Charities have condemned plans to hide thousands of South African beggars, tramps and street children while the World Cup is on.
Source: Metro.co.uk
About 300 have already been moved from Cape Town, where England face Algeria on June 18.
They have been taken to nearby Blikkiesdorp camp on Cape Flats, where 1,450 families are packed into an area designed for 450 people. Read the rest of this entry »
Source: WorldCupBlog.org
I wasn’t a huge fan, but I remember an episode of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray falls out with wife Debra because she’s cleaning the house before they have visitors. I couldn’t find a video clip, but thanks to the excellent OpenSubtitles.org I can quote the argument verbatim. Imagine Ray sitting down and Debra aggressively tidying around him:
Ray: Ow! Why do you always do this? Every time we have people over we spend all day making the fake house.
Debra: lt’s not fake. lt’s the way the house should be all the time.
Ray: But it isn’t, so actually it’s like lying, huh, right? ls that what you’re about, lying to people?
Debra: Could you just start clearing everything off the rug, please?
What does this have to do with football you ask? Well, turns out South Africa are “making the fake house” for World Cup 2010 by removing the homeless population from World Cup venue cities and temporarily dumping them into overcrowded settlements. Read the rest of this entry »
Pubblichiamo il messaggio diffuso il 25 marzo dalla rete Western Cape Anti Eviction Campaign
Source: Carta Clandistino
I poveri del Sudafrica hanno dato mandato ai leader dei movimenti della società civile, come la Campagna anti-sgomberi, Abahlali baseMjondolo, il Movimento dei senza terra, Sikhula Sonke, il Forum anti-privatizzazione ecc., affinché si facciano portavoce delle istanze dei più poveri. Non ci hanno dato mandato di sostenere i partiti politici e i loro programmi elitari. Read the rest of this entry »
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Our first screening was in Weingarten, in a cultural centre and cinema called “Linse”. When we arrived Weingarten looked very deserted- a small town with empty streets. We walked around and saw an old church from 1720- also empty. So we were wondering about the screening in the night- would anybody turn up? The welcoming in the cultural centre was warm and friendly. While we were having dinner the place suddenly filled up and when the screening started it was only one row left empty. After the screening we had Q+A – the audience was very interested in our struggle and in the possibilities of direct action. We suggested that visitors of the world cup should get together and come up with an action inside the stadium because poor south Africans can not afford to be inside to protest. The eyes of the world will be focused on the stadiums so this could be a very powerful action.
Many thanks to Eugen Detzel and his team from the “Linse”- keep up your good work!
Café Society will meet at Chicago Cultural Center on Wednesday, March 17.
Special guest Frank Edwards, a Rogers Park anti-eviction activist and ally to the Anti-Eviction Campaign, will kick-off this intimate, facilitated discussion.
The number of families displaced by foreclosure continues to grow. “Chicago weathered a third year of economic turmoil in 2009 with an average of one new foreclosure filing every 22 minutes,” according to a report released by the organizing, policy, research, and training group National People’s Action. Read the rest of this entry »
The community of Blikkiesdorp Phase 2 have been trying since last October to have their grievances about the appalling living conditions in the TRA addressed. Some of the issues that the community have wanted addressed by the City of Cape Town are the following:
1. There are only three toilets each for K, L, M, N, O and Q blocks. This means that there is an average of 3 toilets for 112 structures. As if this is not bad enough, not all of these toilets are even in working order. When this was raised with Mr. Trevor Dennis Mitchell of the City of Cape Town, the community was informed that the City would not be able to help, as fixing the toilets would be a health hazard for his workers. Seemingly, he nor the City of Cape Town seem to care that these toilets are a health hazard for the residents! Read the rest of this entry »
The poor in South Africa have mandated their leaders from social movements like the Anti-Eviction Campaign, Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Landless People’s Movement, Sikhula Sonke, the Anti-Privatisation Forum, etc, to speak about issues that are relevant to poor people. The poor have not mandated us to support political parties and their elite agendas.
The poor who make up our rank and file members of our movements want us to tell the world that in South Africa the poor are treated like terrorists and criminals. Our members are intimidated, harassed, arrested, and tortured every single day. And we are tired of being treated as second-class citizens.
As part of our effort to tell the world about our struggle, two Anti-Eviction Campaign members will be embarking on a trip to Germany, Scotland and Switzerland at the invitation of activists from those countries. Read the rest of this entry »
Evictions are designed to improve South Africa’s image, campaigners say
By Stewart Maclean in Cape Town Monday, 22 March 2010 The Independent
Some of the evicted women are being forced to sleep rough on the streets
On the one hand, a glass-sided television studio with panoramic views of Table Mountain and Cape Town’s spectacular new 68,000-seater football stadium is installed by the BBC for the forthcoming World Cup. On the other, destitute locals are evicted from their only home, barely 100m away. Welcome to the two faces of modern South Africa.
Amid considerable fanfare the BBC last week announced its intention to use a historic hospital in Cape Town as its central headquarters during this summer’s World Cup. The corporation will spend several hundred thousand pounds building the pentagonal glass-sided studio on top of the six-storey Somerset Hospital.
But just days before the deal was made public, 150 destitute locals, mostly women, were forcibly evicted from a hostel in the shadow of the stadium, 100m from the BBC’s new home. Poverty campaigners claim the evictions were part of an effort to cleanse the image of the nine host cities South Africa will present to the world. “The World Cup is going on at the expense of South Africans who urgently need housing, public services and jobs,” said Ruth Tanner, from the charity, War on Want. Read the rest of this entry »
Durban marchers want better service
23 March 2010 Corrinne Louw – SowetanThere was a tense stand-off between protesters and police when members of the Abahlali baseMjondolo took to the streets of Durban yesterday to demand that the government take action to help the poor and homeless.
ANGRY: Hundreds of shack dwellers protest in Durban yesterday
Shop owners closed their doors when the police tested their water spray trucks and cordoned off roads with a heavily armed police force when the marchers stormed down West Street.
The march by the Abahlali baseMjondolo (shack dwellers association) and Rural Network had to be diverted from the Durban City Hall, with the police and marchers squaring off. Earlier city officials had obtained a court order to prevent protesters from gathering near the city hall. Read the rest of this entry »
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