The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa. It was formed in November 2000 with the aim of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.
The movement is the oldest of the first generation of so-called 'new social movements' to spring up after the end of apartheid and is known for its direct action style militancy, its refusal of all forms of vanguardism, including NGO (Non-Governmental Organisations) authoritarianism. The movement has sought to retain its autonomy from NGOs and publicly refused to work with some local NGOs and insists that the middle class left respect the autonomy of grassroots movements.
The AEC is a founding member of the Poor People's Alliance and, along with the other members of the alliance, refuses all electoral politics and encourages the development of popular power rather than voting for political parties.
The AEC was able to successfully mobilise against the 2008 xenophobic attacks in the areas where it is strong.
The AEC opposed evictions related to the FIFA 2010 World Cup.
Read more about Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign: Communities, Coordinators, Activities, Campaigns, Poor People's Alliance, Influence, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words western, cape and/or campaign:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain’s rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”
—Mario Cuomo (b. 1932)