The Anglican Church in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province has awarded its Order of the Holy Nativity to the head of a shack-dwellers’ movement for being a “beacon of dignity and hope”.
Is this Man the Next Nelson Mandela?
What’s happened is that the oppressed have become the oppressors, [and] a huge gap has opened between the poor and the rich.
Sibusiso (S'bu) Innocent Zikode is the president of the South African shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. According to the Mail & Guardian "Under his stewardship, ABM has made steady gains for housing rights."
Despite economic and social rights being enshrined in the post-Apartheid South Afican Constitution, housing rights for the urban poor lag behind both provisions in the law and numerous favorable court decisions. HRDs working on housing rights face harassment and challenges by the police, particularly when organizing grassroots mobilizations to protest living conditions.
