Thirty years after the ANC took power, defeating the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, the party decisively lost its majority in the parliamentary elections. How could this happen?
South Africa
Tomorrow We Will Celebrate Women’s Day: A statement from: Abahlali baseMjondolo Women’s League
August 8, 2023On Aug. 9 we honor women who gave their lives in struggle. We cannot continue to accept the violence that is all around us. We need to build a peaceful society in which there is full equality between men and women, a society in which land, wealth and power are shared.
Queer Notes: May-June 2023
June 8, 2023Takes up: Uganda’s President Museveni who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023, which includes the death penalty; That supporters of drag story time at Middlesex County Library in Parkhill, Ontario, Canada, protected the storytellers and attendees from 40 anti-gay protesters; and Namibia’s Supreme Court ruled that the Ministry’s lack of recognition of same-sex marriages conducted in other countries undermines the dignity and equality of the appellants.
Lindokuhle Mnguni assassinated
September 24, 2022Abahlali baseMjondolo denounces the assassination of Lindokuhle Mnguni, discusses his character and activity as an intellectual/militant from below, and calls for solidarity as the struggle continues.
Honoring Women’s Day in South Africa
August 6, 2022On Women’s Day, August 9 in South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo will celebrate all the women whose names are not remembered in the official celebrations who struggled in community organisations and trade unions and held families together under a brutal system of oppression.
KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng are burning, we need to build a just peace
July 25, 2021The shackdwellers’ organization addresses riots in South Africa and the underlying hunger, poverty and corruption, and the need to oppose xenophobia and tribalism and work towards a world in which each person counts as a person.
Abahlali baseMjondolo’s Deputy President arrested on trumped-up charges
May 14, 2021The arrest of Abahlali baseMjondolo Deputy President, Mqapheli (George) Bonono, on trumped-up charges is related to the longstanding attempts by the ANC (African National Congress) to crush the eKhenena Occupation in Cato Manor, an occupation that is now a working commune run on a democratic basis with a co-operative managing the farming.
World in View: Africa in the crosshairs of world imperialism
May 8, 2021The capitalist world remains in a deep crisis and now faces a crossroads. U.S., Chinese, and European imperialism all have aging populations and mounting debt . They need to find new sources of labor and natural resources to plunder. Africa, with the youngest population of any major region and abundant mineral wealth, is a target.
World in View: Academic tragedies
A wildfire that broke out April 18, 2021, forced the evacuation of the University of Cape Town, South Africa’s campus and destroyed a major part of the library. The Jagger Reading Room housed thousands of historic African films, letters, and manuscripts, many relating to the anti-apartheid struggle. Also lost were thousands of indigenous artworks and over 85,000 books.
Stop border closures! — Abahlali
January 17, 2021Abahlali baseMjondolo calls on all to oppose border closures and xenophobia and build solidarity among the oppressed.
Support Hlengiwe Gasa
September 29, 2020In an attempt to intimidate Hlengiwe Gasa for leading a peaceful march on July 25 protesting the terrifying levels of violence against women in the community of uMthwalume in South Africa, she was arrested and charged with violating Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Women worldwide, September-October 2020
August 28, 2020Diana Russell remembered; Hawaii’s Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for COVID-19; Turkish women protest moves to withdraw from Istanbul Convention; women social health workers strike in India; women contest stolen election in Belarus; demands for release of Sanaa Seif in Egypt.
South African shackdweller solidarity with George Floyd protesters
July 1, 2020A statement of solidarity with the U.S. movement against racism and police brutality by the shackdwellers movement in South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo.
COVID-19 among South African shackdwellers
April 29, 2020Many of the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the virus in South Africa assume that everyone lives in a house with water and sanitation, and at no risk of being destroyed by the state. But millions of us continue to live in shacks of indignity.
Capitalism is the real pandemic
April 6, 2020Neither the coronavirus nor the ongoing climate changes are merely “acts of nature.” Rather both have emerged at this moment because humanity is grounded—entrapped—in the economic-social-political system(s) of capital/capitalism. It is the behemoth that we must examine: the monster we must free ourselves from.
Coronavirus: A Call for Solidarity in a Time of Crisis from Abahlali baseMjondolo
April 1, 2020Shack dwellers, and other poor people, including street traders, casual workers and undocumented migrants, have not been taken into consideration when it comes to the prevention of the coronavirus, or included in decision-making about the crisis.
World in view: South Africa cuts
March 6, 2020South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa plans to cut the wages of public sector workers. He has come to represent the contradictions of post-apartheid society.
Women Worldwide, November-December 2019
November 17, 2019Laws against abortion and sex outside of marriage in Morocco; violence against women in South Africa; Ontario’s Provincial Police will no longer release the genders of crime suspects and victims, and abortion laws in Mexico.
Abahlali baseMjondolo speaks out for immigrants
April 4, 2019South African shackdwellers state: “We believe that there is only one human race and that the borders created by colonial rule should be irrelevant to our project to build solidarity among the oppressed and to ensure that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.”
Capitalism’s failures, and the struggles against it
December 26, 2018We post this Dec. 24, 2018, commentary by Mohammed Elnaiem as a discussion article which begins: “On these holidays, we mourn for the Kurds in Syria who hopelessly fear an upcoming Turkish invasion, we mourn for the yellow vests in France who rise up in an empire built on colonial wealth but which continues to make destitute its working and unemployed poor…”
Readers’ Views, November-December 2018
December 14, 2018Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars
Landless people are attacked in South Africa
July 25, 2018Landless people in Tembisa near Johannesburg, promised housing by the municipality, occupied empty land and put up houses since February, only to rebuild them with each destruction and eviction by police.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2018, Part 1
March 11, 2018Readers’ Views on Women’s Marches; Iran in Revolt; Around the Globe; Race and Freedom; Queer Oppression; Why Read N&L?
Baby Jayden Khoza, murdered in South Africa
June 30, 2017Baby Jayden Khoza, two weeks old, lost his life during the brutal police assault on the Foreman Road community in Clare Estate, Durban, on May 29, 2017.
World In View: South Africa protests
May 15, 2017Protesters in South Africa agitate against President Jacob Zuma, the ruling African National Congress, the high unemployment rate and elections, and in support of the poor and workers.
Youth in Action, January-February 2017
February 3, 2017Student journalists at the University of Kentucky targeted for publicizing a professor’s sexual misconduct towards a student; protests against racism at Cornell University; Maryland middle school students’ creative protest against sexist dress codes; Fees Must Fall Movement in South Africa continues shutting down Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
Youth in Action: November-December 2016
November 30, 2016International look at youth activism including the Fees Must Fall movement in South Africa; students at Boston College rallying against an anti-gay atmosphere; the CDC leaving out Transgender students in a survey on suicide; and Native American youth protesting polluted water in the Klamath Strait Drain in Oregon.
Women WorldWide: November-December 2016
November 26, 2016Women’s news worldwide including a march against rape culture in cities in Canada; a march across Israel for peace by Israeli and Palestinian women; and South African teenagers challenging health clinics to give young women contraceptive information.
Landless women meet
September 12, 2016Abahlali baseMjondolo Women’s League South Africa commemorates the 60th anniversary of women who marched against apartheid Pass laws and for gender and racial equality as they plan for future economic development for women.
I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.
May 6, 2016Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Youth In Action: March-April 2016
March 18, 2016Students protesting racism at US campuses get some wins; student movement The FeesMustFall student movement at South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand wins a temporary freeze on fees, call for campus jobs to remain on campus and making it more possible for more poor and working class students to be able to afford university; University of Georgia students arrested for calling on the university to grant in-state tuition for undocumented youth; University of Missouri students continue to agitate for racial justice by calling for more Black faculty.
Youth in Action, January-February 2016
January 26, 2016Colorado student-teacher-parent walkouts lead to recall of reactionary school board members; Oxford students campaign to remove images of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes; student activism sweeps South Africa.
World in View: South African protests
December 10, 2015Students at University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg opposed a proposed 10,5% fee hike, and defying some student leaders to march on ANC headquarters, demanding no increase. Students at University of Cape Town had in April forced removal of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes from campus.
World in View: Charleston terrorism
July 8, 2015The racist murder of nine people at the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., is the characteristic U.S. form of terrorism, directed against the expression of Black self-determination.
Refugees risk death fleeing war, terror and climate chaos
June 28, 2015Worldwide, the refugee crisis is unprecedented and is fueled by war, terrorism and climate change. The worldwide response is paltry with country after country turning away or deporting frantic and desperate people in search of a safe haven.
30 Years Later: AIDS activism and ACT UP Chicago
May 9, 2015ACT UP Chicago grew out of an organization that began in 1984 of Dykes and Gay Men Against Racism and Repression. We became an AIDS activism organization, first called Chicago For Our Rights, then by spring Chicago for AIDS Rights. We pushed for lowering the prices of AIDS drugs, and the release of more of them. By October and the national action in Washington, D.C., we had become ACT UP Chicago. AIDS is a global issue today. This time around, I’d like to see an AIDS activist movement that’s organized by poor, working-class, mostly people of color.
South Africa bloodies Black workers
April 30, 2015Durban, South Africa—On April 8 Abahlali baseMjondolo supported a march against xenophobia organized by our comrades in the Congolese Solidarity Campaign together with the Somali Association of South Africa and other migrant organizations. There was a permit for the march and yet the police would not allow it to go ahead.
South Africans: don’t vote for messiahs!
May 18, 2014From UPM: The formation of the Black Consciousness Movement in this country was a realization by Black people that we could no longer stand and be spectators of the game we are supposed to be playing. This election season continues to demonstrate the relevance of Biko’s teachings.
For Nelson Mandela
March 4, 2014“For Nelson Mandela,” a poem by Paul Knopf.
Illegal evictions sully Mandela’s legacy
March 3, 2014Just when Mandela has passed, the African National Congress is not even ashamed of the lives the poor are living, or the fact that the residents of Cato Crest will spend Christmas on the street.
Deadly South African evictions
November 16, 2013Deadly South African evictions
November-December 2013 News & Letters online
November 11, 2013The new November-December 2013 issue of News & Letters is online.
News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 6
November – December 2013
Lead
The Syrian Revolution as the test of world politics
On Aug. 21 the genocidal regime of Bashar al-Assad murdered over a thousand civilians, mostly women and children, with sarin gas in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta. [=>]
A view after Marikana
October 2, 2013What have we learned from the Marikana massacre of South African mine workers?
Violence ‘normalized’
May 17, 2013We are living in contradictory times, especially when it comes to women’s struggle for freedom. On the one hand you have a Women’s Liberation Movement that has never been more radical, unified and global. On the other hand there is more repression, and the violence is more brutal and deadly than ever before.
Past time to stop rape in South Africa
March 31, 2013We do not believe that the state is taking the rape and murder of Thandiswa Qubuda seriously. The state holds poor people in contempt. We are just voting fodder to them. We are not human beings to them. It is clear that the leadership in the struggle against rape will have to come from below. It is time for real action against rape.
From South Africa: Hunger games real for unemployed
February 17, 2013Capetown, South Africa—During the Christmas break we received the most shocking news from KwaZulu-Natal. The provincial traffic department advertised 90 positions for trainee traffic officers. More than 150,000 people applied, most of them between the ages of 18 and 20.
On Christmas Day 34,000 people received text messages saying that they had been shortlisted for these [=>]
Readers’ Views, September-October 2012, Part 2
October 16, 2012From the September-October 2012 issue of News & Letters:
Readers’ Views, Part 2
REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM DISCUSSION CONTINUES
The discussion article on “Revolutionary Syndicalism” (July-August N&L) reminds me of when it was considered a major force of revolution. There was a syndicalist party, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), that thought we could vote in socialism. [=>]
Solidarity with South Africa’s miners
October 2, 2012Photo by David M’Oto for News & Letters
Oakland, Calif.—On Aug. 24, 100 activists converged on Oscar Grant Plaza to express solidarity with the South African miners’ struggle in Marikana and outrage over the police slaughter of 34 striking workers at Lonmin Platinum Mine there. Signs read: “This Was Not An Aberration” and “Capitalism [=>]
Neville Alexander
September 22, 2012World in View
by Gerry Emmett
We mourn the passing of South African revolutionary and scholar Neville Alexander. Born in the rural Eastern Cape, Alexander moved to Cape Town in 1953 to attend university. There he was introduced to revolutionary ideas. As he said, “I was forced to grapple seriously with the works of Marx and [=>]
South African miners
September 20, 2012World in View
by Gerry Emmett
The Marikana platinum mine massacre of 34 miners, near Rustenburg, South Africa, has outraged the revolutionary working class. That outrage is compounded by the government’s decision to charge 270 survivors with the murders of their fellow workers, who were shot by police. The workers were dragged to court, many still bloodstained [=>]