The oppressed must organise or starve

THE Freedom Charter, adopted at the Congress of the People at Kliptown in Johannesburg towards the end of June 1955, declared: “There shall be houses, security and comfort. All people shall have the right to live where they choose, to be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security. Unused housing space shall be made available to the people”.

By the 1980s, the Freedom Charter was a key document for militants in the trade union movement and in community-based struggles, setting out a minimum programme for a liberated South Africa. A good deal of its power came from the contrast between the aspirations for the future laid out in the Charter and the bleak