Lewis R. Gordon returns as the next in our remarkable series of radical padkos visitors for CLP’s 2015 “School of Thought”. We’re so grateful and humbled to have had Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar address and engage us in the previous session. It was profoundly insightful, and very productive in relation to our own thinking of emancipatory struggle here. The “School of Thought” continues to be a brilliant space of critical engagement for CLP’s padkos comrades and colleagues. In our ongoing work at CLP, the critical thinking of grassroots militants remains our principal point of entry and departure for emancipatory politics and thought. And there’s no question that this work benefits, and benefits from, mutual dialogue with other emancipatory thinkers and theorists who also take the real thought and practice of liberatory praxis in other places around the world seriously.

Read the full serving here

This community has organized themselves and demanded to be treated with respect and dignity. Now RDP houses are being built and they are almost finished. Even though they have not been handed over to the owners yet, there is progress. Read the full story here

Thanks to Richard Pithouse and all who attended for a stunning first session in the padkos “School of Thought”! What a great discussion exploring current meanings and value in Fanon’s liberatory insistence on the ongoing ‘mutation’ of humans – ‘the recovery of the human from a history of waste’ in the phrasing of Achille Mbembe – through the unity of thought and action in struggle.

At the beginning of our current century, the Bolivian city of Cochabamba was the crucible of the one of the most significant moments of militant praxis; of that praxis that marks the unity of radical thought and action in some very serious popular mobilisation. Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar was at the heart of those seminal “Cochabamba Water Wars” and she’s sharing insights and experiences with us at the next installment of the “School of Thought” padkos series. This really is a remarkable opportunity, and we encourage all of our friends and comrades to join us on Saturday morning, 12^th September for some coffee at 09.45 and the session at 10:00am.

In a 2013 interview, Aguilar commented: “What is terrible is that in the countries that had strong social mobilizations, the interests of the most powerful financial capital are still fully dominant, and now appear to have also ‘captured’ the state forms that were reconstructed after the shock of the last decade. …

Read the full interview and serving here

We had encouraging feedback after the previous padkos mailing that marked the 90^th anniversary of Frantz Fanon’s birth. It’s clear that a number of us want to to engage Fanon’s ideas more, and to think them through in and for our own context. Well, here’s a great opportunity! One of South Africa’s leading Fanon scholars – and longtime CLP padkos comrade – Richard Pithouse, has agreed to spend time with us at the Church Land Programme (CLP) offices, 340 Burger Street, on 3^rdSeptember at 10.30.

Richard’s discussion opens a remarkable series of radical padkos visitors from across the globe who we’re privileged to host through the remainder of the year. We’re thinking of this series as a “School of Thought”, and it creates a brilliant space for critical thought and engagement for CLP’s padkos comrades and colleagues.

Read the full serving here

Get down to Durban on the 29^th for another exciting “Beats and Boundaries” collab. Featuring three great documentary movies and three live bands, we’re celebrating women in punk and post-punk music. Click here for more information.

 We’re excited to collaborate with the Gay and Lesbian Network in bringing you this excellent documentary film that explores issues of masculinity, violence, homophobia and sexism in Hip Hop music and culture, through interviews with artists, academics, and fans. It has won numerous awards.  Read the poster below and click here for more information

Download and print the posters below. Print them and get them up wherever you are.
Suggested “instructions” are pretty straightforward:

* print out multiple copies on yellow sheets of A3 or A4 paper or card
* get them up and visible wherever you are
* ideally take photos once they’re up and share those too
* for those without internet and printing, pick some posters up at the Church Land Programme office, 340 Burger St.

xenposter1

xenposter2

We are asking people to use yellow fabric or yellow ribbons to express their rejection of xenophobia in Pietermaritzburg. This is part of a campaign to show that the majority of people in this city are appalled by the current threats and violence against foreign nationals living in our city. As the Freedom Charter says: South Africa belongs to all who live in it.

The colour yellow is associated with friendship, happiness and hope; which is what we wish for our city.

Get creative in your neighbourhoods, in the streets, in public spaces and parks, and in your schools and work places – wrap everything you can in yellow!

Please take photos and distribute.

Earlier today, CLP wrapped yellow material around trees and put up posters in Burger Street, Pietermaritzburg. Click here for more pictures.

AN ad hoc group of people living in Pietermaritzburg met on Wednesday night deeply concerned about incidents of xenophobia in our town. We came from a range of non-governmental organisations, faith-based initiatives, solidarity campaigns and academic units.

It is critical to say that, like the majority of people living in Pietermaritzburg, we believe that hatred and violence against fellow human beings is wrong. There are undoubtedly very serious challenges facing us a country, and many of these challenges and frustrations are most desperate for the poor and the unemployed.

Dealing with these underlying crises is our collective, urgent and ongoing responsibility but allowing that frustration to be channelled into violence against people who are here from other countries is wrong in principle and wrong in practice.

From the reports we received, it is clear there are deep levels of fear across our community. Groups of ‘foreign nationals’ gather together fearing large-scale attacks; ‘locals’ gather together in impoverished township locations fearing the imagined actions of organised foreigners; suburbanites gather together wondering ‘who’s next’. Fears feed on themselves and generate rumours that can be unfounded or exaggerated.

It is clear there are too few spaces for dealing with our fears across the boundaries that divide us, and for listening to and hearing each other in order to start addressing the sources underlying those fears. In the coming days we will be taking concrete and symbolic actions to support those working for peace and dialogue and to reign in the threat of xenophobia urgently. We’re counting on the support of the people of our town to say loud and clear ‪#‎PmbSaysNoToXenophobia‬