Youth: Apathy, Whiteness and Juju

In the news feeding frenzy on the latest Julius Malema scandal, the collective imagination of our media yet again fails to address the real issues lurking behind his shadow. Firstly, I am frankly unmoved by the figure of Juju, who seems more have built his public personality on the collective “swart gevaar” fantasies of white bourgeois South Africans. Secondly, there is not all that much evidence of his supposed popularity among poor black youth that the media constantly refer to. Even the recent riots at Luthuli House attracted less than 1,000 people (many of whom are rumoured to have been paid). I would also hazard a guess that many who attend Julius’s rallies either attend because they are offered food or t-shirts or just want to see him say crazy shit. Too often, the liberal media bases much of its coverage on the assumption that an angry black demagogue naturally has thousands of mindless poor black youth following his every word. If I have to read another article decrying the nebulous influences of Juju’s populism and the investor panic emanating from the irrational black youth, I might have to join that great vortex of racism, reaction and stupidity known as the online comment section. The issue which is largely off the agenda of the punditry is that there is a whole generation growing up in South Africa facing little or no prospect of securing a decent job in their lifetime. Nobody really wants to talk about it. Helen Zille’s botox-fueled and (failed) toyi-toying attempts to engage young South Africans are beyond farcical. The fact is that the DA has no clue how to talk to young black South Africans beyond their fetishization of the neo-liberal entrepreneurial spirit lurking behind questionable “100% service delivery” claims and attempts to spread the protestant work ethic around. The truth is that only one major politician in the country is attempting to engage with this particular demographic, and this politician is widely known as ‘Juju’.

This brings me to my final point. Recently, we have seen a debate around the concept of “whiteness” emerge amongst our chattering classes in response to a fairly innocuous paper by Dr. Sam Vice of the Rhodes philosophy department. This paper, due to its discovery by Steve Hofmeyr and his acolytes, led to an orgiastic outbreak of white hysteria. What is evident to me, as much as I disagree with much of Vice’s argument, is that a political ontology of whiteness exists. This is reflected in the explicit attitudes of too many Rhodes Students. This attitude can be characterized in the endless moans of reverse racism, an attitude of self-entitlement and a widespread belief that merely passing is cause for celebration. Tertiary education has become a 3-year excuse to fuck, do drugs and party with little or no consequences, not that these are bad things in themselves, but university is also an opportunity for real political engagement and political reflection without the burdens of adulthood. While youth from Greece to Cairo rise up and exemplify the power of popular politics, being white in South Africa results in yet another night at Friars. Fuck that. I hope my generation can learn from the mistakes of our parents and start building a serious and exciting new left in this country.

On Democracy

Unemployed People’s Movement

Grahamstown

Ten Theses on Democracy

A contribution to the discussion at the Democratic Left Front Meeting, Johannesburg, Friday 2 September 2011

Michael Neocosmos recently gave a seminar at Rhodes University. We very much enjoyed his presentation. He begins and ends with the fact that all people think and looks closely at how this fact is denied in contemporary South Africa. We have had our own discussion on what the Neocosmos paper means for our understanding of the meaning of democracy and our orientation to struggles around democracy. We have prepared this document for the DLF meeting based on that discussion.

Thesis One: The Discussion about Democracy Must be Rooted in the Realities of our Struggles

If our movements have any chance of growing into a popular force that can win real victories against the state and capital then theory must speak to the realities of our struggles. We have to take the realities of our struggles very seriously because it is those realities that will determine whether or not we succeed or fail. We measure theory by how well it can speak to the realities of our struggles.

These Two: Liberal Democracy was not the Final Victory of the Struggle

We are often told that this democracy is the final fruit of the struggle against apartheid. That is not true. This democracy was a compromise in which the masses of the people were expelled from active participation in politics and returned to their allotted spaces in exchange for allowing the state to be placed under black management. As Frantz Fanon put it ‘the people were sent back to their caves’. This is why Mandela told the people to stop struggling when he came out of jail. A radical leader will always encourage the people to keep organising and struggling even when he or she is in power.

Thesis Three: Liberal Democracy Must be Defended

Liberal democracy is not democracy. It is just one very narrow and limited form of democracy that privileges elites and excludes ordinary people from active participation. But liberal democracy is much more democratic than the authoritarian and statist alternatives that the ANC is trying to entrench by rolling back media freedom, undermining the integrity of the courts and repressing social movements. Liberal democracy does give some space for debate and organisation and so we must defend it vigorously. However we must be very careful to avoid elitism and the domination of NGOs in this struggle to defend civil society.

Thesis Four: Liberal Democracy Must be Extended

Communist democracy is popular democracy. It is the democracy of the Paris Commune, of the Soviets, of the people’s power movement of the 1980s (which we must be careful not to celebrate uncritically due to the attacks on BC activists by UDF activists on the East Rand and here in Grahamstown too) and Tahir Square. We need to push wherever we can to deepen liberal democracy, with its dependence on a commodified legal system and the politics of representation by political parties and NGOs, into a politics of direct democracy where people live, work and study. We need to continually radicalise democracy from below.

Thesis Four: Politics Comes Before Economics

There is a strong tendency in the left to put economics before politics. This is a mistake. It’s all very well for people to propose alternative economic arrangements but without the force to implement them they are just ideas. Ideas can only be made a reality when people have the power to force progress forward. This is why politics (the political empowerment of the people) must come before economics (the creation of a just economy). We need to keep discussions about alternative economic models open at all times but our main task is the political empowerment of the people.

Thesis Five: We are not Struggling for Service Delivery

The struggles of the people are relentlessly described as ‘service delivery protests.’ Even many people on the left impose this meaning on our struggles. We reject this. Of course we do struggle for better services sometimes but this is always nested in a deeper struggle for control over our own lives, our own communities and development processes. We are struggling for the political empowerment of the people that can lead to a democratisation of decision making which will lead to a more equal society.

Thesis Six: The State is Sometimes a Threat to Democracy

The state poses a serious threat to democracy. The attacks on the media, the judiciary, social movements and popular protest are all well known. At this point it is grossly irresponsible to see the ANC or the state as democratising forces. They are both actively trying to roll back the limited democratic gains that were made in 1994. We all need to be clear about this. We need to be clear that there can be no progressive resolution of our social crisis from within the ANC and that it is essential to build political alternatives outside of the ANC and the alliance. We should take note of the different way that protests by organisations inside the alliance (e.g. SAMWU, ANC YL, TAC etc) are treated by the police compared to how protests by organisations outside of the alliance (e.g. UPM, AbM, AEC, LPM etc) are treated by the police.

Thesis Seven: Civil Society is Sometimes a Threat to Democracy

It is a myth that civil society is always a democratic space. Civil society organisations are usually hierarchical, professional organisations which are not run democratically, have no democratic mandate and are often threatened by popular membership based organisations. They are often white dominated and always dominated by the middle class. They are often threatened by a politics that organises outside of the realm of professional civil society (the courts, conferences etc). There have been many cases of civil society organisations being as hostile to popular politics as the state and maliciously and dishonestly presenting popular organisations as criminal, violent and irrational. This is as true of liberal civil society as it has been true of some people in NGOs on the left (e.g. those that tried to criminalise AEC and AbM in the mass media and on email listserves).

Thesis Eight: The Criminalisation of our Movements is a Major Threat to Democracy

While we support the campaigns to protect media freedom and the independence of the courts they are often very elitist in how they are organised and in the way that they express their concerns. They usually leave out a major threat to our democracy which is the rampant criminalisation of popular movements. Both the state and the ANC on one side, and elements in NGO based civil society on the other, (including its liberal and left streams), have a record of trying to misrepresent popular struggles as violent, irrational and criminal. It is essentially for all genuinely progressively forces to unite against this criminalisation of popular protest and popular organisation.

Thesis Nine: We Need to Think Democracy Together with Dignity

The indignity with which our people have to live every day is truly horrific. Today the brother of one of our comrades, a man who is 36 and has no job, is walking around Grahamstown with the body of his baby in his arms looking for someone to take the body. The hospital has turned him away. He is feeling useless and desperate. Democracy must not only be something technical. The way that we practice democracy must also contribute to defending and building the dignity of our people.

Thesis Ten: We Must All Practice What We Preach

All our organisations need to be rigorously democratic both internally and in how they relate to each other in forums like the DLF, Right2Know and so on. This means that people must be elected to all positions, accountable and recallable. It means that there must be equal representation of men and women. It also means that comrades from NGOs and Universities cannot assume an automatic right to leadership and that if a democratic process does not elect them or accept their views they must accept this process rather than trying to retain power by manipulating budgets behind the scenes or making wild allegations of criminality, conspiracy and so on.

SSJ Suggested Agenda; for Saturday 20 Aug 2011.

Please add omissions/correct mistakes...
1. Decide on chair & minute taker for the meeting?
............................................................
2. New meeting times (yes, again...).
Time:........................... --- put new time for facebook referendum prior to decision...
3. Task team structure: what do you think of 'bottom-liners' to ensure efficacy?
yes/no
4. Project & events updates:
a) Right 2 Know:
- who's on the task team? ......................................................................
- what, when (deadlines?), how?
b) Creche:
- task team: Mbali, Chantelle and Tai
- want to start in a month, CHOSA funding & criteria, our input, youth centre idea etc..
- Tania fill in on funding? who? org? contact? ................................................
c) Recruitment updates:
- Kayla Roux: Journ and Ecos… Tania helping with Journ..................................
- Michael Glover: English........................................................................
- Mbali Baduzaali : Enviros and Law............................................................
- Benjamin Glyn Fogel: Philosophy.............................................................
- Etai Even-Zahav: History.....................................................................
- Shameez Joubert: politics --- plus whoever did politics 1 with sally's class............
...........................................................................................................
- Anyone else want to join someone or tackle their own department? hard sciences? pub?
- is this method working? if not how do we make it work/new tactics?
More projects?
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
events:
d) Neocosmos: Everyone who's keen to join event on ssj fb page. Chantelle: need help with anything? snacks? is this a collaboration with politics dept? anyone still need the paper?
e) Good: who’s keen to get involved?............................................................................
f) reminder: HIV/AIDS Week: Line-up? SSJ Statement, involvement etc.? ………………
More events?
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
5. Articles, interviews other media: who's done what, and who's writing, speaking, publishing etc. in near future? fill everyone in... anyone need 'seconding'?
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
6. Manifesto updates. Please, if you have time and energy, re-read (its available further down on the facebook page) and bring edited copy.
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
7. Anything missed out?
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
........................................................................................................
8. Open discussion

Israel's social revolution

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/marches-held-across-israel-as-social-protests-enter-fourth-week-1.378052

Voices from Symphony Way Press Release.

Press Release – 9 August 2011
Students for Social Justice
Unemployed People’s Movement
Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign

Event 1: Pavement Dwellers to speak at Rhodes University
Venue: Sociology 1, Rhodes University
Date/Time: Thursday 11 August @ 19h00 – 21h00

Event 2: Symphony Way authors meet the Unemployed People’s Movement
Venue: Duna Library in Joza Township
Date/Time: Friday 12 August @ 3pm

‘A beauty, extraordinary in every way.’
Naomi Klein, author of ‘The Shock Doctrine’ and ‘No Logo’

Students for Social Justice, the Sociology Department, and the Unemployed Peoples Movement in Grahamstown have organized two unique talks by four of the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers, authors of No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way. This extraordinary anthology of struggle it testimony and poetry written on the pavement of one of the longest running civil disobedience protests in South Africa’s history.

The authors will be speaking on Thursday at Rhodes where they will discuss their struggle for land, housing and dignity with progressive academics and the Students for Social Justice. On Saturday, the authors will be meeting with the Unemployed People’s Movement where they will be engaged in discussions about their respective struggles and ways of building solidarity between poor people throughout South Africa.

No Land! No House! No Vote! is a direct challenge to the publishing industry. We cannot humanise our world through a vanguard media. The right to a voice cannot be held only be elite academics, authors and politicians; it is a right that must be claimed by the poor as well.

Speakers:

• Florrie Langenhoven – Here I’ve learned to share: I don’t work, but if I’ve got dry bread I first look around if my neighbours have got something to eat before I can eat. It feels like a BIG FAMILY.
• Shakeera Samuels – I would never ever want to go back to peoples back yard again where my family will be treated like animals.
• Cynthia Twigg – Symphony Way has its little [vegetable] garden which I look after. I water it and even sew my own seeds. Tomatoes, gen-squash, sweet-melon, and other eatable vegs grew in my little garden which keep me going.
• Bonita Seconds – When they [my children] are going to grow up, they must be something. They are going to change something around in the world.

For more information on the book, please contact:

Bonita Seconds (Symphony Way author) @ 073-841-1111
Sarita Jacobs (Symphony Way secretary) @ 076-469-9843

For event info, directions and struggle info in Grahamstown contact:

Ayanda Kota (UPM) @ 078-625-6462
Ben Fogel (SSJ) @ 071-224-6524

Reviews:

Cape Argus – Street people book their place on library shelf

The New Age – Living in a world turned on its head

Amandla Magazine – Review by Professor Martin Legassick

Acclaim:

“A beautiful and heart-rending book that speaks a story so often undocumented.” – Nigel Gibson, author of Fanonian Practices: From Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo.

“The Symphony Way occupation was a real attempt at an insurgent and tenacious solidarity against an increasingly exclusionary and brutal society…All the tenacity, beauty, pain, desperation, and contradictions that breathe their life into any popular struggle haunt the pages of this searing book.” —Richard Pithouse, department of politics and international studies, Rhodes University, South Africa

“A magnificent and moving account of a long and hard-fought struggle . . . . a clarion call for basic human rights and for human dignity. A powerful insider’s view into the landscape of poverty in neoliberal South Africa.” — Michael Watts, Class of 63 Professor of Geography and Development Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, author of Curse of the Black Gold.

“An extraordinary collection of writings from the spirit of resilience and strength of the collective which lay bare the betrayal of the people in post-apartheid South Africa.” —Sokari Ekine, author and award-winning blogger

“This book carries not only the suffering of the Symphony Way communities but of the millions of poor people of the world. . . . It is through this courage that we can all hope for the real struggle that intends to put human beings at the center of our society.” —S’bu Zikode, president, Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement, South Africa

“As middle-class African journalists and activists, we thought we were telling the tale of the poorest, but here we are surpassed. Their truths, spoken in their sharp vernacular tongue, fly straight to the heart of the matter.” —Michael Schmidt, journalist and author

A better Life for All.

A Better Life for All Remains a Dream for the Poor and the Unemployed

The eThembeni informal settlement was erected in 1992, before the dawn of our democracy. It was called eThembeni, “place of hope”, because the birth of a new nation, the birth of democracy was inevitable. But today people remain unemployed, living without income in mud houses.

Horizontal to the place of hope, 3km away, another informal settlement stands. It is called Phaphamani, a place of vigilant people. Phaphamani was erected in 1992. In both informal settlements there are no human basic services like electricity and sanitation.

The recent floods in Grahamstown left so many people, in particular in informal settlements homeless. The Unemployed People’s Movement were running up and down helping comrades during the flood. I was deployed in Phaphamani and eThembeni. As the rain was pouring I was with a senior citizen, an old woman who is at her late fifties. The house was just full of water. We were moving furniture to the other room, using buckets to evacuate the water that was threatening to form a swimming pool inside the house. It was so quiet, only sounds of water and our buckets. It was hectic, the whole community was just evacuating water non-stop.

As we were busy, the old woman stopped for a moment, looked at me, a smile crawling out of her mouth. Yet I could see the tears making the way through the corners of the eyelids. I then stopped and stared at her. She made a sound, trying to remove a lump in her throat and finally broke the silence. She said “Vote ANC, Vote for Better Life, Vote for Heaven and Vote for Jesus. Better life in heaven indeed not under ANC”.

I was so overwhelmed with emotions. I felt as if something heavy was placed on my shoulders, the muscles were just contracting and my neck became stiff instantly. I immediately thought of a woman, in her late 50’s as well, whom we buried recently. She was living on the foot of a hill and when the sewerage pipe burst at the hill shit would fill her house. It would take weeks before the pipe was fixed. She died because of TB related diseases. Her story was on SABC, in a report by Nomawethu Solwandle. The officials did nothing. A week after her story was on SABC, she died. How does one go to sleep?

One of our mentors, Professor Pedro Tabensky, a protagonist of Black Consciousness, came to my mind. He says that UPM must resurrect hope in our communities and collectivism. As things are at the moment people have lost hope. It is no wonder that there is such brokenness. Reclaiming hope is the first step to action. Another mentor by the name of Richard Pithouse would also quote Frantz Fanon: “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it.” The time has come for our generation to invent our own politics and to take our own stand. People are struggling and thinking and discussing all over the country. These rivers of struggle will join soon. We are already getting a good sense of the new politics. It is a politics that is firmly in the hands of the people. A politics that begins from our daily lives.

I think hope is important. It was hope that brought the generation of 1976 together. They discovered their mission and they were determined to fulfil it at all costs. Just like the Tsietsi Mashinini generation, we will not betray our mission.

In Makana Municipality, there is a backlog of over 13 000 houses. The RDP house that have been built are crumbling down and people are deserting them. There is an unemployment rate of nearly 70%. This woman in eThembeni forms part of the backlog of 13 000 houses. She forms part of the 70% without work. Because of her age, she is at her late 50’s, she does not qualify for an old age income grant. All that she is, in her country of her birth, is statistics. She is like many South Africans. She matters the most during Statistics South Africa surveys and Elections. Her ID is also a constant reminder that she is a South African.

But a country so rich cannot afford her, being a senior citizen, a house nor a job. She watches helplessly as our municipality can not account for R19 million, the mayor who is indebted to the municipality an amount of not less that R60 000, for dining and wining with the girlfriend. Every time she turns on her radio all she is hearing is the plundering of our resources by the elite, the president who will be taking the next wife to be maintained by the tax payers and his friends with their tenders.

Yes, a country so rich, a country that could afford R70billion to purchase arms deal, not for the nation, for the benefit of the elite, and the nation is not even allowed to get the details of how their money was spent. Yes a country so rich, that it could spend R60billion on hosting a World Cup, when the majority of its senior citizens don’t have a shelter. A country so rich that it can only produce billionaires and millionaires, while the senior citizens are dying because of poverty related diseases. Rushing to take the water out of their shacks in the floods. Rushing for water when their shacks are burning.

There is a simple lack of care for us by those who rule us. To them we are just lazy buds who do want to do anything but expect government to do everything for us. Their perception changes during election time. We matter the most during elections time. After that we must go back to our shacks, to our life without an income.

The better life for all remains a dream. To Christians it is certain that they will enjoy such life in heaven. But we also deserve this life while on earth. God has blessed us with all the riches. However under the ANC this will forever be a dream deferred.

Our main task is to give people hope and to invent a politics that can express that hope. That is what Biko did for his generation. Once people have hope everything else follows. We have to care very carefully for every precious spark of hope that still shines in places like eThembeni and Phaphamani.

Ayanda Kota

Chairperson, Unemployed People’s Movement, Grahamstown

078 625 6462

R.I.P. Gill Scott-Heron

A great activist, poet and musician who inspired me personally and will surely missed.

UPM Letter to the Premier of the Eastern Cape

UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT (UPM)

“We call upon the right to work”

69 “C” Nompondo=Street, Grahamstown, 6139

Contacts: 072 299 5=53, 078 625 6462, 073 578 3661

xola.mali@yahoo.com, ayandakota@webmail.co.za





Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Statement of Demands to the Eastern Cape Premier the Honourable Ms. Noxolo Kiviet




Dear Ms. Kiviet




We have been informed that following the television screening of the episode of Cutting Edge that exposed some of the horror of the lives of the poor in Grahamstown President Zuma has instructed you to meet with us as soon as is possible to receive and to try to resolve our demands. We have also been informed that you would like copies of our collected memoranda in advance of this meeting.




We appreciate your willingness to meet with us and thought that it would be easier for us to simply summarise our demands in one document.




As with poor people’s organisations and movements across the country our demands take two forms. We have demands that take the form of asking promises made within the current system to be kept. Many of these demands are very urgent as people are living in very undignified and dangerous conditions. However we are not only demanding that the current system be operated efficiently. We are also demanding that the current system be replaced with a system in which the dignity of all people is recognised. We understand that while you can attend to our first kind of demand in a meeting addressing our second kind of demand will take a long struggle in which the poor and the working class are politically empowered against the elites. However we do insist that if the ANC wishes to call itself a progressive organisation it must respect the formations of the poor as we work to redistribute political power as a first step towards redistributing economic power.




Our immediate demands are as follows:




1. The immediate and permanent eradication of the bucket system throughout Grahamstown.

2. The immediate electrification of the eThembeni shack settlement. Other settlements in Grahamstown are being electrified following protests and this process must also include eThembeni.

3. That a clear, transparent and consultative process is immediately begun to overcome the backlog of 13 000 houses in Grahamstown.

4. That clear, transparent and serious steps are taken to eradicate the cancer of corruption that has been eating at the Makana Municipality for years.

5. That the R58 million that has been returned to the central government due to the failure of local government to spend it is handed over to a democratically run community co-operative that will allow us to design, build and manage our own houses in a democratic and non-commodified way. If the government has failed to spend this money then it is only logical that it should be handed over to the people directly.

6. That a series criminal investigation is instituted against the uBumbano sports training project following the corruption of R600 000.

7. That the unconstitutional and repressive bail conditions that ban our leaders from political activity be immediately withdrawn.

8. An immediate commitment to ban development by tender and to instead create state owned companies that can carry forward development such as housing etc on a non-profit basis.

9. An immediate expulsion of Nceba Faku from the ANC following his fascist attack on the media.

10. Setting up a genuinely independent investigative unit with power of arrest to deal with corruption in the province.




Our longer term demands are for:




1. Decent work or a decent guaranteed income for everyone over the age of 16 years.

2. A fair distribution of urban and rural land.

3. The socialisation and collectivisation of the means of production.

4. The decommodification of the provision of all basic needs like water, electricity, housing, sanitation, refuse removal, health care, transport, education, communication and so on.

5. Elected police officers and judges and trial by jury

6. State support for community controlled media.

7. Participatory democracy at all levels of society.




We are aware that these goals are only realisable in a new system and that we will only be able to move from this system to a better system via the political empowerment of the poor and the working class. However the formations of the poor are facing serious repression including regular arrests, the murder of at least seven protesters by the police already this year, torture (as in Ermelo) and armed state backed attacks on movements like Abahlali baseMjondolo in KwaZulu-Natal and the Landless People’s Movement in Gauteng. Therefore we demand an immediate end to all repression of the formations of the poor and a clear and public acknowledgment that all people in this so-called democracy have the right to organise themselves freely and in safety and, if they so wish, to do so independently of the ANC.




If these demands are not met we will, in alliance with our comrades across the country, have no choice but to continue struggling in support of this programme.





We are expecting to meet with you by Tuesday next week at the latest.





Yours sincerely

Ayanda Kota

Chairperson, Unemployed People’s Movement

Grahamstown, Eastern Cape

Chris McMichael campaign posters - Photographer: Tim Gabb

Spanish Revolution

Aluta Continua

SSJ statement post-election by Chris Mc Michael

20 May 2011

Students for Social Justice Statement on the Election Results for
Rhodes Ward 12, Makana Municipality

On the 18th of May, the DA took Ward 12, Rhodes University by an
overwhelming majority. In the midst of their self-congratulation fest
it should also be noted that an Independent student Candidate,
Christopher Mc Michael, endorsed by Students for Social Justice, the
Unemployed Peoples Movement and the Democratic Left Front, polled
third in the ward, only 8 votes behind the ANC.

This is a huge victory for a campaign designed and run by students. On
an almost non-existent budget, and with no experience of electoral
campaigning the Students for Social Justice has posed a creditable threat
to two well established and well bankrolled party political machines.

Even more important is that the campaign maintained its fidelity to
the principles of direct democracy, openness and social justice. The
youth who were programmed to continue fucking up have woken up. We
have deviated from the agreed path and will continue, with our
comrades in the Unemployed Peoples Movement, to fight for a just and
humane Grahamstown, in which all people are afforded their dignity as
human beings.

This campaign said NO to condescending and complacent party
candidates, to politics as manageralism and hollow slogans, to an
exhaustion of ideas and the cheapening of noble words like democracy
and freedom. It said YES to equality, participation and to the
creation of our own autonomous political spaces.

While we know that real change may never come through the ballot box,
the success of our campaign in the face of great odds has shown us
that our time has come. The local establishment which has viewed this
campaign as a cheap and inept ploy thinks that we will disappear now
that we have had our 15 minutes is in for an unpleasant surprise....

Our eyes are open, we know that we are the now the drivers of our own
future and we will continue to fight, challenge and undermine the
structures and systems which cheapen and distort our lives’.

UPM statement

Five Hundred People Blockade Road in Grahamstown this Morning



This morning five hundred people from eThembeni and Transit Camp in Grahamstown blockaded the N2. The eThembeni people were demanding housing, electricity and water. The Transit Camp people were demanding the completion of their houses. The project has stalled due to non-payment of the contractors.



The road was successfully occupied, fires were lit and posters declaring a refusal to vote were raised. The police, acting with their usual aggression and insults, managed to clear the blockade and put out the fires. When the television crews arrived the police behaviour became less aggressive and it was possible to reoccupy the road. But once they left the people were driven off the N2 and the road blockade moved into Joza where it was broken up again. The protest continued on the pavements until three in the afternoon. There were no arrests.



Aluta Continua.



The statement below was drawn up in a meeting last night but could not be issued until today due to a lack of access to email.



Monday, 16 May 2011



National Road to be Blockaded Tomorrow in Grahamstown



It is that time of elections, a season of lies and deceptions. Political parties and political leaders are visible and some visit our homes. If they find us cooking or eating, they take some and eat, let alone that there after they will get to their five star hotels, take a bath and wash their teeth, making sure their hands are clean because they were greeting us the unemployed and the poor. Elections are a time for free booze, free entertainment, free t-shirts and free pretences.



The people of eThembeni will be barricading the national road tomorrow, the N2 intersection that is between Extension 5 and Extension 6.



They will be barricading the road because they do not have access to water, roads, electricity and housing. Makana municipality’s backlog on housing is estimated to be 13 800. Recently a fire erupted and a couple was trapped in the fire. They died trying to escape. The power lines run over the burnt out remains of their shack on the way to the brick factory. But they were never seen as good enough to have electricity. In eThembeni the people live with snakes. There are number of cases reported where some residents were bitten by snakes. A snake is a cold blooded animal and when people collect woods and create fire to cook, the snakes are many times found next to the fire.

These residents have been voting, their votes have not translated into anything. The only translation they can see is their Councillor Rachael Madinda becoming a fat cat, affording two cars, one house in the township and another one in town. The voters are stuck in permanent poverty as the councillors rise into riches.



Councillor Rachael Madinda is on the ruling party candidates list for the district. This is promotion. Promotion for what, only the ruling party can explain. She is not the only one, Councillor Peter is also on the list for a mayoral candidate while people in his ward don’t have water, houses, unemployment is the order of the day, the dam level is said to be on 5,0 in his community, meaning its only mud. He has done absolutely nothing for his community. Now we know what the criterion for promotion is in the ruling party. We must be denied and stripped all of our basic rights. Those in power must enrich themselves, steal and plunder our resources. Politicians are rewarded for keeping the people under control while they are excluded from society. Any politicians that tried to represent the voters would soon be sidelined.



If indeed voting is the democratic right then we must remember that words acquire meaning in action. We can no longer allow ourselves to be fooled by the kleptocratic elites by imposing fancy words on us. Democracy means our voice. It means that we govern ourselves and we determine our destiny. It does not mean that every few years we give permission for a new set of politicians to rule us in our own name while we are excluded from all decision making.



We are rebelling because we are poor and because the political and economic elites in this country are united in their contempt for the poor. All over South African and all over the world the poor and the unemployed barricade roads as a means of protest. We cannot strike and therefore the road blockade is the logical tactic for us. We are rebelling because the better life for all is better life for the few elite. We are rebelling because those in power do not care for us; we are only voting cattles to them. We are rebelling because we are fed up and sick and tired of the elite, they are suppose to be looking after our interests and now they are jackals and we are sheep. Sheep is all we are to them. How can we entrust our lives to such heartless and cruel people?



Our destiny is in our hands. This is a realisation that we are our own liberators. Nobody will liberate us but ourselves.

Xola Mali – 072 299 5253 – xola.mali@yahoo.com
Ayanda Kota – 078 625 6462 – ayandakota@webmail.co.za

The Struggle for Hangberg

Amongst the collective hysteria which has come to characterize our election seasons, as parties of one sort or another attempt to coerce and persuade the registered public to tick a ballot, some honest reflection is needed. A few important questions needs to be asked, is this culture of accountability some of our politicians constantly refer to really realizable through party politics? Are elections the be and end all of elections? To what extent does the voting public actually have a say in how the country is governed. Is the ruling party really God's representative on earth which will govern until Jesus returns and is our official opposition really struggling to being about 'open opportunity society' which delivers for all?.

The first response that springs to mind, is that our party list representative system dis-empowers the voter for the profit of the party. Parties not the individual are awarded the seat and the individual candidate is determined by the party, meaning in order to ensure they keep their job candidates have to ensure they maintain a good-standing with their party, not the electorate. As we have seen across the country, people are dissatisfied with the state of service delivery and political representation across the country, from Durban to Grahamstown protests against a seemingly unaccountable, incompetent and uncaring state have characterised the build up to these elections. Protests have even extended to members of parties protesting against the elections lists handed to them before elections, in some cases politicians excluded from this years electoral lists have resorted to hiring hitmen to fix their problem. While the official opposition pursues policies deeply hostile to the poor majority of the country, from the evictions of people in Mandela Park, to the existence of a camp straight out of District 9 known as “Blikkiesdorp. A small exception exists in local elections where independents and civic candidates can run for office, in order to directly represent their communities

Most South Africans are familiar with the stories of corruption, incompetence and repression emerging from the ruling party, but so far the same coverage has not been extended to the similar contempt for the poor which exists with the Democratic Alliance. Hout Bay characterises the extreme inequality which blights both our country and Cape Town in particular. The leafy affluent neighbourhoods of the well-off and the plush mansions of the richer stand in direct contrast to the terrible poverty of the Mandela Park settlement which stands next the gated white communities of the area. Journey further down the beach past the harbour and you reach the poor coloured neighbourhood of Hangberg, within both of these communities the DA has failed to their promise of the open opportunity society.

Students for Social Justice a Grahamstown based student movement are screening the documentry “The Uprising of Hangberg” about the struggles of the people of Hangberg and brutal response of the police. As the DA promises to deliver the Cape Town solution to the rest of South Africa, it is time to blow away the fog surrounding the mountains of Cape Town, to expose the real human cost of this solution and why the DA does not present a real alternative to the ANC. Amongst our own disillusionment with the party system we have chosen to endorse a independent candidate Christopher Mc Michael standing for councillor in Ward 12 Grahamstown (Rhodes University) who presents a truly radical experiment in direct democracy. Independents are given some space to work with during local elections, but the obvious bias in the media and perpetuated by parties threatens to silence much of their message. Media coverage is often focused on the personality politics offered to us in the form of such figures of Malema, Zille and Zuma, while ignoring the real struggles of the poor against a unjust, unequal and increasingly repressive system.

Election Manifesto
 
As an independent candidate for Ward 12, I cannot promise you the world. What I can promise is that I will be a councillor who is answerable to you, the Ward 12 voter. The idea is simple but radical: politics should not be about top-down plans where leaders decide what your problems are for you, get your vote and then proceed to do whatever they want to. Democracy must be about the people it claims to represent. Politics is not some magic code spoken only by some elite squad of professionals: it belongs to you. This is about people talking together and working things out.
 
What I will do:
- If elected I will do everything in my power to ensure transparency, including putting the minutes of municipal meetings on Twitter and Facebook.
- Ensure that I represent the ward and its people. I will be available and open to the public, not hidden in a fortified municipal office.
- Do everything in my capacity to use this position as a platform for direct democracy. To this end, I will facilitate the holding of monthly free and open public meetings where we can meet face to face and discuss problems and figure out ways to resolve them. As far as legally permissible, I will also put all voting issues on Facebook and Twitter for the wards residents and will also publically justify each vote I take.
- Sign a recall policy to ensure that I can immediately be removed if I fail to meet the criteria set by you the voter. A figurehead’s leadership is only legitimate so long as they are supported by their electorate.
- I will also only accept a living wage as councillor and will put half my monthly salary back into the communities in our proximity, with an eye to benefiting, in the most appropriate and relevant manner, those who are unable to meet their basic needs with dignity. This injection of funds into the communities will be done in such a manner as to avoid self-congratulatory smugness, understanding that the poor are in most instances poor for systemic reasons beyond their control.
- Actively create a space for the political representation of Rhodes students, and foster strong and enduring relationships between Rhodes and the broader Grahamstown community.
What I will not do:
- Make vacuous and impossible promises about service delivery, change, a better life for all or working together rather than for you, for the sake of votes.
- Use this ward as a ladder to become a professional politician.
- Be answerable to any party line, taking orders handed down from distant offices in Cape Town or

Leave Cutting Edge Alone

On the 28th April 2011 the SABC television programme Cutting Edge screened a programme on life in Grahamstown. The title of the story was ‘bucket of shame’. In Grahamstown there are vast areas that continue to use the bucket system to shit seventeen years after democracy.

People are shitting in buckets and plastic bags in Ndancama, a township that was erected in 1972. The few RDP houses that have been built are crumbling down. The sewerage is not working.

People are also shitting in buckets and plastic bags in eLuxolweni. RDP houses were supposed to be built here in 2010 but the project was never completed and the contractors have abandoned the site even thought thirty houses remain unbuilt. The quality of the work on the houses that were built is shocking and the sewerage is not working.

In the Sun City shack settlement, founded in 1982, and the Transit Camp, RDP houses are supposed to be being built but the emerging contractors are struggling to complete the project due to government delaying the payments.

My brother Sizakele Maxhegwana (his number is 046 – 637 0587) used to work as a casual worker, collecting the buckets full of shit. When we witnessed the unpleasant working conditions we advised him to stop working. No medical support was given. We felt that the work was hazardous to his health.

The Cutting Edge show on Grahamstown was carefully researched and it told the truth. Workers were interviewed and they narrated their unpleasant working conditions. Residents were interviewed as well and they told their stories about the indignities and dangers that come from not having access to proper toilets.

All these devastating ills are emerging from a Municipality that is rotten at the base. The Mayor is personally indebted to the Municipality for an amount of not less than R60 000.

In the 2010/2011 Financial year the Makana Municipality could not account for an amount of R19 million.

In the 2009/2010 Financial year the very same Makana Municipality could not account for R24 million.

Old ladies are shitting in plastic bags while millions of rand cannot be accounted for! This is disgraceful.

Since the Cutting Edge show on Grahamstown was screened we have witnessed a lot of anxiety from both the municipality and the ruling party. Some senior members of the ruling party accused us of paying SABC, Cutting Edge in particular, for screening what they called “a right wing agenda that seeks to destabilise ANC ahead of the local government elections”. An employee of the municipality publicly accused us of being drunk with wine that we get from reactionary white academics. The local ANC said the Luthuli house is looking at the video and that both UPM and SABC “shall shit bricks”. Zandie Mahlahla, a senior member of the ANC, publicly threatened me on the campus of Rhodes University. She said that I am “going to be killed and be buried in the township”. She closed the way of our Publicity Secretary Xola Mali. She just stood like a zombie.

We have now learnt that the Makana Municipality has taken South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA). This is another signal of the death of democracy in South Africa. It is another signal that corruption is entrenched in our society and that who ever seeks to expose it we be met by all kinds of hostilities and intimidations. It is another signal that the party that once aimed to be a national liberation movement is now a means to private accumulation and top down social control.

After what happened to Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road and Pemary Ridge in Durban in 2009 and the Landless People’s Movement in eTwatwa on the East Rand in 2010 no autonomous poor people’s organisation can afford to ignore public death threats from the ANC.

Now that the ANC has openly declared its tensions to be able to censor the media we should not see this attempt to intimidate journalists as an isolated instance.

It is clear that the Municipality can not prove

· Distortion: Nothing is being exaggerated in this programme. It is a fact that our people use the bucket system to shit. It is a fact that our municipality is corrupt. The workers told the truth when they narrated their unpleasant working conditions
· Material Omission: I wonder what sort of defence of such appalling conditions that our people continue to endure after 17 years of “democracy” could be claimed to be a ‘material omission’?
· Summarisation: The summary presented in the show presented the reality of the lives of our people in a very fair manner.


The real problem here for the ANC is the screening of a programme on the bucket system on the eve of local government elections. The real problem here is that local authorities do not want to be exposed as corrupt. The real problem here is a political party that is so obsessed with power that anything that threatens their government must just be suppressed and vanquished.


The ANC is silent when we suffer day in and day out. The ANC can ignore our people for seventeen years while we shit in plastic bags and buckets. But when we speak up they jump into action and threaten to kill and to make us shit bricks. They are very efficient and effective when they want to be. They do not leave us to suffer because they have a capacity problem. They leave us to suffer because they want to leave us to suffer.

On the day of the hearing against Cutting Edge the people of different areas still using buckets’ will protest outside Makana Municipality Hall. We will dump all the shit in front of the Town Hall because that is where it belongs.

We are sick and tired of being dehumanized by the ruling power elite. We are fed up of giving and giving and not getting anything, but bullshit. We are told that it is our sacred, national and revolutionary duty to put our crosses next to their name in the IEC’s boxes. But they have no interest in allowing us to put our shit in toilets.

If our lives and voices matter, of which they should, the Municipality must drop the case against Cutting Edge immediately and focus on eradicating the bucket system, fighting corruption and servicing the people with basic social rights.

Leave Cutting Edge Alone!

Yours truly;

Ayanda Kota

UPM – Chairperson

078 6256 46

Vote for Chris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bied38bcYc

Chris campaigning for direct democracy

Christopher Bryden Mc Michael Election Manifesto

Christopher Bryden Mc Michael

Election Manifesto

As an independent candidate for Ward 12, I cannot promise you the world. What I can promise is that I will be a councillor who is answerable to you, the Ward 12 voter. The idea is simple but radical: politics should not be about top-down plans where leaders decide what your problems are for you, get your vote and then proceed to do whatever they want to. Democracy must be about the people it claims to represent. Politics is not some magic code spoken only by some elite squad of professionals: it belongs to you. This is about people talking together and working things out.

What I will do:
- If elected I will do everything in my power to ensure transparency,including putting the minutes of municipal meetings on Twitter and Facebook.
- Ensure that I represent the ward and its people. I will be available and open to the public, not hidden in a fortified municipal office.
- Do everything in my capacity to use this position as a platform for direct democracy. To this end, I will facilitate the holding of monthly free and open public meetings where we can meet face to face and discuss problems and figure out ways to resolve them. As far as legally permissible, I will also put all voting issues on Facebook and Twitter for the wards residents and will also publically justify each vote I take.
- Sign a recall policy to ensure that I can immediately be removed if I fail to meet the criteria set by you the voter. A figurehead’s leadership is only legitimate so long as they are supported by their electorate.
- Only accept a living wage as councillor and will put half my monthly salary back into the community.
- Actively create a space for the political representation of Rhodes students, and foster strong and enduring relationships between Rhodes and the broader Grahamstown community.
What I will not do:
- Make vacuous and impossible promises about service delivery, change, a better life for all or working together rather than for you, for the sake of votes.
- Use this ward as a ladder to become a professional politician.
- Be answerable to any party line, taking orders handed down from distant offices in Cape Town or Johannesburg.