Black Looks

Rea Dol is grassroots community organiser and founder of SOPUDEP school in Port-au-Prince. Shortly after the earthquake they had to abandon the school which was being used as a shelter due to the stench of dead bodies and sturtural damage which made the building unsafe.

For the school to continue it will have to relocate. A group of students and teachers are trying to design temporary classrooms on a new site which the school bought through donations last year.
Design for the new school

Here Rea speaks to Kathlene McGuinness of Ryerson University Toronto, about the aftermath of the earthquake and her hopes for the school in the future.

Interview

1. Could you take us through a normal day at SOPUDEP before the earthquake?

Rea: A normal day, all the children come to study at school, as usual, the children go to their classrooms, and when means allow, they receive a hot meal at school. The first group finishes at 1:00pm, and then in the afternoon we help street children to work hard to learn a trade skill. We work, following the pedagogical program of the National Education Ministry that they supply us with—that’s the one we use.

2. What is your vision for the new school? What would you like to see happen?

Rea: As we work with groups abroad, such as in California, with Seth (Donnelly) and the union members, we have been working to try to secure a (new) site (for the school), and we will communicate with Ryan (Sawatzky) as well. The former building, I had a 10-year contract, which is ending in 2012, and I have received many threats, so we were looking at the new school for SOPUDEP. Therefore, we were looking at the possibilities to have a new land and site for the school.

3. What materials are available to you on the ground right now?
Anything you can think of – not just normal building materials – pop
cans, cardboard boxes, etc.

Rea: We do not have available (heavy construction) materials…we can’t recuperate them. Some of the structures have been destroyed. The space where we worked with the small children was condemned after the earthquake, because it structurally cracked, and was damaged; therefore, neither children nor adults would be secure inside. The other building had some things break inside. There isn’t (heavy) material available at this point.
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The Palestine Think Tank [Haitham Sabbah, Yousef Abudayyeh, Mohamed Khodr, Mary Rizzo,] have published this excellent list of common errors made by activists / movements and how to rectify them. The errors and solution are applicable to movements and activists worldwide.

Activism and activists for Palestine have been getting some media attention recently. This is absolutely great news. It is an opportunity that we need to take advantage of, especially since Palestinians themselves are denied space in almost all mainstream mass media. Reflecting on this fact, we at PTT have decided to express some of our observations, thoughts and suggestions in order to enhance the work of all activists, ourselves included. This is a summary of some of the things that we believe are some common activist errors and our proposals for avoiding that errors lead to damage. In the coming weeks we will elaborate on each of these points in essays. We hope that our observations and proposals can be of use for ourselves and for those who commit their time and energy to the Palestinian cause. Read the full list here

“”…what happens from now on depends very much on what people like you are going to do. If you become energized, engaged, involved, active, organized, protesting and so on – OK, there can be more historical changes. If you choose to resign to apathy and obedience, then you get a reconstruction of what happens before. That’s the way history works.”" Norm Chomsky [Via KnowProse]

Dissent is Right by Chaz Maviyane-Davies [Via Shailja]

Please sign the Petition against the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill

From Gender DynamiX

This Friday Daisy Dube will be remembered. Daisy was shot and killed in Yeoville in 2008 because of her gender identity. She and three drag queens out for the night stopped and asked three men in a car to stop calling them “isitabane.” (A isiZulu slur used for LGBT people). Her cold blooded murder was a result of transphobia. She was shot and killed for defending her identity.

Friday 20 November 2009 is TDOR – Transgender Day of Remembrance. The day is commemorated around the world as a way to highlight and end violence against trangender people. The Day draws attention to the many nameless and faceless victims that the media never hears of – stories that shame us as a society and as human beings.
One such victim – Aunty Victoria, attempted suicide and later died in Muhimbili National Hospital Dar es Salaam this year. The years of stigma and constant discrimination, and finally the loss of her lover made her life unbearable.

Hours before her death, naked and unconscious, a hospital worker took photographs of her body. The photos were uploaded to the internet, sent out via email list servs and widely circulated. Echoing this shocking disrespect, the morgue at Muhimbili was left unlocked and hundreds of people queued to look at her body. By the time Aunty Victoria was buried, her breasts and genitals were surgically removed to conform to the Muslim belief that her body should be the one she was born with, so that Allah would recognise her in death.

Transgenderism is classified globally as a mental disorder, rather than a natural gender variation. Transgender activists the world over are advocating for the condition to be reclassified as a medical condition.

This western diagnosis contributes to the ongoing transphobia, isolation and pain that trangender people face – resulting in depression and suicidal tendencies. African societies which traditionally respected members who didn’t conform to the standard gender binary, are beginning to take on the first world view and are treating transgendered people like freaks to be culled.

On Transgender Day of Remembrance, Non profit Transgender organisation Gender DynamiX and its partner GALA (Gay and Lesbian memory in Action) will release their book TRANS: Transgender life stories from South Africa.

Simone Heradien, board member of Gender DynamiX, says “We plead with the wider community of South Africa to join us in remembering these casualties of hatred, intolerance and injustice. South African law acknowledges and respects the concept of gender expression not being a fixed notion. Gender DynamiX is an organisation that deals with expression of sex and gender. We appeal to the media, politicians and the public to remember that the human rights are for all South Africans. We are human first before gender, race, class or creed.”

Congratulations to Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement (AbM) for their perseverance and belief in their rights and non-violence. After being subjected to “political violence and shameless slander” over the last two weeks, there is reason to celebrate. The Constitutional Court (CC) of South Africa have today declared the provincial KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act (Slums Act) unconstitutional.

Specifically, the CC declared section 16 of the Slums Act is unconstitutional and invalid. This section makes it compulsory for municipalities to institute proceedings for eviction of unlawful occupiers where the owner or person in charge of the land fails to do so within the time prescribed by the MEC. The applicants argued that section 16 of the Slums Act is in violation of section 26(2) of the Constitution in three ways: it precludes meaningful engagement between municipalities and unlawful occupiers; it violates the principle that evictions should be a measure of last resort; and it undermines the precarious tenure of unlawful occupiers by allowing the institution of eviction proceedings while ignoring the procedural safeguards inherent in the PIE Act. Without section 16, the Slums Act is rendered ineffective.

The application in Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA and Another v Premier of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal and Others was first brought by AbM and its president, Sibusiso Zikode, in the Durban High Court in February 2008. The case was heard before Tshabalala JP on 6 November 2008. AbM challenged section 16 of the Act specifically, which they contend bypasses the national Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (PIE Act), particularly safeguards in the Act which protect unlawful occupiers from eviction.

The Constitutional Court win affirms AbM’s interpretation of the Act and means that a repressive and constitutionally inconsistent piece of legislation is now inoperable and will not be replicated in other provinces. Continue Reading…….

Following the mob attacks on Kennedy Rd settlement, S’bu and his family and other members of KRDC are now refugees as Kennedy Rd is now being run by the local ANC.

The movement is still under attack in Kennedy Road and the police are still failing to protect us. The settlement is now run by the chairperson of the local ANC branch, Jackson Gumede, and his armed mob. Gumede is asking people to show ANC cards. Senior people in the ANC and the police continue to offer open and public support for the attacks. None of the people that attacked us and destroyed our homes have been arrested. Many of us are still sleeping in the bush and in the streets. There has been another death in hospital.

S’bu appeals for continued support for Abahlali – silencing Abahlali baseMjondolo is silencing us all.

In the early hours of Saturday morning mobs attacked the Kennedy Rd settlement. Now thousands are running from the settlement, the President and Vice President are in hiding, the office is being emptied for fear it will be bulldozed. This is pure intimidation in what appears to be attempts by the local ANC, local government and police to destroy the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement by using Apartheid type tactics against the people. Clearly the wrong lessons have been learned!

New video has been put together from the scene at Kennedy Road. Eyewitnesses to the menacing mob on Saturday night directly contradict both the official ANC story that ‘Abahlali-connected people’ perpetrated the attack and the ridiculous comment by Ward Councilor Yakoob Baig that the community is ‘terrified of Abahlali’. The slightest scrutiny reveals that in fact Abahlali was the target of the vicious 36 hours plus of deadly mob violence. In the 3 days since at least 4 people have been killed, many injured and over 1,000 have been displaced from the settlement under threats of violence. Their safe return has no secure guarantee and has not even been addressed by the ANC or police. The ANC’s persistent support and connection to the actual attackers proves that the government is at a minimum complicit in the violence. At the moment no member of the armed mob these witnesses were threatened by has been arrested while 8 unarmed members of the Kennedy Road safety committee, which was protecting Abahlali members that night, are in police custody facing possible murder charges. Abahlali President S’bu Zikode and Vice President Lindela Figlan remain refugees, unable to return to their homes at Kennedy Road while the armed mob holding death threats over their heads roams free to terrorize the remaining residents at the settlement. In fact anyone with even the most cursory connection to Abahlali, for example the ladies who cook for children in the creche near the Abahlali office are being threatened and forced to leave. Please watch this video as it is an important counter to the blatant lies being peddled by the ANC and swallowed whole by much of the South African media.

Mzonke Poni of Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape is scheduled to go on trial today for a charge of “PUBLIC VIOLENCE”. In this essay, Poni eloquently discusses the notion of “public violence” asking what is it? who counts as the public? and most importantly what counts as violence – direct action and peaceful protest by the PUBLIC or the destruction of shacks and property by the state security forces?

Here is the first question that I want to raise: What exactly is public violence? Is it doing something in public which is against the will of the public? Or is to commit an act that affects the public? Or is it an act in public that is against the law? Or is it a public act of violence by an unruly mob? The last definition is based on the English dictionary which confirms to me that it is a bunch of people who commit public violence. ……Continue Reading

On Saturday the Kennedy Road settlement was attacked by a group of 40 heavily armed men. They destroyed 15 homes belonging to members of the Kennedy Road Development Committee [KRDC] including that of S’bu Zikode. Some people were killed including two of the attackers. The police were called but never came until Sunday morning when they arrested 8 KRDC members but non of the armed gang. It is a clear and a no brainier that the police by failing to respond to the call for help, are at the very least complicit, in these attacks. Below was the scene on the Sunday morning at Kennedy Road…..

There are now senior ANC leaders in the Kennedy Road Community Hall. In their presence the homes of the elected Kennedy Road leadership continue to be demolished and burnt by the same small group of well armed people who have been carrying out attacks with impunity for 23 straight hours. None of the people that launched the surprise, unprovoked and heavily armed attack on the KRDC last night have been arrested and yet most of the KRDC is locked up in the Sydenham Police station (including those who were publicly performing the imfene dance in Claremont at the time of the attack).

The police are currently on the scene and are doing nothing to stop the destruction. These are the same police who have, over the years, attacked a number of peaceful and legal marches with swift, shocking (and very effective) brutality.

Below is a more detailed explanation of the situation as of today – See Abahlali site for future updates

1. On Saturday night members of the Kennedy Road Development Committee were subject to a surprise attack by a group of about 40 armed men chanting anti Mpondo slogans. The police failed to intervene. People were killed. Later on that night all key AbM leaders were subject to attack. Everyone’s houses (and businesses in two cases where people had shops) were destroyed. This mob (now known as ‘the Zulu mob’ in the settlement) has direct connections to the local ANC who had promised, two weeks ago, to turn the AbM office into an ANC office.

2. The police arrived in the morning and arrested 8 people all (as far as we know – we’ll only be sure who has been arrested when they appear in court this morning) are members of the KRDC – the same people who were attacked. Among the arrested are people who were performing a dance at a public event elsewhere in the city on Saturday night. Attacks and threats continued unimpeded in the presence of the police. Calls for help were ignored.

3. Thousands have fled the settlement and some individuals, all key AbM activists, are in hiding as they have been told that they will be killed. Some Xhosa and Pondo people organised themselves against ‘the Zulu mob’ – this was independent of AbM or the KRDC which are mulit-ethnic organisations.There may well have been counter violence from this quarter. If so it may well be accurate to characerise it as defensive.
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Themba Mvubu, 24, from Kwathema, was found guilty of murder, robbery and being an accessory to the rape. He continued to show no remorse and left the court muttering “I’m not sorry”. Possibly after a few years in jail he might at some point reconsider this statement. In summing up the case the judge only managed to concede that her fame as a footballer may have contributed to her rape and murder – but still failed to acknowledge her rape and murder as hate crimes.

It’s a relief for everyone – family and friends of Eudy to have finally received justice. The campaign around Eudy’s case has been central to raising awarness of hate crimes against lesbians in South Africa and for that we must acknowledge the work of The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project and it’s director, Phumi Mtetwa who worked tirelessly to make sure the case was given the highest possible profile. Recognition must also go to all the friends and supporters who attended the court hearings despite the lack of funds to transport and accommodate them during the endless postponements and delays. I wonder whether people reading about the case realise how difficult and what a strain it has been for everyone involved to keep up the pressure. The battle for this one case, to get justice for Eudy Simelane, has been one but the struggle against hate crimes and for justice in a climate of increased lesbiaphobia and homophobia is only just beginning.

Updates from Phumi to follow.

Lesbian and Gay Equality Project

The long awaited judgment in the murder trial of lesbian activists and former Banyana Banyana player Eudy Simelane was concluded today in Delmas. Khumbulane Magagula, Johannes Mahlangu and Themba Mvubu faced the charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances, rape and murder Simelane. Thato Mphiti was convicted of the same crimes in February 2009 for the same crimes to 32 years imprisonment.

Judge Ratha Mokgoathleng acquitted Magagula and Mahlangu based on three State witnesses who testified that the two were there but “did nothing” to Simelane. The Judge said there was no evidence before the court that warrant him to convict them of any of the four charges they face.

Judge Mokgoathleng found Mvubu guilty of murder, rape and accomplice to rape. In an interesting judgement, the Judge confessed that the hardest question he faced was whether Mphiti was telling the truth when he took the witness stand. In his analysis and conviction of Mvubu he said if Mpithi was chasing after one of Simelane’s friend, Mvubu must have been holding her to prevent her getting away.

Recalling on evidence given, Judge Mokgoathleng said Mvubu had instructed Mpithi to kill her because he knows her and “she knows who I am”, an intension to ‘conceal evidence’. The Judge said Simelane was a well known athlete and soccer player.

Judge Mokgoathleng sentenced Mvubu with life imprisonment for murder, 15 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances and 20 years for being an accomplice to what he said to be gang rape.

Whilst this sentence was welcomed by family, community members and most activists, the acquittal of Magagula and Mahlangu was seen as disappointing. In a post trial celebration in Kwa-Thema, activists said at least they should have been charged for doing nothing to save Simelane’s life.

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project expressed relief at the conclusion of the trial, thanked everyone who has supported the mobilisations and campaign to ensure justice and called on all to support the long journey to ensure an egalitarian society.