Posts tagged South Africa

Patents kill, part III 9:36 pm / 13 February 2013 by Rad Geek, at Rad Geek People's Daily

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Patents kill people. Patent restrictions, inflicted in the name of intellectual property, are in reality nothing more than government-granted monopolies — granted in a deliberate effort to lock down ideas, which are, by nature, non-rivalrous resources, discoverable and available to all without conflict, deprivation or exclusion. [...]

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Categories: Politics, Smash the State
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This Saturday: Speaker from South African shack dwellers movement 3:23 pm / 01 November 2012 by stanleymilgram, at Edinburgh Anarchist Federation

7pm, Sat 3rd November, Pilrig St. Pauls, Edinburgh

7pm this Sat 3rd November

Note new venue!: Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Dalmeny Street just off Leith Walk, Edinburgh.

This inspiring and extremely democratic and grass-roots controlled movement is at the forefront of resistance to the pro-capitalist policies of the ANC government. This is a rare chance to hear Lindela Figlan, vice president of Abahlali Basemjondolo, the shack dwellers movement.

Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) began in Durban in 2005. Lindela will speak about his experiences, ways of organising and other community based issues. In terms of people mobilised, it’s the largest militant poor organisation in post-apartheid South Africa. Social movements like AbM, the Landless People’s Movement in Johannesburg and the Anti-eviction Campaign in Cape Town pose serious challenges to the ruling party because of their refusal to vote.

AbM’s key demand is ‘Land & Housing in the City’ and has successfully politicised and fought to end forced removals and for access to education and the provision of water, electricity, sanitation, health care and refuse removal as well as bottom up popular democracy.

Lindela Figlan will join us as part of a speaking tour around the UK – details other meetings here http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/

(includes Glasgow friday 2nd)

more info including map to venue location:

BIT.LY/PILRIG

(above url case sensitive)

https://www.facebook.com/events/503923502953605/

This event is free, there will be a collection to help cover travel expenses.

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SHACK DWELLERS MOVEMENT. 1:02 pm / 01 November 2012 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.

Friday 2nd November. 7-9pm Glasgow Social Centre, 
Basement, Garnethill Multicultural Centre,
21 Rose St, Glasgow. G3 6RE
 
This inspiring and extremely democratic and grass-roots controlled movement is at the forefront of resistance to the pro-capitalist policies of the ANC government. This is a rare chance to hear Lindela Figlan, vice president of Abahlali Basemjondolo, the shack dwellers movement. Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) began in Durban in 2005. Lindela will speak about his experiences, ways of organising and other community based issues. In terms of people mobilised, it’s the largest militant poor organisation in post-apartheid South Africa. Social movements like AbM, the Landless People’s Movement in Johannesburg and the Anti-eviction Campaign in Cape Town pose serious challenges to the ruling party because of their refusal to vote. AbM’s key demand is ‘Land & Housing in the City’ and has successfully politicised and fought to end forced removals and for access to education and the provision of water, electricity, sanitation, health care and refuse removal as well as bottom up popular democracy. Lindela Figlan will join us as part of a speaking tour around the UK – details other meetings here http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/http://glasgowanarchists.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/south-african-shack-dwellers-movement-speaker-in-glasgow/

ann arky's home.

Categories: Anarchism
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South Africa: Workers are "very angry and the situation has gone out of control” 1:14 pm / 16 October 2012 by Adam Ford, at Infantile Disorder

The militancy of South African workers is growing by the day, and the ruling class is struggling to contain it It is nearly a month since I reported on the fears of top South African trade union bureaucrat Zwelinzima Vavi. Following the victory of self-organised and armed miners at Marikana, which had been paid for in the blood of thirty-four comrades executed by police, he fretted that: "If

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A SHACK IN THE MIDST OF WEALTH. 1:52 pm / 23 September 2012 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


          South Africa accounts for 24% GDP of all African Countries, according to the World Bank it is classed as an "upper-middle economy" It abounds in natural resources and is a very rich country. This is a table of the percentage of the world's production of these particular  substances: platinum, 77%; kyanite and other materials, 55%; chromium, 45%; palladium, 39%; vermiculite, 39%; vanadium, 38%; zirconium, 30%; manganese, 21%; rutile, 20%; ilmenite, 19%; gold, 11%; fluorspar, 6%; aluminium, 2%; antimony, 2%; iron ore, 2%; nickel, 2%; and phosphate rock, 1%. South Africa also accounted for nearly 5% of the world’s polished diamond production by value. The country’s estimated share of world reserves of platinum group metals amounted to 89%; hafnium, 46%; zirconium, 27%; vanadium, 23%; manganese, 19%; rutile, 18%; fluorspar, 18%; gold, 13%; phosphate rock, 10%; ilmenite, 9%; and nickel, 5%. It is also the world's third largest coal exporter. 
        It is also a very diverse economy with mining, fishery, agriculture, vehicle manufacture and assembly, finance, energy, textiles etc. In spite of this, 25% are unemployed, and more than 25% live on less than US$1.25 a day.
     All that adds up to it being a country of massive wealth and extensive poverty. As this film shows, like all capitalist countries, it doesn't go anywhere near fulfilling the needs of its people, and can be honestly stated to treat millions of its citizens as if it were an extremely poor country. Then again, that's the system, it is called corporate greed.



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Categories: Anarchism
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Lonmin Miners’ Victory Sets "Dangerous Precedent" For South African Elite 10:12 am / 20 September 2012 by Adam Ford, at Infantile Disorder

Happy rank-and-file miners... On Tuesday, workers at the Marikana platinum mine decided to accept a pay rise of between eleven and twenty-two per cent. Though this victory falls a long way short of the trebling in wages they had initially demanded, and came at the loss of the thirty-four comrades murdered by police, it represents a huge gain against a background of generally deteriorating 

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South African Cops Massacre Miners As Class War Intensifies 10:00 am / 17 August 2012 by Adam Ford, at Infantile Disorder

The grisly scene after yesterday's state massacre in Marikana Between thirty and forty miners were killed yesterday when cops opened fire on striking platinum workers in Marikana, north western South Africa. The deaths took place within the context of police declarations that they would bring the week-long strike to a conclusion that day, and represent the biggest single state atrocity in the

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GUNNED DOWN FOR ASKING FOR BETTER CONDITIONS. 1:57 am / 17 August 2012 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.


        As workers' struggle intensifies, so the state repression brutalises, and no where is that brutal repression more open than the recent attack on striking miners in South Africa, where the police opened fire and killed an estimated 40 demonstrators.
This is from an article in The New York Times: 


MARIKANA, South Africa — The police fired on machete-wielding workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine here on Thursday, leaving a field strewed with bodies and a deepening fault line between the governing African National Congress and a nation that, 18 years after the end of apartheid, is increasingly impatient with deep poverty, rampant unemployment and yawning inequality.
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Categories: Anarchism
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Blockading Public Roads: Anarchy and Reactionary? 4:05 am / 19 October 2010 by @ndy, at slackbastard

Benson ka-Ngqentsu, Brian Bunting District (Cape Town Metro, Western Cape Province) Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), recently released a statement condemning the Abahlali baseMjondolo organisation and claiming that ‘blockading public roads’ — one of the tactics employed … Continue reading →

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Categories: Anarchism, State / Politics
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Molly’sBlog 2010-10-10 21:58:00 9:58 pm / 10 October 2010 by mollymew, at Molly'sBlog

ANARCHIST PUBLICATIONS:ZABALAZA:The following notice of a recent publication is from the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front in South Africa.SASASASASAZabalaza No. 11 now available onlineWe, at the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) are pleased t…

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