Movement for Collective Action and Racial Equity (Movement4CARE)
A municipalist movement of people, communities and organisations in Cape Town, brought together by the desire to organise collectively and build progressive and transformative politics centred in action, care and equity.
The proposed project is the building of a municipalist movement in Cape Town, as an alternative and distinct political home for the many who have been excluded and who have become distrustful and/or fed up of current political parties and their politics. A movement which is also an electoral platform, grounded in the politics of care and action, with particular focus on bridging the divide between Black people/People of colour (black African, Coloured and Indian) in Cape Town.
The movement will practice and implement municipalist politics in Cape Town that put people, justice, equality and the environment at the centre and prioritises care for people and the environment.
These will be candidates that are chosen by communities and social justice organisations to be the much needed voices that have been missing in council to push for and implement progressive policies that, for decades, people and organisations Cape Town have been campaign for.
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
One of the biggest challenges in the fight against anti-Black racism, white supremacy and other systemic and structural injustices in Cape Town is the racial divide, predominantly between ‘black African’ and ‘coloured’ people and communities, who make up over 80% of Cape Town’s population combined.
Cities are the centres of racial inequity, discrimination, exclusion and injustice. At the same time cities are the closest to the people in terms of participation, but in Cape Town power and decision making is centralised to those who are predominantly white, men and rich who continue to perpetuate racial, gender and class inequities. This results in the exclusion (politically and economically) of Black people in Cape Town, the majority of the population, reflected in policies and governance that is both anti Black and anti-poor.
The spatial setup of Cape Town, as a result of the Apartheid Group Areas of 1950, remains segregated and divided along racial lines where the majority of the Black population lives still at the outskirts of the City, known as the Cape Flats. These communities remain underdeveloped, under-resourced and have some of the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, crime and gang violence.
Impact
The larger and long-term aim of this movement is to build and sustain solidarity among Black people/People of colour and marginalised people and communities, and, to change, through municipalist politics, the faces of power in Cape Town in order to champion progressive and transformative politics and policies. To ensure cities are centres for progressive politics that put people, justice, equality and the environment at the forefront through new and creative ways and through political action and spaces that are about care and equity.
Community visits and meetings to discuss strategy and plans towards the elections were held with community leaders mainly from informal settlement communities. The formation of the movement was discussed and signatures collected from the 8 communities engaged for the purposes of the deed of foundation.
We managed to support one independent candidate and we were able to organise political actions that the communities felt were necessary and some meetings and workshops focused on these actions.
The work of building the Movement for CARE and municipalist politics in Cape Town led to me being involved a political movement shaped on similar politics at a national level.
The Movement for CARE will be coordinating and organising different organisations in Cape Town with a view to use participatory budgeting methods to bring people together and building solidarity between different ‘black African’ and ‘coloured’ communities and continue to challenge racial and class inequities in Cape Town and South Africa.
