Mandela Remembrance raises $997 for South African shackdwellers – $0 from PM

Sunday night’s Mandela remembrance at Waikato Stadium (Rugby Park in 1981) raised $997 for the South African shackdwellers organisation Abahlali baseMjondolo.

ABM represents a new wave of struggle in South Africa against the corruption-ridden ANC and its free-market policies which have enriched a tiny elite at the expense of the poorest South Africans.

New Zealanders who’d like to contribute to this appeal before the funds are sent can make donations through the Mana Movement account 38-9011-0786740-02 and put ABM donation in the details. In a week or so the money will be transferred to ABM to support their community campaigns for decent housing and we will announce the amount donated and sent.

Meanwhile Prime Minister John Key uses every opportunity to attack anti-apartheid activists just as his predecessor Rob Muldoon did in 1981.

Key chose to take his National Party cronies Jim Bolger and Don McKinnon on a jaunt to South Africa for Mandela’s funeral to glad hand with global celebrities and appear as an unidentified guest in US media coverage.

These tired old tories were on the side of a government which backed the Springbok tour in 1981 and attacked Mandela as a terrorist and the ANC as a terrorist organisation.

Now from the heights of hypocrisy Key is taking over where Muldoon left off.

Our PM is as shallow as a birdbath.

John Minto
Co-vice President
Mana Movement