Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, , in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which primarily campaigns for land, housing and dignity, to democratise society from below and against xenophobia.
The movement grew out of a road blockade organised from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and has since expanded to other parts of South Africa. As of October 2022 it claims to have more than 115,000 members in good standing in 81 branches in four of the country's provinces.
It has links with similar social movements elsewhere in the world, such as the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil. It has faced sustained, and at times violent, repression. More than twenty of its leaders have been assassinated, something it blames on the ruling African National Congress.
The assassinations of Abahlali baseMjondolo members and leaders has been noted by international organisations such as Amnesty International and was discussed at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2022.
Academic work on Abahlali baseMjondolo stresses that it is non-professionalised (i.e. its leaders are nonsalaried), independent of NGO control, autonomous from political organisations and party politics and democratic. Writing in 2009, SJ Cooper-Knock described the movement as "neurotically democratic, impressively diverse and steadfastly self-critical". Ercument Celik writes that "I experienced how democratically the movement ran its meetings."
A 2006 article in The Times stated that the movement "has shaken the political landscape of South Africa." Academic Peter Vale writes that Abahlali baseMjondolo is "along with the Treatment Action Campaign the most effective grouping in South African civil society." Khadija Patel has written that the movement "is at the forefront of a new wave of mass political mobilisation".
History
In 2001, the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, which governs the city of Durban and surrounding places including Pinetown, embarked on a slum clearance program. Shack settlements were demolished and there was a refusal to provide basic services (for example electricity and sanitation) to existing settlements on the grounds that all shack settlements were now temporary. Following these demolitions, some shack dwellers were simply left homeless and others were subjected to forced removals to the rural areas outside the city.
Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) formed out of a series of land and housing protests in 2005. Firstly, 750 people from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in Durban blockaded the N2 freeway for four hours with a burning barricade. There were 14 arrests. The group's original work from 2005 onwards was primarily committed to opposing demolitions and forced removals and to struggling for good land and quality housing in the cities. In most instances, this involved a demand for shack settlements to be upgraded or for new houses to be built close to where the existing settlements were. AbM argued that basic services such as water, electricity and toilets should be immediately provided to shack settlements while land and housing are negotiated and also engaged in mass actions providing access to water and electricity. AbM quickly had a considerable degree of success in stopping evictions and forced removals, winning the right for new shacks to be built and gaining access to basic services.
The United Nations expressed serious concerns in early 2008 about the treatment of shack dwellers in Durban. In late 2008, the AbM President S'bu Zikode announced a deal with the eThekwini Municipality which would see services being provided to 14 settlements and tenure security and formal housing to three. The municipality confirmed this deal in February 2009. AbM has been involved in considerable conflict with the eThekwini Municipality and has undertaken numerous protests and legal actions. Its members have been beaten and its leaders arrested by the South African Police Service in Sydenham, Durban. AbM has often made claims of severe police harassment, including torture. On a number of occasions, these claims have been supported by church leaders and human rights organisations. AbM has successfully sued the police for unlawful assaults on its members. In October 2009, it won a court case on appeal which declared the KZN Slums Act unconstitutional. There was acute conflict between AbM and the Cape Town City Council in 2009. This centred on the Macassar Village Land Occupation. There was similar conflict in 2013 around the Marikana Land Occupation. There was also concern about the possibility of evictions linked to the 2010 FIFA World Cup.