Present Tensed

Notes: Ashraf Cassiem @ UCHICAGO

Here are my rough notes from Ashraf Cassiem’s talk @ UCHICAGO (via twit­ter @rasml), a sum­mary post should fol­low (sooner or later).

6:06:41 PM: from the event list­ing “Ashraf Cassiem is the lead orga­nizer of South Africa’s Anti-Eviction Cam­paign in the West­ern Cape. An activist from

6:07:41 PM: “…Mitchells Plain Town­ship with a long his­tory in the anti-apartheid strug­gle, Ashraf has been one of the lead­ing critics…”

6:08:08 PM: “of the con­tin­u­ing attacks on poor people’s human rights in South Africa after the fall of apartheid.”

6:21:05 PM: I’m intrigued that they’re going to try to draw par­al­lels between the South African sit­u­a­tion and that of the poor in Chicago (for instance)

6:22:35 PM: the talk starts at 7:30. quotes will be ~ quotes, the rest will be obser­va­tions. we’ll call it #Cassiem

6:33:33 PM: Blogged — Notes: Ashraf Cassiem @ UCHICAGO: 6:06:41 PM: from the event list­ing “Ashraf Cassiem is the lead orga­niz… http://bit.ly/aw348

7:22:15 PM: So many col­lege kids here, I feel old. C’mon let’s get some grad stu­dents at this thing…

7:27:35 PM: Ok, the audi­ence got older. Now, I can be uncom­fort­able about other things #cassiem

7:51:16 PM: Get­ting started: cassiem and Deb­o­rah Tay­lor of STOP (South­side Together Orga­niz­ing for Power) are the panels

7:55:28 PM: Hous­ing par­al­lels between 30s chicago and mod­ern day cape town are being drawn.

7:58:06 PM: “this uni­ver­sity is directly respon­si­ble for our forced removals in south africa… ”

7:59:58 PM: 1989 3 months in France changed ANC poli­cies towards one of extreme privatization…

8:01:33 PM: Codisa talks changed tremen­dously after France / still have not enacted any of the intended land redistribution

8:04:00 PM: 1993 anc IMF WTO meet­ing signed GATT agree­ment fur­ther pri­va­tized SA
1996 Growth employ­ment and redis­tri­b­u­tion (gear), tried to commodity

8:06:03 PM: “Peo­ple were caught off guard by the neolib­er­al­ism econ­omy brought to SA from chicago”

8:08:57 PM: “SA Tar­iffs — 6kiloliters of water free rest was being charged… Tar­iffs were shock­ingly lower for the rich”

8:13:06 PM: “com­mu­nity rose up against forced evic­tions and rein­stated evicted tenants”

8:18:18 PM: “I am in the same sit­u­a­tion as him, if I allow him to be evicted I will be next. Com­mu­nity came together, drew a line & vowed repatriation”

8:23:25 PM: ~ “we stopped gang vio­lence because the gangs banded together to help the com­mu­nity from being evicticted”

8:25:20 PM: “they call us a move­ment, we don’t think of our­selves as a move­ment, we just want water, a place to sleep, a school”

8:26:36 PM: “we keep the NGOs at arms length, they are like Tro­jan horses bring­ing in neolib­eral policies… ”

8:30:32 PM: “our politi­cians who we elected into power are now sell­ing power to who­ever can afford it, and we can’t afford it” #SA

8:31:26 PM: “to the politi­cians: don’t talk about us, talk to us”

8:34:56 PM: Aec = anti-eviction cam­paign,
south africa

8:38:00 PM: “[south african] peo­ple work 40 years to get a chance to come to america”

8:39:17 PM: “peo­ple don’t go against the power, because they don’t know that they are the power”

8:41:23 PM: “these [neolib­eral eco­nomic] poli­cies are ruth­less. They don’t care about people”

8:43:39 PM: “I’m sug­gest­ing that you don’t do any­thing in south africa, but that you do alot of work here”

8:48:38 PM: Cassiem is great. The pro­gram was poorly thought out though as the STOP per­son hasn’t got­ten a chance to speak an hour + into the event

8:52:25 PM: “peo­ple who have applied for pub­lic hous­ing 15–20 years ago, are still home­less” #southafrica

8:57:55 PM: STOP rep talk­ing about 1960s Chicago

9:00:08 PM: “bronzeville is ours.… None of us are going anywhere”

9:01:19 PM: “they are pri­va­tiz­ing every­thing to drive out the poor”

9:03:58 PM: STOP rep is an impres­sive speaker

9:08:08 PM: On hos­pi­tals “if I’m shot I’ll be dead before I get to stroger because the u of c won’t take peo­ple from the south side”

9:11:06 PM: “the UN has 7 laws that pro­tect us, but none of them are enforced in our coun­try. The UN is a use­less space for us, good for the­ses maybe…

9:13:27 PM: ” http://twitpic.com/p6sqe

9:26:00 PM: I asked them both a ques­tion about the good and bad of deal­ing with the ANC and the uni­ver­sity of Chicago respectively

9:31:26 PM: The uofc got good marks for the hos­pi­tal and some of the stu­dent activism, bad marks for “the wall” around the school and…

9:34:19 PM: I don’t think Amer­i­cans get that when he talks about water he means all water: drink­ing, bathing, dish­wash­ing, cook­ing, everything

9:50:43 PM: http://twitpic.com/p6xkx

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