Webinar: Land activism in South Africa: the state of urban and rural struggles
Follow on #LandActivism and comment and ask questions as our speakers Mercia Andrews of @Land4Food & Inyanda Land Movement, @Thembachauk of Landless People's Movement & @LandNnes and @AyandaKota of Unemployed People's Movement. @CovidCoalition @RuralDemocracy @PLAASuwc @ReclaimCT
Land struggles are partly divided by tenure systems inherited from the past - eg. titled commercial farmland, public land, customary land. But joint visions and strategies are feasible. What way forward? #LandActivism
Mercia Andrews of @Land4Food says victories in the courts don't substitute for struggle. @NdifunaUkwazi and @ReclaimCT gained victory this week in the Tafelberg case of public land privatisation in Cape Town - now has to be carried forward by movements. #LandActivism
Now up, Themba Chauke who is part of the Slow Food Movement, which opposes corporate control of the #foodsystem. He says struggles to access land need to extend to struggles to hold onto it and resist evictions. A great conversation among rural & urban activists... #LandActivism 
Land is being commodified in SA's communal areas, according to Themba. Even where poor communities have access to land, in communal areas, there are conflicts over who has authority, traditional leaders, elites, investors. Effectively, dispossession continues. #LandActivism
@boamonjane points out that the material conditions of poverty & unemployment transcend urban and rural contexts - yet struggles to access land, for farming, housing & other purposes, are divided. How to bridge these and build joint momentum? #LandActivism
There are unaccountable and corrupt authorities governing land in rural areas (chiefs) and urban areas (councillors) - @AyandaKota argues that land struggles should unite, demanding not only access to land but democratic governance. #LandActivism
Now @AyandaKota references the Paris Commune and the power of the working poor to engage in direct democracy. He says Inyanda Land Movement is pushing for this. In Makhanda, people struggling for change need to link with farmworkers. #LandActivism
There's not only an urban-rural divide in #LandActivism, but also political and ideological divides among land movements. Differences of substance and strategy. How do the speakers see these? I would love to hear their answers.
@sthaYeni asks: is there a relationship between Landless People's Movement, Unemployed People's Movement and Inyanda Land Movement in terms of membership and strategy? #LandActivism
There's potential and urgent need that land activist movements should converge, says @AyandaKota. Where there's enough urgency, radicalism and commitment, convergence can happen across these land movements. #LandActivism
Mercia Andrews says at the heart of #LandActivism is building movements to drive change, and NGOs should be in support of this - not leading from the front. There is a vanguardist tendency... This is a longstanding challenge.
There've been many efforts to forge links across land movements in SA:
National Committee Against Removals
National Land Committee
Landless People's Movement
Alliance of Land and Agrarian Reform Movements
Tshintsha Amakhaya
Inyanda Land Movement
Lessons & models?
#LandActivism
National Committee Against Removals
National Land Committee
Landless People's Movement
Alliance of Land and Agrarian Reform Movements
Tshintsha Amakhaya
Inyanda Land Movement
Lessons & models?
#LandActivism
Peri-urban areas are a massive flashpoint for land struggles - a focus of land occupation & forced evictions during #Covid_19 lockdown, driven by evictions from backyard shacks. State is the biggest evictor. @ashleyfischhof1 (MPhil at PLAAS) asks a pointed question. #LandActivism
The politics of the left. Why has the left suffered "ultimate defeat"? #LandActivism can help to converge social movements, land underpins many social justice struggles - says @AyandaKota of Unemployed People's Movement.
There aren't enough scholar-activists in SA working on & embedded in the politics of social movements, says Mercia Andrews @Land4Food. Movements are not for some to build, and others to sit on the fence. #LandActivism
@boamonjane reminds us of the discussion about "scholar-activism" held recently with @Peasant_Journal @PLAASuwc at #JPSWriteshop: watch here! #LandActivism
Now @AyandaKota names a central issue: the politics of race in #LandActivism, and the racism and xenophobia even in the left. Anti-coloured, anti-Indian, anti-black African, and anti-foreign sentiments are divisive and even verge on fascist.
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