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