Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, , in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which primarily campaigns for land, housing and dignity, to democratise society from below and against xenophobia.
The movement grew out of a road blockade organised from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and has since expanded to other parts of South Africa. As of October 2022 it claims to have more than 115,000 members in good standing in 81 branches in four of the nine provinces of South Africa - KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng.Abahlali baseMjondolo demands justice for its members lost to “the politics of blood” , Peoples' Dispatch, 3 October 2022
It has links with similar social movements elsewhere in the world, such as the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil. It has faced sustained, and at times violent, repression. More than twenty of its leaders have been assassinated, something it blames on the ruling African National Congress.The bloody battle for land and rights in Cato Manor, Greg Arde & Benita Enoch, GroundUp, 11 October 2022More than twenty activists killed in eThekwini battle for land, Paddy Harper, Mail & Guardian, 13 October 2022Abahlali BaseMjondolo: Living Politics , Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, September 2022
The assassinations of Abahlali baseMjondolo members and leaders has been noted by international organisations such as Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International Report 2022/23: The state of the world’s human rights, 27 March 2023 and was discussed at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2022.UN member states call for the protection of SA’s human rights defenders and whistle-blowers , Simphiwe Sidu and Bongani Ngwenya, Daily Maverick, 21 November 2022
Academic work on Abahlali baseMjondolo stresses that it is non-professionalised (i.e. its leaders are non-salaried), independent of NGO control, autonomous from political organisations and party politicsexamining the refusal of electoral politics in Abahlali , Raj PatelAnalysing Political Subjectivities: Naming the Post-Development State in Africa Today by Michael Neocosmos, Journal of Asian & African Studies, pp.534–553, Vol. 45, No. 5, October 2010 and democratic.Settlement Informality: The importance of understanding change, formality and land and the informal economy, Marie Huchzermeyer, 2008Nigel C. Gibson, Living Fanon: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2011: London, Palgrave Macmillan) Writing in 2009, SJ Cooper-Knock described the movement as "neurotically democratic, impressively diverse and steadfastly self-critical".Symbol of hope silenced , Sarah Cooper-Knock, Daily News, 13 November 2009 Ercument Celik writes that "I experienced how democratically the movement ran its meetings."
A 2006 article in The Times stated that the movement "has shaken the political landscape of South Africa." Academic Peter Vale writes that Abahlali baseMjondolo is "along with the Treatment Action Campaign the most effective grouping in South African civil society."Peter Vale – Insight into history of SA an imperative 2010/04/09 Daily Dispatch. Dispatch.co.za Khadija Patel has written that the movement "is at the forefront of a new wave of mass political mobilisation".Shack dwellers take the fight to eThekwini – and the ANC takes note , Khadija Patel, The Daily Maverick, 16 September 2013
History
In 2001, the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, which governs the city of Durban and surrounding places including Pinetown, embarked on a slum clearance program. Shack settlements were demolished and there was a refusal to provide basic services (for example electricity and sanitation) to existing settlements on the grounds that all shack settlements were now temporary. Following these demolitions, some shack dwellers were simply left homeless and others were subjected to forced removals to the rural areas outside the city.
Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) formed out of a series of land and housing protests in 2005.Social Movement Media in Post-Apartheid South Africa, by Wendy Willems,Encyclopaedia of Social Movement Media (Ed. John D. H. Downing, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 2011) The Abahlali baseMjondolo experience exposes South Africa’s shrinking democratic space, Thato Masiangoako, Daily Maverick, 18 October 2022 Firstly, 750 people from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in Durban blockaded the N2 freeway for four hours with a burning barricade. There were 14 arrests. The group's original work from 2005 onwards was primarily committed to opposing demolitions and forced removals and to struggling for good land and quality housing in the cities. In most instances, this involved a demand for shack settlements to be upgraded or for new houses to be built close to where the existing settlements were. AbM argued that basic services such as water, electricity and toilets should be immediately provided to shack settlements while land and housing are negotiated and also engaged in mass actions providing access to water and electricity. AbM quickly had a considerable degree of success in stopping evictions and forced removals, winning the right for new shacks to be built and gaining access to basic services.Durban breaks new ground in participatory democracy, Imraan Buccus . Thoughtleader.co.za. Retrieved on 4 December 2011.
The United Nations expressed serious concerns in early 2008 about the treatment of shack dwellers in Durban. In late 2008, the AbM President S'bu ZikodeSouth Africa's new apartheid? , Riz Khan, Al Jazeera, 23 November 2010 announced a deal with the eThekwini Municipality which would see services being provided to 14 settlements and tenure security and formal housing to three.Speech by S'bu Zikode . Africafiles.org (14 December 2008). Retrieved on 4 December 2011. The municipality confirmed this deal in February 2009.The Work of violence:a timeline of armed attacks at Kennedy Road , Kerry Chance School of Development Studies Research Report, 83, July 2010.] AbM has been involved in considerable conflict with the eThekwini Municipality and has undertaken numerous protests and legal actions. Its members have been beaten and its leaders arrested by the South African Police Service in Sydenham, Durban.Niren Tolsi, 'I was punched, beaten' , Mail & Guardian, 16 September 2007 AbM has often made claims of severe police harassment, including torture. On a number of occasions, these claims have been supported by church leaders and human rights organisations. AbM has successfully sued the police for unlawful assaults on its members.SA police caught dead to right , by Niren Tolsi, Mail & Guardian,26 April 2013 In October 2009, it won a court case on appeal which declared the KZN Slums Act unconstitutional.Landmark judgment for the poor , Niren Tolsi, Mail & Guardian, 18 October 2009]. Mg.co.za (18 October 2009). Retrieved on 4 December 2011.Ruling in Abahlali case lays solid foundation to build on , Marie Huchzermeyer, Business Day, 4 November 2009 There was acute conflict between AbM and the Cape Town City Council in 2009. This centred on the Macassar Village Land Occupation. There was similar conflict in 2013 around the Marikana Land Occupation.'Marikana' UnFreedom Day land occupation ends in violent Workers' Day eviction , by Jared Sacks, The Daily Maverick, 2 May 2013 There was also concern about the possibility of evictions linked to the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Abahlali baseMjondolo is the largest shack dweller's organisation in South AfricaWhat's the Deal with the Toyi-Toyi , by Lisa Nevitt,Cape Town Magazine, November 2010 and campaigns to improve the living conditions of poor people'The State of Resistance: Popular struggles in the Global South' edited by Francois Polet pp.139–140, McMillian 2007 and to democratise society from below.
Campaigns
Since 2005, the movement has carried out a series of large scale marches, engaged in direct action for various kinds, including such land occupations,Occupy Durban , AbM Press Statement, December 2011 arranging self organised water and electricity connections and making tactical use of the courts.Civic Action and Legal Mobilisation: the Phiri water meters case , Jackie Dugard, Wits University, 2010Victory for the Forgotten Shack Dwellers , Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, 19 September 2012Judgment a victory for 38 families , Daily News, 20 September 2012A Durban shack dweller's movement tells of ANC's woes , Khadija Patel, The Daily Maverick, 4 October 2013 The movement has often made anti-capitalist statements,'Abahlali baseMjondolo – The South African Shack Dwellers Movement' by Suzy Subways, 2008 . Champnetwork.org. Retrieved on 4 December 2011. has called for "a living communism", Text of Speech at Diakonia Economic Justice Forum – Please follow the link to the PDF for the full content of the speechPolitics of Grieving , by Drucilla Cornell, Social Text, 2011 and has demanded the expropriation of private land for public housing.
Campaigning for well-situated urban land for public housingSouth Africa's shack-dwellers fight back , by Patrick Kingsely, The Guardian, 24 September 2012 and has occupied unused government land.'Black Boers' clear townships by force by Ruth Maclean, The Times, London, 22 November 2013Despite the state's violence, our fight to escape the mud and fire of South Africa's slums will continue , S'bu Zikode, The Guardian, 11 November 2013 is central to its work, along with opposition to evictions.Serving the public interest in Cairo's urban development , by Jessie McClelland, al Masryalyoum, 12 May 2010 The movement has often used the phrase 'The Right to the City'The Abahlali baseMjondolo Shack Dwellers Movement and the Right to the City in South Africa by Charlotte Mathivet and Shelley Buckingham, Habitat International Coalition, 2009 to insist that the location of housing is critically important and it demands that shack settlements are upgraded where they are and that people are not relocated to out of town developments.There is reference to some of the legal actions against evictions in the 2008 report on housing rights in Durban Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions (Geneva) which is online at .
It has also organised numerous land occupations.
The movement also campaigns for the provision of basic services to shack settlements and for equal access to school education for children from poor families.South African Social Movement campaigns against School Exclusions , Teacher Solidarity, 9 January 2011 Shack fires are a major problem in South Africa - between 2003 and 2008, there was an average of ten shack fires every day and someone perishing every second day - and the movement also campaigns against the living conditions that keep people at risk of fires.
It has organised a number of mutual aid projects: crèches, kitchens and vegetable gardensSeeds of rebellion , by Albert Buhr, The Times, 15 August 2010 and runs political education projectsBreaking the Logjam in the South African Left, Imraan Buccus, CounterPunch, April 27, 20203 through its 'University of Abahlali baseMjondolo,Transforming the basis of knowledge , Budd Hall, University World News, 25 May 2013 including regular seminars.Nigel Gibson, 'Upright and free: Fanon in South Africa, from Biko to the shackdwellers' movement (Abahlali baseMjondolo)', Social Identities (Volume 14, Issue 6 November 2008, pages 683 – 715) It runs the Frantz Fanon School, a political school, in the eKhenana Commune.Abahlali baseMjondolo and the fight of the organized poor against a hostile justice system , Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch, 6 February 2023