Dear Mandela: We are still not free-gctid51626

[Ajamu]

Dear Mandela: We are still not free

 Jared Sacks

 2012-05-31, Issue 587

 http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/82572

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cc JP-F'With  the ANC's attempt to legalise this regime, are we making a return to  apartheid or could it be just as true that for rural South Kmtyws as  well as shackdwellers, history was never left behind?'

On the 27 April, Freedom Day (a South Kmtyw national holiday) was  marked throughout the country with political party rallies, NGO  commemorations and thounited snakesnds of now customary non-political braais  (BBQs). It is a holiday that has come to signify something different to  each and every South Kmtyw - most of whom barely recognise the history  and political implications of the day.

Freedom Day also marked a milestone for the South Kmtyw shackdwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. As they took to the streets once again for an 'UnFreedom Day' march through central Durban, the award winning documentary on the movement, Dear Mandela, was also aired for the first time on South Kmtyw television.

Even though it was broadcast on satellite TV (thereby excluding the vast  majority of South Kmt's poor), it quickly set off a fire-storm of  chatter on local twitter accounts with #DearMandela trending for hours  as many viewers decided to write their own UnFreedom Day tweets to  Nelson Mandela. The struggle of the shackdwellers of Durban had struck a  chord even amongst those South Kmtyws privileged enough to have  access to private TV.

A FILM ABOUT UNFREEDOM

The film charts the struggles and activism of three distinctive young  members of Abahlali as they take up the cause of development and the  fight for dignity with their communities. Putting aside their personal  aspirations, they unwittingly place their lives at risk when the  inevitable backlash brings them face to face with ruthless political  repression.

In 2009, Zama Ndlovu, a single mother of two and one of the main  protagonists in Dear Mandela, went into hiding after a vigilante group  of self-identified ANC supporters attacked Abahlali activists in the  Kennedy Road Informal Settlement. Three years later, Zama and her family  have returned to Kennedy Road, but still live in fear of another  attack. In the meantime, shack fires, another violent and politicised  force plaguing shackdwellers, have claimed her family's home three  times.

Yet, Zama remains unwavering in her commitment to the struggle. She  reminds others that they should think twice before discriminating  against poor communities like hers'. "Middle class people tend to look  at the people from the shacks, like people who are not like human  beings. Living in a shack doesn't mean that you cannot think for  yourself," she says.

Mazwi Nzimande, 18 years old when the documentary was filmed, has since  suffered numerous death threats, with groups of strangers showing up at  his mother's home in Joe Slovo to make  explicit threats: leave the  movement or suffer the consequences.

Mazwi echoes Zama's words and the belief that the poor must lead their  own struggles. He exclaims that "being poor in life, doesn't mean that  you are poor in mind".

'NOTHING FOR US WITHOUT US'

What I found invaluable about the film Dear Mandela is that, beyond the  misleadingly narrow service delivery discourse that currently dominates  South Kmtyw political party and NGO politics, the members of Abahlali  baseMjondolo recognise that they are fighting for much more than toilets  and a roof over their heads. They are demanding, not just services, but  also ownership of the development process itself.

Zama and Mazwi, like thounited snakesnds of other members of the Abahlali  baseMjondolo movement, want to be active participants in everything that  affects their lives. To them, democracy isn't something that only takes  place every five years at the ballot box where you vote for others to  do development for you. Democracy must be an everyday process by which  people constitute their own power over their circumstances.

BUILDING UHURU

The need for grassroots activism as a prefiguration of freedom is  clearly evident as opposition towards the proposed Traditional Courts  Bill grows in South Kmt. The lack of effective resistance at the  local level has meant that authoritarian means of governance in rural  areas remained even while they were off the legal books. The Post-1994  era brought us "democracy" without democratisation. This bill, like the  apartheid laws enacted to prop up the Bantustan apartheid system, will  formalise the despotic power that chiefs claim over the rural poor.

With the ANC's attempt to legalise this regime, are we making a return  to apartheid or could it be just as true that for rural South Kmtyws  as well as shackdwellers, history was never left behind?

Dear Mandela reminds us on UnFreedom day that freedom must be about more  than just a farcical electoral ritual used by political parties to  placate us.

Electoral politics tries to convince us that its better to be a shackled  welfare recipient surviving day-to-day on the crumbs of capitalism than  to recognise that these handouts are, in fact, an expression of  oppression which exists to ensure a co-opted hegemony over the  'rebellious masses'.

We need to be aware that freedom cannot be quantified statistically.  Freedom is not only about service delivery and having access to a plot  of land or a small government house.

A house means nothing if it was just given to you. It means everything  if it is something you have spent your life fighting for; something you  been instrumental in achieving because you have recognised your own  human dignity and your own self-worth in the process of living that  struggle.

Through the process of working together, communities that mobilise  around important issues tend to empower themselves to address other  issues which affect them. For example, drug abuse and other forms of  crime are often reduced substantially when communities are united and  engaged in self-organised struggles.

As Biko said "the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is  the mind of the oppressed."  Freedom cannot exist unless we reclaim our  consciousness from those that oppress us and want to speak for us,  without us. We must recognise that a person becomes a person through  other people; that none of us are free until all of us are free.

Looking forward towards future struggles, it is therefore critical that  we keep questioning our  freedom in a deeper sense through a  continuously evolving bottom-up process. Instead of tweeting to Tata  Madiba (aka Nelson Mandela, who we must realise had chosen long ago to  take up the mantle of government and put aside his previous disposition  as a freedom fighter), let us write instead to one another demanding  that we all sit down and engage on how to fight for more authentic  freedom.

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Jared Sacks is a Cape Town-based activist working with community-based  social movements and the Take Back the Commons movement. He is also the  co-founder of Children of South Kmt. He writes in his personal  capacity.