VIDEO: Motsoaledi Concerned Residents (MCR) protest, Soweto, April 2009

This is a news report from a protest by the Motsoaledi Concerned Residents (MCR) in Soweto, April 2009. Motsoaledi was a squatter camp in Soweto behind Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital. Anarchists played an important role in Motsoaledi, and initiated the MCR, which joined the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF). By 2009, the direct anarchist role in MCR was pretty much gone, but at least one Zabalaza Anarchist Communist … Continue reading VIDEO: Motsoaledi Concerned Residents (MCR) protest, Soweto, April 2009

Video: MC Biko: “Anti-capitalistic, anarchistic /Activist gone ballistic”

Lyrics below the video It’s the anti-capitalistic, anarchistic Activist gone ballistic He didn’t battle emcees he fought with the government Kidnapped the MPs and burnt down the parliament His punchlines overthrew the president He was a bulldozer going through impediments Transferred the power from the state to the residents Bombed cop stations and destroyed all the evidence To him bourgeois democracy was just another pestilence … Continue reading Video: MC Biko: “Anti-capitalistic, anarchistic /Activist gone ballistic”

Video: ZACF member on lessons of anarchist history (interviewed for 2011 Toronto anarchist bookfair)

From here “Members of the (South African) Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) provide a historical view of anarchism in South Africa and Brazil, and draw conclusions on how anarchist can organize to attempt to recapture what the Rio de Janiero Anarchist Federation (FARJ) calls ‘the social vector of anarchism’”. Four videos, on youtube, inserted below: Continue reading Video: ZACF member on lessons of anarchist history (interviewed for 2011 Toronto anarchist bookfair)

Some notes on anarchists/ syndicalists at Wits in the 1990s and 2000s

Anarchists/ syndicalists had some presence at the University of the Witwatersrand (“Wits”) in Johannesburg since the early 1990s through ARM, then WSF, the BMC, and then through the ZACF, including for example, involvement in student protests in 2007. They also had a sporadic presence in the Wits Workers Solidarity Committee, which worked with outsourced cleaners, and were part of the “Anti-Government-in-Exile of Wits University”  — … Continue reading Some notes on anarchists/ syndicalists at Wits in the 1990s and 2000s

Videos 2: context for the new movement – 1990s Wits University protests

Following on from an earlier post, this presents some videos below extracted from old VHS recordings of SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation)  TV news reports. The videos below focus on struggles at the University of the Witwatersrand (“Wits”),  where the new South African anarchist/ syndicalist movement emerged as a strand in loose but very militant student political milieu — a milieu with close links to … Continue reading Videos 2: context for the new movement – 1990s Wits University protests

Videos 1: the context for the new movement – early 1990s South Africa

The videos below are extracted from old VHS recordings of SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation)  TV news reports on university student and trade union struggles in 1994-1996.  The aim of posting them is simply to help illustrate the context that shaped the (re-)emergent local anarchist/ syndicalist movement. These massive struggles were a decisive reference point for this current, demonstrating the power of the broad working … Continue reading Videos 1: the context for the new movement – early 1990s South Africa