Student, Worker and People’s Movements in South Africa

The Practice of Popular Politics and Urban Land Occupations

Camalita Naicker

From a recent piece by Camalita written in Kafila:
There is no doubt therefore, that what we are witnessing is a revolutionary political moment in history. Midnight’s children are learning to walk and talk. They are also learning that they have not been ‘born free,’ and their freedom is necessarily and inextricably linked to the freedom of those around them. If sustained, this collective form of politics and mass mobilization reminiscent of the 1980s people’s power movements could change the country’s political trajectory and demonstrate to Zuma and the shadowy figure of what was once the African National Congress that, as the shackdwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo puts it: Amandla ngawethu inkani (the power is ours by force).

Camalita Naicker is a PhD candidate at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa with a focu on urban land occupations. She is an important student activist in the student movement and particularly in the recent “stop-all fees- movement.” She has also done studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi