On April 25, 2025, thousands of shack dwellers from across South Africa flooded the streets of Durban in a powerful display of resistance as Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) commemorated two decades of relentless struggle for land, housing, and dignity. What they marked as “UnFreedom Day” was not a celebration, but a collective act of mourning, a fierce rejection of a freedom they say has been stolen and sold.
The movement, which began in 2005 in Durban, has grown into one of Africa’s strongest grassroots movements of over 150,000 members, fighting for the rights of the poor in a country still haunted by deep inequality and state violence, even three decades after the end of apartheid.
Mourning freedom in the shadow of democracy
In a sharp counterpoint to South Africa’s official Freedom Day celebrated on April 27, commemorating the first democratic elections in 1994, AbM has long rejected the idea that true freedom has been achieved. “We are not free because millions remain without land, housing, electricity, or jobs,” said S’bu Zikode, the movement’s elected President in an interview with Peoples Dispatch and Pan Africanism Today. “We cannot lie to ourselves. We cannot deceive our people and claim easy victory while youth unemployment stands at 70%.”
UnFreedom Day, initiated in 2006, has become an annual day of protest to expose the broken promises of post-apartheid South Africa. This year’s actions spread across three provinces: KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, and Mpumalanga, with rallies and marches.
In Durban, protesters marched on April 25 from Curries Fountain to City Hall, delivering a memorandum demanding urgent government action on housing and basic services. Rallies will also be held in Soweto’s Mountain View Occupation and Mpumalanga’s eNkanini 1 Occupation on April 27.
Abahlali’s sharp critique hits at the heart of South Africa’s unfinished democratic project. The movement insists that true freedom means land, housing, food, and dignity – not just the right to vote.
“In a country with so much wealth, millions still go hungry,” A build up Abm statement read. “The poor are only important during elections. Afterwards, we are left to die.”
As South Africa approaches 31 years since the end of apartheid, Abahlali baseMjondolo stands firm that the struggle is not over. Through organizing, defiance, and a vision for socialism, they continue to build an alternative project to capitalism.
“We will be free,” they say, “when land, wealth, and power are fairly shared – and when democracy is understood as the day-to-day power of the people.”
Sb’u Zikode continued on the year’s UnFreedom Day themes, “We Want a Government of the People, not a Government of National Unity” took aim at the new coalition government formed after South Africa’s recent general elections. AbM questions the legitimacy of a state that serves the elite while neglecting the poor.
He reiterated that the celebration of “freedom” is hollow in a society where inequality is among the highest in the world and where the government continues to violently evict the poor. “We cannot accept freedom when it comes without land, housing, dignity or dialogue. This is fake freedom.”
International solidarity and the urgent call to keep organizing
UnFreedom Day also echoed global calls for justice, saying,” The forces of oppression are global and so too are the forces of resistance.” AbM declared solidarity with Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Swaziland, linking their local struggles to broader anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist resistance. “Free Palestine, End Genocide, End Apartheid,” read one banner at the Durban rally.
Abahlali’s message on the streets not only one of resistance but also of a vision for the future. “We believe in mass mobilization,” said Zikode. “It is only the power of the masses, the working class, the shack dwellers and the dispossessed that can build a new society from below.”
As state violence, corruption, and exclusion continue to fracture South Africa’s democratic dream, Abahlali baseMjondolo has once again reminded the world that freedom is not measured by votes or slogans, but by the material realities of the people.
“The struggle continues,” they say—not as a slogan, but as a lived truth of the poor, who are still fighting, organizing, and dreaming of a freedom yet to come.
