The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign was a non-racial[1] popular movement[2] made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa.[3][4] It was formed in November 2000[5] with the aim of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.[6][7][8][9]
The movement was the first of the first generation of so-called 'new social movements' to spring up after the end of apartheid and was known for its direct action style militancy, its refusal of all forms of vanguardism, including NGO (Non-Governmental Organisations) authoritarianism.[4][10][11][12] The movement sought to retain its autonomy from NGOs[13] and publicly refused to work with some local NGOs[14] and insisted that the middle class left respect the autonomy of grassroots movements.
The AEC was a founding member of the Poor People's Alliance and, along with the other members of the alliance, refused all electoral politics and encouraged the development of popular power rather than voting for political parties.[12][15][16][17]
The AEC mobilised against the 2008 xenophobic attacks in the areas where it was strong.[18][19][20]
The AEC opposed evictions related to the FIFA 2010 World Cup.[21]
Communities
The AEC is currently an umbrella body for over 10 community organisations,[22] crisis committees, and concerned residents movements who have come together to organise and demand their rights to basic services.[23] The organisations that make up the AEC include but are not limited to:
- Tafelsig Mitchell's Plain
- Blikkiesdorp Informal Committee (Delft)[24]
- The Crossroads Anti-Eviction Campaign (Nyanga)
- The Delft Integrated Network (Delft)
- The Eastridge Anti-Eviction Campaign (Mitchell's Plain)
- The Gugulethu Anti-Eviction Campaign (Gugulethu)
- The Hanover Park Anti-Eviction Campaign (Hanover Park)
- The Mandela Park Backyarders (Khayelitsha)
- Newfields Village Community Representative Committee (Hanover Park)
- Nyanga East Anti-Eviction Campaign (Nyanga)
- The Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign (Delft)
- The Woodridge Anti-Eviction Campaign (Mitchell's Plain)
- Zille-Raine Heights (Parkwood)[22]
Affiliated movements and committees in the Western Cape:
- QQ Section Concerned Residents (Khayelitsha)[25]
- Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape
- Sikhula Sonke Women Farmworkers Union
- Joe Slovo Liberative Residents (Langa)
- Hangberg Solution Seekers Association (Hout Bay)
- KTC Concerned Residents Movement (Nyanga)
- Mitchell’s Plain Concerned Hawkers and Traders Association (Mitchell's Plain)
- Gugulethu Informal Traders (Gugulethu)
- Gatesville Informal Traders Association (Athlone)[22]
Coordinators
The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is an umbrella structure with an executive committee of a chairperson, a vice chairperson, a secretary, a vice secretary, a treasurer, and five regional coordinators.[26] [27]
Activities
The AEC opposes evictions and water and electricity cut-offs[28] on many different levels.[4] Activities range from legal actions that challenge the constitutionality of evictions,[29] to mass mobilisation and popular education initiatives, to organisation and capacity building programs.[8][12] The movement has also confronted local gangs and in July 2012 one of its leading activists, Soraya Nordien, was murdered following threats from gang members.[30]
Campaigns
Since its inception, the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) has called for an end to all evictions and cut-offs of basic services in the Western Cape.[4][31] In 2001, the AEC achieved a 6-month moratorium on all evictions in the Cape Town Unicity.[32][33] Even though the DA had declared the moratorium, illegal evictions continued.[34]
The movement strongly supported the struggle for the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers to resist forced removal to the notorious Blikkiesdorp transit camp and to demand access to decent housing.[35]
No Land! No House! No Vote! is the name of a campaign by autonomous grassroots movements to boycott elections and reject party politics and vote banking in South Africa. In 2009, the Poor People's Alliance voted to boycott the national elections under the No Land! No House! No Vote! Banner.[4][36][37]
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was connected to a large number of evictions in South Africa which many claimed were meant to 'beautify the city'.[38][39][40] The WC-AEC campaigned against all evictions caused by the event. The campaign's hotspots included the anti-gentrification issues in Gympie Street and other parts of Woodstock,[41][42] the national N2 Gateway housing project and its evictions in Joe Slovo and Delft,[43] Sea Point evictions, and evictions in Q-Town next to Athlone Stadium.
The movement is committed to opposing xenophobia and has been particularly active in this regard in Gugulethu[44] where it has set up a forum[45] for these issues to be discussed. According to both the media[46] and the local police[47] the forum has had considerable success in reducing xenophobic hostility. However the movement's anti-xenophobic work has cost it some popular support and resulted in an arson attack on one of the movement's leaders.[48]
The movement produces its own media.[49]
Poor People's Alliance
In September 2008 the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, together with Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Landless People's Movement and the Rural Network (Abahlali baseplasini) formed the Poor People's Alliance.[50][51] The poor people's alliance refused electoral politics under the banner 'No Land! No House! No Vote!'.[12][52] It has been reported that "Nearly 75% of South Africans aged 20-29 did not vote in the 2011 [local government] elections" and that "South Africans in that age group were more likely to have taken part in (sic) violent street protests against the local ANC than to have voted for the ruling party".[53]
Influence
Take Back the Land[54] in Miami and the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign[55][56][57][58] have both stated that their work is inspired by that of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. The Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign has used the slogan 'No House No Vote'.[59]
See also
- Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa
- Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee in India
- EZLN in Mexico
- Fanmi Lavalas in Haiti
- Homeless Workers' Movement in Brazil
- Movement for Justice en el Barrio in the United States of America (USA)
- Narmada Bachao Andolan in India
- Take Back the Land in the USA
Notes
- ↑ Manyi and Manuel – Why Apartheid Didn't Die, Leonard Gentle, All Africa, March 2011
- ↑ The flames of Phaphamani, Pedro Tabensky, Leadership Magazine, 7 March 2011
- ↑ Anti-eviction in South Africa, WarOnWant
- 1 2 3 4 5 Fighting Foreclosure in South Africa , by the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, The Nation Magazine
- ↑ Building unity in diversity: Social movement activism in the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, Sophie Oldfield & Kristian Stokke, 2004, p.13
- ↑ Re-launch of the Western Cape AEC focuses on a renewed coordinated fight against evictions, water cutoffs, electricity cutoffs and for decent housing for all!, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, 6 December 2010
- ↑ What's the Deal With the Toyi-Toyi?, Lisa Nevitt, Cape Town Magazine, September 2010
- 1 2 On the Other Side of the Mountain, Niren Tolsi, Mail & Guardian, 23 December 2010
- ↑ Housing battles in post-Apartheid South Africa: The Case of Mandela Park, Khayelitsha Archived 24 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine, by Martin Legassick, South African Labour Bulletin, 2003
- ↑ South African Grassroots Movements Rebel Against NGO Authoritarianism, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, Indymedia, 9 December 2007
- ↑ Rethinking Public Participation from Below , by Richard Pithouse, Critical Dialogue, 2006
- 1 2 3 4 South Africa: A Revolution in Progress, Ceasefire, 9 January 2009
- ↑ Building unity in diversity: Social movement activism in the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, Sophie Oldfield & Kristian Stokke, 2004
- ↑ South African Grassroots Movements Rebel Against NGO Authoritarianism
- ↑ See the article 'Anti Eviction Campaign urges poor to boycott elections' by Aziz Hartley, Cape Times, 5 January 2009
- ↑ Archived 23 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine Grassroots movements plan to boycott South African poll Ekklesia, 29 April 2009
- ↑ The DA's battle to buddy up to the everyman, Osiame Molefe, The Daily Maverick, 2 July 2012
- ↑ Deal aims to stop xenophobia, VOCFM, 19 August 2009
- ↑ AEC and stakeholders in recent anti-xenophobia negotiations head to parliament today, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, 24 August 2009
- ↑ Xenophobia still smoulders in Cape townships, Mandisi Majavu, Mail & Guardian, 19 June 2009
- ↑ South Africans fight eviction for World Cup car park, Mohammed Allie. BBC News. 2 June 2010
- 1 2 3 About Us: Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
- ↑ Anti-eviction in South Africa
- ↑ Cape Town Administration Violates the Rights of the Poor, Carmen Ludwig, All Africa, 27 October 2011
- ↑ Jared Sacks (20 September 2018). "On Militancy, Self-reflection, and the Role of the Researcher". Politikon. 45 (3): 438–455. doi:10.1080/02589346.2018.1523349. S2CID 150093217.
- ↑ Re-launch of the Western Cape AEC focuses on a renewed coordinated fight against evictions, water cutoffs, electricity cutoffs and for decent housing for all!, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, 6 December 2010
- ↑ Contact List, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
- ↑ Muller, Gustav (2019). "Restoring electricity use with the spoliation remedy: A critical comment on Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd v Masinda" (PDF). Pretoria Student Law Review. 13: 1–16.
- ↑ Muller, Gustav (2015). "Evicting unlawful occupiers for health and safety reasons in post-apartheid South Africa". South African Law Journal. 132: 616–638.
- ↑ Helen Zille's Hopeless Handling of Cape Gang Violence, Anna Majavu, SACSIS, 13 July 2012
- ↑ "Stop Forced Removals & Evictions! Stop Privatisation!". Land Research Action Network.
- ↑ Subjectivity, Politics and Neoliberalism in Post-apartheid Cape Town
- ↑ "Fighting Foreclosure in South Africa". The Nation. United States.
- ↑ "WESTERN CAPE ANTI-EVICTION COMMITTEE PRESS STATEMENT".
- ↑ "Delft-Symphony Pavement Dwellers building a new world – one child at a time".
- ↑ ""No Vote" Campaigns are not a Rejection of Democracy". Mail and Guardian.
- ↑ "Anti Eviction Campaign urges poor to boycott elections". Cape Times.
- ↑ South Africa's poor complain of evictions as country prepares to host World Cup, Sudarsan Raghavan, The Washington Post, 20 June 2010
- ↑ "In South Africa, evicted residents struggle". Bay State Banner. Archived from the original on 13 September 2010.
- ↑ Le Monde Diplomatique
- ↑ "Gympie Street evictions". BushRadio.
- ↑ "This is not a game!".
- ↑ "Call to demonstrate at constitutional court". Joe Slovo Task Team.
- ↑ 'Xenophobia Still Smouldering' by Mandisi Majavu, IPS, 19 June 2009
- ↑ Gugulethu, traders to hold follow-up meeting, Cape Times, 7 July 2009
- ↑ 'Xenophobic tensions in Gugulethu calm down', Anna Majavu, The Sowetan, 5 June 2009
- ↑ Independent Online, 'You could see the anger in their eyes', Caryn Dolley, 15 June 2009
- ↑ Chance, K. (2010) The Work of violence:a timeline of armed attacks at Kennedy Road. School of Development Studies Research Report, 83, July 2010.
- ↑ 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 Struggle for Land & Housing in Post-Apartheid South Africa by Toussaint Losier, Left Turn, January 2009
- ↑ 'Participatory Society: Urban Space & Freedom', by Chris Spannos, Z-Net, 29 May 2009 Archived 6 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ The alliance, and its position on electoral politics, is mentioned in the speech by S'bu Zikode at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/12/415682.html
- ↑ Deep Read: 'Born free' voters may not choose ANC, JON HERSKOVITZ, Mail & Guardian, 29 January 2013
- ↑ Take Back the Land in South Africa
- ↑ Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign
- ↑ Fear and loathing in Obamaland, Niren Tolsi,Mail & Guardian, 23 December 2010
- ↑ February "Rent Party" Fundraiser for Freedom, Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign
- ↑ The Death and Life of Chicago By BEN AUSTEN, The New York Times, 29 May 2013
- ↑ Chicago Communities Demand Eviction Moratorium Archived 13 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, by MILES KAMPF-LASSIN, In these Times, 10 August 2012
Films and Books
- Kleider, Alexander (Director) and Michel, Daniela (Director). (2009). When the Mountain Meets its Shadow [Documentary]. Germany: DOK-WERK film cooperative.
- No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way, by the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers (2011)
- Tin Town – Documentary
External links
- Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
- Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign Twitter page
- Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign Facebook Page
- Khayelitsha Struggles
- Oukloof forced removals in the Western Cape of South Africa – A community web site documenting the known history of the forced removal of the residents of Oukloof in the 1960s