Abahlali baseMjondolo

Abahlali baseMjondolo

Abahlali baseMjondolo Logo
Nickname	iButho labampofu (The army of the poor) & Ulwandle olubomvu (The red sea)
Pronunciation	Zulu pronunciation: [aɓaˈɬali ɓasɛm̩dʒɔˈndɔːlo]
Formation	2005
Founded at	Kennedy Road, Clare Estate, Durban
Purpose	Poor people's movement
Location	KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape
Website	abahlali.org

Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM, Zulu pronunciation: [aɓaˈɬali ɓasɛm̩dʒɔˈndɔːlo], in English: "the residents of the shacks") is a socialist shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which primarily campaigns for land, housing and dignity, to democratise society from below and against xenophobia.

The movement grew out of a road blockade organised from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and has since expanded to other parts of South Africa. As of October 2022 it claims to have more than 115,000 members in good standing in 81 branches in four of the nine provinces of South Africa - KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng.^[1]

It has links with similar social movements elsewhere in the world, such as the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil. It has faced sustained, and at times violent, repression. More than twenty of its leaders have been assassinated, something it blames on the ruling African National Congress.^[2][3][4]

The assassinations of Abahlali baseMjondolo members and leaders has been noted by international organisations such as Amnesty International^[5] and was discussed at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2022.^[6]

Academic work on Abahlali baseMjondolo stresses that it is non-professionalised (i.e. its leaders are non-salaried), independent of NGO control, autonomous from political organisations and party politics^[7][8] and democratic.^{[9][10][11][12][13]} Writing in 2009, SJ Cooper-Knock^[14] described the movement as "neurotically democratic, impressively diverse and steadfastly self-critical".^[15] Ercument Celik writes that "I experienced how democratically the movement ran its meetings."^[16]

A 2006 article in The Times stated that the movement "has shaken the political landscape of South Africa."^[17] Academic Peter Vale writes that Abahlali baseMjondolo is "along with the Treatment Action Campaign the most effective grouping in South African civil society."^[18] Khadija Patel has written that the movement "is at the forefront of a new wave of mass political mobilisation".^[19]