[Marxism] Protest the eviction of Khanya College in South Africa

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

SOUTH AFRICA: Activists fight eviction by ANC council

NORM DIXON

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Send protest messages demanding that Khanya College and the Workers’ 
Library not be evicted from 
<<http://www.joburg.org.za/letters/query_other.stm>>.

*************************************

The African National Congress-led Johannesburg City Council is 
attempting to evict two of South Africa’s leading activist organisations 
from their premises in the city’s Newtown arts precinct. On July 1, more 
than 50 activists gathered at the Jeppe Street buildings to protest the 
council’s illegal demand that the Khanya College and the Workers’ 
Library and Museum leave by the end of June.

At the end of last year, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), a 
company established by the Johannesburg council, ordered the Workers' 
Library and Khanya College to vacate the old municipal workers’ compound 
in Newtown by the end of March.

Khanya College has worked with anti-apartheid and workers’ 
organisations, and the social movements of the urban and rural poor, 
since 1986. Since 1993, the organisations have used the historic 
buildings <197> which were once the grim single-sex hostels that housed 
black council workers during the apartheid era <197> for offices, a 
library and museum, and as a venue for social movement and trade union 
activists to meet. The Workers’ Library and Khanya College have 
developed the compound into a historic monument without assistance from 
the council.

At the July 1 picket, Khanya College coordinator Oupa Lehulere declared 
that ``the eviction notice is unlawful’‘ as the organisations had an 
option to renew the lease for two years, and had exercised that right. 
Workers' Library spokesperson Modiegi Khuele said the ANC-controlled 
``JDA's initiative is killing the history of the working class... We are 
concerned with the preservation of working-class history because the 
place was used by migrant labourers.’‘

The protest was supported by the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF). Since 
the fall of apartheid in 1994, and in response to the national ANC 
government’s drive to privatise essential services such as water and 
electricity, Khanya has thrown open its courses to APF activists and 
other movements fighting neoliberalism.

Khanya College was founded by the South African Committee for Higher 
Education (Sached) Trust. The original purpose of the college was to 
provide university access courses for people who had been active in 
community and mass organisations fighting apartheid. The college was run 
democratically and encouraged students to return to serve their 
communities after completing their studies. As part of Khanya’s 
commitment to the building of a new society, each student had to work 
for at least half a day per week in a progressive NGO or mass organisation.

In 1992, Khanya decided to expand its commitment to building democratic 
organisations by starting the Labour and Community (Lacom) Division. 
Lacom has specialised in training activists for civic, trade union and 
student organisations, churches and other community-based structures.

The college responded to the emergence of a range of new social 
movements in the post-apartheid period by developing new programs, and 
by deepening its relationship with these movements. This has not 
endeared the organisation capitalist ANC governments at the national, 
provincial and local levels.

In its June 30 statement of support, the APF praised the Workers’ 
Library and Khanya College for being ``unstinting in their principled 
and practical support for the struggles of the poor and working class... 
This is why they are being targeted in a politically motivated and 
illegal eviction. It is crystal clear ... that the JDA ... [has] been 
given the green light by the ANC politicians and officials who run our 
city to evict the Workers’ Library and Khanya College precisely because 
they have supported the very community organisations, social movements 
and organised working-class formations that have been at the forefront 
of fighting the council’s neoliberal, corporate developmental agenda.’‘

The APF noted that ``this latest outrage is part of a long running 
campaign in which the city council and its fat-cat politicians want to 
turn Johannesburg into a ‘world class’ home for the rich and powerful. 
Over the last several years, the various agencies of the city council 
have gone about illegally evicting poor people in the inner city without 
any due process or plans for alternative accommodation, have constantly 
harassed hawkers simply trying to eke out a living, have treated the 
homeless as if they were pieces of rubbish and have unleashed the police 
and the courts on those engaging in legitimate dissent and protest. 
Simultaneously, they have failed to act against criminal and absentee 
landlords, cosseted corporate capital, gentrified entire sections of the 
inner city and wasted hundreds of millions of rands on grandiose 
projects that benefit only the privileged few.’‘

Send protest messages demanding that Khanya College and the Workers’ 
Library not be evicted from 
<<http://www.joburg.org.za/letters/query_other.stm>>.

Please send messages of solidarity to Khanya College at 
<<khanyacollege@xxxxxxxxx>>, or visit the Khanya College website at 
<<http://www.khanyacollege.org.za/>> and Workers’ Library site at 
<<http://free.freespeech.org/workers_library/library.htm>> and send a 
message from there.


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