The Communists don’t feature as a force of any kind in opinion polls and when it has tried its luck in local by-elections it has been routed, at times struggling to get even a handful of votes. All indications are that it will have zero impact in the local elections
Xenophobia offers a simple but misleading explanation for a complex crisis. It reframes mass unemployment, failing public services and weak governance as a question of belonging
Countries around the world are increasingly turning against Israel and its aggression in the Middle East. South Africa’s unions and citizens must join in solidarity with Palestinians
Xenophobia is festering across the world. In South Africa it carries a dangerous legitimacy, cloaked in the language of liberation, and now embodied in open fascism of Operation Dudula
In collaboration with crooks, political mafias have emerged in which private fortunes are being built on plundered public wealth
UN report finds discrimination against women in land and housing programmes
Organisations such as South Africa’s Abahlali baseMjondolo, Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement and the Diggers in England’s 17th century have faced violent repression from the authorities
Ratepayers and activists sided with the protesters who were excluded from the meeting because of a last-minute switch to a much smaller venue
Murder and fear stalk eKhenana shack dwellers in Cato Manor
South Africa is a terrifyingly violent country, but giving the police licence to kill can only make things worse
The shack dwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, in a mass meeting recalled and expelled senior members who made a deal with a funeral association linked to Jacob Zuma and VBS Bank
The political strategy of the socialist shack dwellers’ movement is grounded in two decades of activism against oppression and for land
There are good reasons why a social movement would back an opportunistic political party
The large socialist shack dwellers’ movement, in its bid to oust the ANC, may face the prospect of the Economic Freedom Fighters going into a coalition with the uMkhonto weSizwe party in KwaZulu-Natal
Abahlali has previously backed the Democratic Alliance and the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party
In this fourth episode of The Last Afternoon in the Garden we go back to the communal garden one last time to reflect on everything that has happened. We seek out experts to try and explain the violence and confront a person from the past who has a different version of events.
In this third episode of The Last Afternoon in the Garden we are struck by incredible tragedy, but everyone involved pulls together, gets sensible and builds a strategy so they can win.
In this second episode of The Last Afternoon in the Garden we get deeper into the work of Mbale Kubheka, the determined attorney who is working to get a conviction for the assassination of Ayanda Ngila.
My investigation started as looking into an assassination, but became about land ownership in South Africa. I became increasingly aware of what it takes to achieve even small victories against powerful, established forces.
Ayanda Ngila was assassinated in the Ekhenana communal garden in Durban, South Africa, on the 8th of March, 2022. Ayanda was 30 years old and shot in broad daylight in the middle of the afternoon. He was fixing a water pipe in front of women and children and as he went down he yelled for […]
Amílcar Cabral was assassinated 50 years ago today. His thought, which sometimes arrived in South Africa via a circuitous route, speaks to our current crisis with undiminished power.
Excluded from power in the ruling party, Cosatu and the SACP need to rethink their strategy
Cosatu, Numsa, Abahlali baseMjondolo and SACP can bring a pro-worker movement
The government must act to protect members of shack dwellers’ movement from violence and harassment
Over the past 15 years, 24 leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the largest independent social movement in South Africa, have been assassinated
The field of such NGOs is crowded but who and what are they holding to account and who are they mollycoddling?
Members of social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo allege that the state monitors their phones and emails, tracking their movements and putting them in constant danger
In the face of climate change, inadequate urban planning in eThekwini exacerbates flooding and poor road maintenance in KwaZulu-Natal and the rest of South Africa affects food security
Bongamusa Manqele was shot from behind while running from the police
The past is helpful in understanding the predatory and violent nature of political factionalism in the province. But it doesn’t answer the question of how to fix it.
Desmond D’Sa, winner of the coveted Goldman Environmental Prize in 2014, tells Paddy Harper how being forcibly removed from his home at the age of 10 taught him to fight for his rights
The City of Cape Town tacitly condones it when wealthy landowners behave illegally, something that is not the case if you’re poor