[p2p-research] Fwd: [Commoning] the commons and the men with guns

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Pithouse <indianocean77 at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:16 PM
Subject: [Commoning] the commons and the men with guns
To: Commoning <commoning at lists.wissensallmende.de>


Greetings to all of you.

I ended my contributions to our wonderful discussions in the castle by
saying that we should remember that similar discussions were happening
elsewhere but under different conditions. I said that they may be illumanted
by a candle rather than a chandelier but that many  of the same issues were
being taken up. What I did not safe is that it is not safe for everyone to
have the sort of discussions that we so enjoyed in the castle.

If you have not heard Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shack dwellers movement of
which I spoke often at Crotoff, has been attacked in the Kennedy Road
settlement by an armed mob chanting ethnic slogans and backed, fully, by the
ANC. Many were beaten and two were killed. As the community defended itself
spontaneously two of the attackers were also killed - with their own
weapons. The police refused to intervene and then arrested eight of the
local Abahlali leaders in the settlement on murder charges. Most of these
who were arrested were in fact at a dance performance in another part of the
city at the time. The others, including S'bu Zikode who some of you know
something about, had their homes destroyed and had to flee the settlement.
ANC politicians and the police were present while the houses were destroyed.

The settlement is now controlled by an armed pro ANC group who have the full
backing of the police and the party. Abahlali are banned from the
settlement, which they were elected to lead, on the pain of death. At least
a thousand people have fled and many are sleeping rough.

This will all be terribly familiar to those of you who know something about
the struggles of popular movements in places like Brazil, Mexico or Nigeria.
For us this is very familiar from the 1980s when the apartheid state
employed these tactics but none of us expected to see this in South Africa
after apartheid. It came out of the blue. We are totally shocked and really
don't have the resources to deal with it - we are struggling with basic
things like accommodation and food for the displaced. We are also struggling
with the organised propoganda from the state. The media has been told that
the settlement has been 'liberated from criminals'. The ANC are openly
celebrating the 'liberation' of Kennedy Road and are threatening to arrest
S'bu Zikode too. They are calling the movement 'criminals' and, at the same
time, saying that the human rights entrenched in the post-apartheid order
are giving criminals a free ride and that police need to be given permission
to shoot to kill. Our criminals are your terrorists - people who are defined
as being outside of the protection given to those that count.

Please have a look at the Abahlali website - http:/www.abahlali.org - and
share the information there widely. There is a particularly strong statement
from Bishop Phillip - who struggled with Steven Biko and who has, in the
face of this attack, decided to cross the river into open opposition to the
state once more.

Please forgive typos and incoherence. None of us have really slept since
Saturday.

Richard


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