Attack on grassroots activists an attack on democracy
With a paid-up membership of more than 105,000 people across five provinces, Abahlali baseMjondolo is the largest civil society organisation to have emerged in SA after apartheid. It is said to be the largest movement of the urban poor in the world — with the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) in Brazil second.
Internationally respected for its democratic practices and the integrity of its leadership, Abahlali baseMjondolo is a huge asset to our democracy. It is both a democratising force and a space in which poor people can participate in democratic life.
However, the movement has endured attacks over the years, including regular assassinations. This year it lost four members, including three leaders. One was shot dead by a masked police officer, the other three were murdered by izinkabi — assassins — who first emerged from the taxi industry and seem to operate with impunity in Durban.
The latest Abahlali baseMjondolo leader to be assassinated was Lindokuhle Mnguni, 28, who was murdered in his home in the eKhenana Commune in Cato Manor, Durban, last weekend. Mnguni had previously spent six months in Westville prison after being denied bail for charges that were thrown out of court. Two of his close comrades, Ayanda Ngila and Nokuthula Mabaso, were also assassinated in recent months.
Mnguni was the young visionary behind the eKhenana Commune, which became a global inspiration with its successful food projects and community-run kitchen, crèche, shop and the Frantz Fanon political school. Activists come from Swaziland, Zambia, Brazil and the US to participate in activities at the school. “Steve Biko Lives” is painted on one of walls of the school and Mnguni, who studied Biko and other radical thinkers in high school, was inspired by Biko’s ideas on self-reliance. It is unbearably painful that, like Biko, his life was cut short. The ongoing assassinations of Abahlali baseMjondolo leaders are not just a personal tragedy, but a direct attack on democracy.
Democracy is not just about free and fair elections. It requires independent courts, a free and diverse media and a free and vibrant civil society. In SA elections pass off reasonably well, and while the media lacks diversity and its quality is erratic it is free. But when the leaders of the largest civil society organisation in the country are murdered with sickening regularity we are not living in a democracy.
It is not just the thugs in the ANC that are the problem. There is a much broader societal problem. President Cyril Ramaphosa responds to these assassinations with a deafening silence. The South African Human Rights Commission has been missing in action. That makes them complicit too. Neither Cosatu nor Saftu have taken to the streets to demand an end to the killing. They are also complicit. With the important exception of retired Anglican Bishop Rubin Phillip, religious leaders have also been silent. There has been no procession of academics in full regalia marching through Durban in protest. No sport team has taken a minute of silence before the start of a big game to express their solidarity. Students have not taken to the streets in anger.
As a society we seem to accept that poor black people can be murdered with impunity if they organise themselves to stand up for their basic human rights. We should be shamed by our collective inaction and silence.
We have to ask whether we are a democratic nation. The answer, sadly, is we are not. If we were we would not have stood for this.
If enough of us were spurred into action when grassroots activists are assassinated we would be able to put pressure on the authorities to stop the killings. If Ramaphosa wanted to halt the killing he could send police minister Bheki Cele to Durban to read the local police the riot act. Cele could easily establish a dedicated and independent task team to probe the assassinations.
Nothing happens because there is no political will. It is disgrace that Ramaphosa doesn’t have the political will to act. But it’s equally disgraceful that we as a society have not had the collective political will to put pressure on him to act. Our inaction is every bit as shameful as Ramaphosa’s. We have no claim to be a democratic people.
We have democratic laws and institutions, but history shows the only guarantor of democracy is democratic people. Without a people committed to democratic values, laws and institutions, laws can easily be overturned, circumvented or ignored, and institutions can decay or be captured. One only has to look at countries such as India and Zimbabwe to see commitments to democracy, including regular elections, can coexist with deeply anti-democratic realities. Most middle-class people still enjoy democratic rights in SA, but while the poor can vote they do not live in a democracy in terms of day-today life.
If a movement as powerful and globally respected as Abahlali baseMjondolo can have its leaders gunned down year after year without this seen as a crisis one can only imagine the challenging circumstances poor people who are not organised into a mass movement find themselves in.
Democracy cannot solely be something enjoyed by the middle classes. It must be for everyone. Until everyone in SA has the right to organise freely it should stop calling itself a democracy.
We did have a major democratic breakthrough in 1994 and we have important democratic institutions, but we are not yet a democracy. Democracy is still something we must struggle for, and that struggle is to change our society so we stand up to assassins and their political backers.