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Social movements
RSS FeedAfrica: Motivations for slum dweller social movement participation
2012-07-04, Issue 592
This paper examines what motivates the participation of African slum dwellers in urban social movement activities, through a case study of grassroots mobilisation around evictions in Kurasini ward, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study shows that, contrary to the expectations of movement leaders, property owners were significantly more likely than renters to participate in a risky and time-consuming mobilisation effort. The study identifies three factors that favoured owner participation: the nature of expected payoffs from participation; greater belief in their efficacy of action; and greater connection to place.
South Africa: Ratanda residents rekindle Heidelberg protests
2012-03-20, Issue 578
Hundreds of residents of Ratanda, Heidelberg gathered on the streets on Tuesday 20 March to continue their protest over power cuts and the cost of electricity, Gauteng police said. On Monday, violent service delivery protests in Ratanda were met with police water cannons, stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. In the Western Cape, meanwhile, residents in Grabouw protested over school infrastructure.
Global: Facing the World Water Forum
2012-03-19, Issue 576
The Sixth World Water Forum taking place between 12-17 March in Marseille, France costs $1,000 for participants from wealthy nations, and about $450 for participants from the ‘under-developed countries,’ making the the forum inaccesible to those who come from the countries of the Global South, writes Marcela Olivera for Climate Connections. 'And so it is that every three years those of us who believe this Forum to be illegitimate gather together to denounce it. And every three years, over the course of many months, organizations and movements from around the World come together to hold the Alternative World Water Forum.'
Global: How you can virtually occupy the World Water Forum
2012-03-07, Issue 574
The Council of Canadians, Food and Water Watch, and Focus on the Global South invite you to virtually Occupy the World Water Forum – a corporate trade show aimed at giving the world’s largest water multinationals privileged access to high-level policy making behind closed doors. Many social justice and environmental groups will be in Marseille to denounce the World Water Forum and promote an alternative vision at the Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau (FAME). You can support our protests virtually from anywhere in the world by occupying the World Water Forum online.
Namibia: Indigenous groups protest dam construction and rights abuses
2012-03-05, Issue 572
Namibia’s indigenous Himba and Zemba people of Kaokoland in the far north-west of the country, long thought to be voiceless, isolated and marginalized, are demanding that the Namibian government ends forced land grabbing, halts plans for the Orokawe Dam in the Kunene region, stops interfering in ancestral tribal institutions, provides culturally sensitive schools and allows them to move freely across the border with Angola.
South Africa: March against housing corruption in Shallcross
2012-02-20, Issue 570
'We all know that the provision of housing in Durban has been taken over by corrupt politicians and their friends to make them rich while hundreds of thousands of people in this city continue to live in shacks facing fires, floods, rats and evictions. In Shallcross there are shack dwellers who occupied neglected RDP houses which were built over 2 years ago and then left uncompleted. The residents who have been waiting for more than 17 years for the houses promised to them decided to occupy these houses, including an old granny in her 80 years who lives with her grand children, after a heavy wind had destroyed their shacks last year. Another reason for these occupations has been that the housing officials have allegedly sold some of these houses to people from outside the area including those who do not qualify for the RDP houses such as teachers, nurses and police officers.'
South Africa: Occupy Cape Town distances itself from COSATU
2012-02-05, Issue 568
The Occupy Cape Town movement has distanced itself from a Cosatu event held at Rondebosch Common. 'Our principles clearly state: We do not recognise leaders or celebrity speakers. We are not party political. We are not destructive - we want to protec...
South Africa: Rondebosch common becomes site of battle over inequality
2012-01-30, Issue 567
Scores of people were bundled into police vans on Friday when police forcibly prevented organisations from setting up a planned three-day summit on Jobs, Land and Housing on Rondebosch Common as a means of highlighting inequality in South African soc...
South Africa: About the People's Land! Housing! and Jobs! Summit
2012-01-30, Issue 567
Visit the Take Back the Commons website to read about the People's Land! Housing! and Jobs! Summit that was due to take place 27 - 29 January, but instead led to a number of arrests. The summit was to di...
South Africa: UPM activist released
2012-01-16, Issue 565
A number of South African social movements issued statements following the arrest of Ayanda Kota from the Unemployed People's Movement (UPM) and reports that he had been assaulted while in police custody. Kota has now been released, but statements ab...
South Africa: Poor people’s movements and the law
Speech by S'bu Zikode to a seminar on social movements and the law
2011-12-20, Issue 563
'It is very dangerous for the poor to think that the law will provide all the answers to political questions. It is very dangerous for people to think that they can stop struggling because now they have a lawyer. It is very dangerous for people to al...
South Africa: Occupations currently underway in Hillary, KwaMashu and Pinetown
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
2011-11-28, Issue 559
'As a movement we are struggling to build a society in which there is an economic system where human beings come before profit and a political system in which leaders take direction from below. We are struggling to build a society in which there will...
South Africa: Floods, destruction and despair in the shacks
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release
2011-11-28, Issue 559
'Abahlali welcomes the world in our country, our province and in our city. We also welcome progressive delegates to our homes, our settlements and our flooded shacks. Last night after heavy rain some of our shack settlements were flooded leaving shac...
Egypt: Global consciousness is shifting
2011-09-14, Issue 547
Arguably the repression of activists and journalist by Egypt’s interim military government is a sign of how strong citizens’ movements are and how frightened the regime is of losing power as the country moves toward elections and drafting a new const...
Angola: Democracy protesters arrested
2011-09-05, Issue 546
At least 24 people were arrested for trying to stage a rally calling for more democracy and the resignation of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos. The rally, organized in Luanda by a youth movement, gathered about 200 at Independence Square, i...
Nigeria: Justice in Nigeria now
Gbaramatu women disrupt Chevron operations
2011-09-09, Issue 546
Hundreds of placard-carrying women, from about 10 Gbaramatu communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, laid siege to the project site of Chevron Nigeria Limited at Chanomi Creek and disrupted the laying of pipelines for the...
South Africa: Cape Town backyarders call for Housing MEC’s resignation
2011-07-27, Issue 542
Mandela Park Backyarders say they have 'proof of corruption' in a Khayelitsha housing project and have called for the 'immediate' resignation of Western Cape Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela. The call follows the organisation’s online publ...
South Africa: The smoke that calls: Insurgent citizenship, collective violence and the struggle for a place in the new South Africa
2011-08-01, Issue 542
There are several innovations to the research projects captured in this report. Firstly, it consists of studies of both xenophobic violence and community protests, drawing the links both empirically as one of collective action spawns or mutates into ...
South Africa: Philippi electricity protest rages on
2011-07-24, Issue 540
Residents of a Philippi informal settlement and police have clashed again as protests over electricity supply entered their third day. Three police Nyalas cordoned off the corner of New Eisleben and Sheffield roads on 21 July when protests flared up ...
South Africa: A demand for basic sanitation in Cape Town
An Open Letter to Mayor De Lille from the Social Justice Coalition
2011-06-08, Issue 534
'While many take having a toilet that is clean and safe for granted, it remains a luxury for a great deal of our most vulnerable communities. Approximately 10.5 million people in South Africa still do not have access to basic sanitation services. Acc...
Global: Social movements present demands on economy and finance
2011-06-13, Issue 534
Representatives from various organisations in the region and nationally agreed to submit a series of observations and demands to the finance ministers and central bank presidents of the Union of Nations of South America, UNASUR, during the first meet...
South Africa: Survey shows 2011 quiet year for service protests
2011-05-23, Issue 530
Municipal elections appear to have had a dampening impact on service delivery protests, according to research by Municipal IQ, which carries out a Municipal Hotspots Monitor. Municipal IQ reported that there were 10 protests in 2004. This jumped to 3...
South Africa: Bricks, bullets fly in land grab
2011-05-16, Issue 529
An open field in Tafelsig turned into a war zone at the weekend as a group of land invaders pelted police and city law enforcers with rocks and bottles. The officers retaliated by firing rubber bullets and blasting the invaders with a water cannon to...
South Africa: Open Letter to MEC for Human Settlement, M.R Bonginkosi Madikizela
2011-04-14, Issue 525
'Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape has observed with great concern...unlawful activities on demolishing people’s structures and evicting people without any order from the court. This tendency seems to be growing... this undermines the prevention of ...
South Africa: Cape Town protests set to continue
2011-04-18, Issue 525
Residents have vowed to continue their protest against the eviction of a poor family and against Thursday’s (14 April) police brutality that has left three residents seriously injured, says a Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign press statement. Resid...
South Africa: Joe Slovo informal settlement court judgement welcomed
2011-04-04, Issue 523
Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape has welcomed the Joe Slovo Constitutional Court Judgement which was handed down on Thursday last week, which set aside an eviction order granted in June 2009. 'While this is a victory for people of Joe Slovo who did not want to be evicted to Delft, we also note that:...
South Africa: Two lost to shack fires in Grahamstown
2011-03-14, Issue 520
The Unemployed People's Movement (UPM) reports that two people from the eThembeni shack settlement died in a fire. The organisation said the community could not successfully fight the fire on their own as the taps are very few and very far away. The ...
South Africa: Tyres burnt in Cape housing protest
2011-02-09, Issue 516
Black smoke billowed across morning rush hour traffic as angry backyarders in Nyanga blockaded Lansdowne road with burning tyres on Tuesday, forcing commuters to find alternative routes to work.The Backyarders from Nyanga’s Mau-Mau, Old Location and ...
South Africa: The rebellion of the poor
Press Statement by the Unemployed People's Movement, Grahamstown
2011-02-15, Issue 516
'The rebellion of the poor has been spreading from town to town, from squatter camp to squatter camp, since 2004. Last week it arrived in Grahamstown. There is no third force, political party or communist academic behind our struggle. It is oppressio...
South Africa: Homes destroyed, activists arrested
Mandela Park Backyarders Press Release
2011-02-07, Issue 515
Around 09h30 yesterday (4 February), the MEC for Housing Bonginkosi Madikizela, came with police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit. No one consulted with anyone in the community. They came without warning, without the necessary court documents, and de...
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