Norm Dixon
The African National Congress-led Johannesburg City Council is attempting to evict two of South Africa's leading activist organisations from their premises in the city's Newtown arts precinct. On July 1, more than 50 activists gathered at the Jeppe Street buildings to protest the council's illegal demand that the Khanya College and the Workers' Library and Museum leave by the end of June.
At the end of last year, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), a company established by the Johannesburg council, ordered the Workers' Library and Khanya College to vacate the old municipal workers' compound in Newtown by the end of March.
Khanya College has worked with anti-apartheid and workers' organisations, and the social movements of the urban and rural poor, since 1986. Since 1993, the organisations have used the historic buildings — which were once the grim single-sex hostels that housed black council workers during the apartheid era — for offices, a library and museum, and as a venue for social movement and trade union activists to meet. The Workers' Library and Khanya College have developed the compound into a historic monument without assistance from the council.
At the July 1 picket, Khanya College coordinator Oupa Lehulere declared that "the eviction notice is unlawful" as the organisations had an option to renew the lease for two years. Workers' Library spokesperson Modiegi Khuele said the ANC-controlled "JDA's initiative is killing the history of the working class... We are concerned with the preservation of working-class history because the place was used by migrant labourers."
The protest was supported by the Anti-Privatisation Forum. Since the fall of apartheid in 1994, and in response to the national ANC government's drive to privatise essential services such as water and electricity, Khanya has thrown open its courses to APF activists and other movements fighting neoliberalism.
Khanya College was founded by the South African Committee for Higher Education (Sached) Trust. The college was run democratically and encouraged students to return to serve their communities after completing their studies. As part of Khanya's commitment to the building of a new society, each student had to work for at least half a day per week in a progressive NGO or mass organisation.
In 1992, Khanya decided to expand its commitment to building democratic organisations by starting the Labour and Community (Lacom) Division. Lacom has specialised in training activists for civic, trade union and student organisations, churches and other community-based structures.
The college responded to the emergence of a range of new social movements in the post-apartheid period by developing new programs, and by deepening its relationship with these movements. This has not endeared the organisation to capitalist ANC governments at the national, provincial and local levels.
Send protest messages demanding that Khanya College and the Workers' Library not be evicted from <http://www.joburg.org.za/letters/query_other.stm>. Visit the Khanya College website at <http://www.khanyacollege.org.za/> and Workers' Library site at <http://free.freespeech.org/workers_library/library.htm>.
From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
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