South Africa has a long history of movement of labour within the country and within the region. Have we forgotten that workers from Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland risked their lives to mine the minerals that built our country’s economy?
[more…]

To that I would like to add the fact that when our brothers in South Africa were in need, we were there for them. My country welcomed many refugees from South Africa fleeing Apartheid, especially after the June 16 events.

On top of that, our countries, “the Frontline States,” (1) were frequently attacked by South Africa, with the complicity of the United states, for harbouring ANC, PAC and brothers and sisters belonging to others parties. During these attacks, our nationals were also killed, but we saw it as a loss to war. We were waging a war and supporting our siblings across the border.

Why is it that now these same siblings hack and murder us when we need them? We helped them when they were in need for ideological reasons. Why won’t they help us when we’re in need for survival reasons (food, livelihood, a roof, etc.)? It is indeed true that…

A: The collapse of apartheid and the advent of democracy in South Africa was regionally supported by a group of southern African states called the Frontline States. These were Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and, from 1980, Zimbabwe. The Frontline States were formed in 1970 to co-ordinate their responses to apartheid and formulate a uniform policy towards apartheid government and the liberation movement. For the liberation movement in South Africa, the formation of the Frontline States was a welcomed development and a new front in the fight against apartheid.
[more…]

B: Support from the African frontline states was crucial, and it came at great human and economic costs.
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C: At the height of apartheid racism and discrimination parents even had mea and ways of reminding themselves that they are human beings and they belong to Africa. This included naming their children in a manner that maintained this memory. Phyllis Naidoo writes about a South African couple who were exiled in Lesotho and named their first child “Le Rona Re Batho” (We too are people). This forms a theme of a real story where the father to Le Rona Re Batho was killed together with about 44 other South Africans and Lesotho nationals in a raid by the apartheid forces of the time. These were people who were crying out proclaiming that they were also people and deserved to be treated like human beings. The same cry is made by those who have suffered through these senseless xenophobic attacks- “LE RONA RE BATHO!”
[more…]

No one is illegal - Abahlali baseMjondolo comment on the Xenophobic Attacks in Johannesburg

We condemn the attacks, the beatings, rape and murder, in Johannesburg on people born in other countries. We will fight left and right to ensure that this does not happen here in KwaZulu-Natal.

We have been warning for years that the anger of the poor can go in many directions. That warning, like our warnings about the rats and the fires and the lack of toilets, the human dumping grounds called relocation sites, the new concentration camps called transit camps and corrupt, cruel, violent and racist police, has gone unheeded.

Let us be clear. Neither poverty nor oppression justify one poor person turning on another. A poor man who turns on his wife or a poor family that turn on their neighbours must be opposed, stopped and brought to justice. But the reason why this happens in Alex and not Sandton is because people in Alex are suffering and scared for the future of their lives. They are living under the kind of stress that can damage a person. The perpetrators of these attacks must be held responsible but the people who have crowded the poor onto tiny bits of land, threatened their hold on that land with evictions and forced removals, treated them all like criminals, exploited them, repressed their struggles, pushed up the price of food and built too few houses, that are too small and too far away and then corruptly sold them must also be held responsible……………..Continued.

Links: South Africa is in all of us

Tags:
South Africa
Xenophobia
Immigration

The details surrounding the Forum for Black Journalists (FBJ) and Radio 702’s Katy Katapodis showdown have been rehashed in the media ad nauseam and while these may soon be blurry bits of yet another tantalising ‘racism’ story, what is likely to remain stubbornly in our memories is that the HRC ruled in favour of the complainant. This decision, which made little or no reference to the submissions made at the hearing called by the commission (other than Katapodis’), has been warmly accepted by those who preach the gospel of non-racialism, integration and transformation in the New South Africa.

Mainstream media reports have been inundated with praises, from both blacks and whites, of this essentially anti-black ruling but this is hardly surprising in a white supremacist country where black interests are often shelved and hardly recognised as such. It is even less surprising then that there have been few voices in the media that represent the marginalised black perspective that rejects the decision not only in terms of the immediate consequences for the FBJ and other black organisations but its implications on blackness as a whole. Granted some black organisations have come out with their hands behind their heads desperate to show those who matter that they are the custodians of non-racialism but the conspicuous absence of black voices is hardly a reflection of a blanket acceptance of the HRC’s decision. There are quiet rumblings among blacks who are slowly being hit by the hard reality that this decision is perhaps an unapologetic, institutionalised affront on our blackness.

We Write What We Like (wewrite) is calling for contributions on this issue not only to give space to those whose unpopular views have been rejected in the mainstream but to engage black thinkers in a much needed dialogue.

Wewrite is an online journal for black thought, which was launched in 2005.

Send your submissions to wewritejournal at gmail dot com by the 30th of May 2008.

Tags:
JForum for Black Journalists
South Africa
Africa + Civil Society

Bram Fischer was born on 23 April 1908. Happy Birthday to him.

Lawyer, born into a prominent Afrikaans family. He studied law in South Africa and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He became an active member of the Communist Party, while also reaching the heights of the legal profession. He defended those charged in the prolonged Treason Trial of the 1950s, and led the defence team at the 1964 Rivonia trial. In 1964, he was arrested and charged with membership of the then underground Communist Party, and in 1966 was sentenced to life imprisonment.
www.biography.com

Bram Fischer stood up for what he believed, and what he believed was that the former system in his home country (South Africa) was grossly unfair toward the larger part of the population. He went to prison for that thought. He was born on 23 April 1908. Happy birthday to him.

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S’bu Zikode elected chairperson of Abahlali [February 2008]

Breyani and the Councillor part 1

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Durban + South Africa
Abahlali baseMjondolo;