Events


04/02/2023

Activism beyond the picket line: an activist’s workshop

Public demonstration, the historic tradition of speaking truth to power, remains the main tool in the hands of the oppressed and excluded. While public protest and marches still demonstrate mass power and unity of the marginalized, there is growing despondency about the effectiveness of this strategy. In the midst of deepening poverty, widening inequality and general failure of the state, can we afford to not interrogate our current methods of protesting? What lessons can be drawn from our activist history compared with the current dynamics of the culture of protesting? Are there new innovative ways we should be adopting in making our stand and achieving our goals? How do we sustain the momentum and mass vigilance once we have marched and the memorandum of demands has been handed over?

Tshisimani will be hosting a workshop for activists to critically engage on these questions by reflecting on personal experiences as well as lessons from movements in South Africa and beyond.

Date: Saturday 4 February 2023
Time: 10:00 – 13:30
Location: Black Sash offices, 2 Caledonian Street, Mowbray, Cape Town (next door to Fat Cactus restaurant off Durban Road – within walking distance from Mowbray bus, taxi rank and train station)

This workshop will be an in-person offering with no online option.
Numbers are limited. Please RSVP to info@tshisimani.org.za or phone 021 685 3516 by Thursday 2 February

Uncategorized


Marikana: 10 Years On – Public Seminar

The public seminar reflected on Marikana 10 years on with Nomzamo Zondo reflecting on the progress of the widow’s cases for reparations. Advocate Tembeka Ngucaitobi reflected on the history mining and the questioned the importance of an inquiry whilst Meshack Mbungula brought the issues of mineworkers at present to the front.

Public Seminar including Advocate Tembeka Ngucaitobi, Nomzamo Zondo and Meshack Mbungula

Public Series & Schools


Marikana : The danger of memorial without memory

The 16th of August 2022 marked ten years since the Marikana Massacre. In 2015 students at universities all over South Africa “commemorated” the deaths of 34 miners and 2 security personnel and 2 police men during a labour dispute strike in Marikana in the North West province of South Africa. Since the incident – an incident which is often referred to as the “historical break” between the interests of the government and the working class – the historical of the trajectory of the liberated South Africa has changed. Marikana leaves us with many political questions to grapple with within political organisations. 

For Tshisimani it was not enough to “commemorate” the massacre of Marikana but rather to question it as a historical moment so that it may make sense of it for the future of the country. Through our engagements with the What is Democracy cohort – a group of young activists who meet monthly to discuss the relevance of democracy today – we realised that there is a generation of young people who do not know what Marikana is – what the event meant, how it unfolded and what it means for the political realities we find ourselves in. 

The program included an afternoon workshop, a public seminar with Meshack (MACUA), Advocate Tembeka Ngucaitobi and Nomzamo Zondo (SERI); a book launch of Julian Brown’s Marikana:a people’s history and an evening of song and performance reflecting on Marikana.

Tshsisimani hosted a 2-day educational program “commemorating” the Marikana Massacre with youth activists for whom the massacre is a distant-memory and event.

Lessons from the Program

Events


01/09/2022

The Blinded City: Book Launch

Tshisimani invites you to a launch of Mathew Wilhem- Solomon, The Blinded City: Ten Years in Inner City Johannesburg to be held at Cissie Gool House.

This is a moment for activists and the public at large to partake in insightful conversations about life of working-class fmilies in the inner city and draw lessons on the enduring spatial injustice in South Africa’s major cities. This book provides a humanising narrative for those rendered faceless by city authorities and chronicles the experience of evictions and displacements. Please join us as we celebrate this progressive publication in a manner reflective of the vibrancy of activists resisting evictions.

Please RSVP to info@tshisimani.org.za

Date: 1 September 2022
Time:16:30-18:30
Location: Cissie Gool House Hall, 77 Mountain Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town, 7915