENTRE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY discussions about the irony of celebrating twelve years of ‘freedom’. Without decent houses, basic services, rights for informal workers, and unconditional access to all the resources of this land, these residents agreed that it would be more apt to mourn their ‘unfreedom’. In a 21 March meeting in Wentworth, flat dwellers and shack dwellers from over a dozen areas across Durban came together to discuss how the city’s clearance plans will affect them all. Those present lamented being chastised by officials for not ‘taking ownership’ over their residences and neighborhoods. ‘How can people take ownership over rotten things?’, Des D’sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance asked, explaining that the city council will not replace burst, rotten water pipes in poor areas, only patching them instead. Orlean Naidoo of Chatsworth argued that poor flat dwellers do not exist in the eyes of the municipality: ‘We are known to the city not as people but as ‘rental stock’. The ‘rental stock’ exists, we don’t’. S’bu Zikode of Abahlali baseMjondolo (the ‘shack dwellers movement’) stressed that the struggle of those across the city is about numbers, and echoed calls for city-wide mobilisation. ‘To impress the city council is nothing. We must impress those who we lead’, Zikode argued. And so the discussion of a city-wide coalition began, and with it talk of a pro-active event to mark ‘UnFreedom Day’. Thus five weeks of intensive planning resulted in a vibrant four-hour programme at St John’s church in Clare Estate.