‘But We Were Thousands’ Dispossession, Resistance, Repossession and Repression in Mandela Park [ Evictions ]
This paper has been reduced by over a third for this seminar. We have decided to remove most of the theory and analysis, and in particular our analysis regarding the strategic choices confronting movements like the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign (MPAEC), and to leave intact the bones of the basic story of the key events in the struggle of the MPAEC. Our telling of this story draws largely on interviews with Max Ntanyana and Fonky Goboza but we are also in constant contact with a number of other people within and allied to the campaign and have visited Mandela Park on a number of occasions and been eyewitnesses to the some of the events narrated here. We hope that in the future there will be resources and time and political space for us, or others, to add flesh to the bones of this story. But right now it seems that the most important thing is that this story is told.