Taking Back South Africa!
Occupy South Africa was a South African initiative primarily aimed at protesting and inciting mass action against the racial, economic and social inequality in South Africa. It is part of the globally Occupy Wall Street movement. It consists of a loose informal affiliation of on the ground groups and individuals across South Africa as well as internet based groups. Groups such as Taking Back South Africa!, Occupy South Africa are involved in South Africa and online. The movement is also involved with the Marikana miners' strike.
Like the occupy movement elsewhere the South African movement is a heterogeneous campaign. Some aspects of it deal with the governments failure to render equitable distribution of wealth, while other aspects of it deal with White minority dominance and other forms of ongoing out crops of apartheid such as economic apartheid. Others focus on White media domination and inequity in representation.
On 18 March 2011 a video purportedly by the hacktivist group 'Anonymous' was released by Winds of Change Media calling on the South African people to rise up against the government and the capitalist system. This video expressed support for the 'Taking Back South Africa!' campaign. James Lorimer, spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance, the second biggest political party in South Africa, said in response to the call that because nobody knew who was behind the call, the uprising call lacked credibility.
After months of networking with individuals and social groups in South Africa a call was made by Taking Back South Africa! to hold countrywide occupations in various cities in South Africa on 15 October 2011 following the same successful tactic used by Occupy Wall Street. The call went viral over the week preceding 15 October and many social groups and individual activists started preparing for the occupation of symbolic locations in their cities. Saturday, 15 October witnessed South Africa's first coordinated occupation which took place in five cities simultaneously, namely Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Grahamstown and East London. Joe Hani, one of the admins of 'Taking Back South Africa!' said when questioned by the Mail&Guardian newspaper as to the motivation behind Occupy South Africa that "no country was more worthy of an uprising against capitalism than South Africa". Ayanda Kota, the chairperson of the Unemployed People's Movement said: ""We, the poor, suffer whenever companies fix the price of bread or when there are more job losses while chief executives get rich. But our protest is also localised, in the sense that we are protesting about the R19-million that is unaccounted for by the Makana municipality, the R240 000 spent by local government on bogus soccer development clinics and the privatisation of our struggle by the ANC." Richard Pithouse, a Rhodes University political scientist, said the Grahamstown occupation protest could stand out as an example to other cities. It had been preceded by months of careful political work involving the Unemployed Peoples' Movement and the Students for Social Justice. This had culminated in "a negotiated solidarity based on equality" between disillusioned middle-class youth and grassroots communities, which had "explosive political potential".
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