The Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement (ABM) marched in support of land for housing in Durban this week, saying land ‘must be expropriated to the right people’.
Members of ABM marched to the Durban City Hall on Monday to hand over a memorandum on the Amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution head of the deadline today for public comment on the Amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution, according to a report in GroundUp.
The report quoted Abahlali member Zanele Mtshali as saying: ‘We don’t want land that we are not going to use. We want government to give us title deeds for the land that we are already occupying as Abahlali baseMjondolo. The land must be expropriated to the right people.’
The organisation said in its memorandum: ‘It is time to take seriously that housing in Durban is a mess that has not just terrorised our communities but made us homeless. It is time to take seriously that raising the question about land and housing has led us to being murdered with impunity. In municipalities like eThekwini we have been murdered in broad day light.’
It went on: ‘We do not agree that land must be taken from white elites and be given to black elites. This will not make a fundamental change to the deep inequalities and oppression that exists in this country. We cannot trust the ANC or any of the political parties in Parliament to ensure that land is distributed to the people on a fair and democratic basis. There is no party in Parliament that represents the interests of the impoverished, that refuses corruption, that is committed to revolutionary democracy, and is willing to be lead from below.’
ABM said: ‘Land should be made a “right” and not a form of property. We also do not agree that the state must own the land on behalf of the people because the state itself in its current form cannot be trusted. Land must be distributed to the people, and managed, on a democratic basis, from below.’
[Picture: Nokulunga Majola, GroundUp.]