JHB People's Pride Committee members: Kwezilomso, Nkoko, Kgomotso, Karabo, Sekoetlane
A movement in solidarity with politically oriented and socially conscious Pride events that educate and conscientise communities about the struggles that shape our experiences of being queer in South Africa.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Sunday, 29 September 2013
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Call to Action
Johannesburg People's Pride March for Freedom and Justice
5 October 2013, 10:00 AM
Constitution Hill
The Peoples Pride Movement would like to invite all people with a desire for a free
and just society to join hands, feet and bodies-take to the streets of Johannesburg
and demand a safe and free South Africa for all of those who live in it.
We are calling on all people in and around the margins of what is acceptable and
good. We are calling on all people that normative society deems outlaw, all of us
who are not free. Our sexual orientation, our race, our class positions, our genders,
our geographic locations, our bodies with disabilities, our refugee status and many
other factors work together and are used as a basis to exploit and oppress us and
place us on these margins.
A proud people are a defiant people. A people that say: choice of sexual orientation, choice
of work, choice of identities can never, in our world, be a basis for discrimination. A
people that say: society is built for the materially and structurally privileged, and that
this society is not one that we wish to live in. A proud people is a people that will lift
up their hands and fists in struggle.
In reclaiming our pride, we will march together and demand:
- Erotic justice;
- Freedom from all forms of violence and discrimination;
- Universal access to quality healthcare, including sexual and reproductive health services;
- Decriminalisation of sex work;
- Fair and just working conditions and employment opportunities;
- Equitable redistribution of land;
- Universal access to housing, sanitation, water, and nutrition;
- Universal and quality education.
Placard and banner-making: 2 October, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Constitution Hill
For further information, contact:
Kwezilomso Mbandazayo
+27 82 817 0097
Sekoetlane Jacob Phamodi
+27 76 084 8077
Virginia Magwaza Setshedi
+27 82 379 0539
Please send messages of solidarity to jhbpeoplespride@gmail.com
Thursday, 29 August 2013
"Go back to your lokshin" - Race, Class and Queerness
Last year we were told ''go back to your
lokshin'' and that the route belonged to them and not us...race and
class divides exist within the LGBTIAQ community, most times we choose
to not see it because it is easier to pretend its not there than to face
it. Join us for a discussion on race, class and queerness...what does
it mean to u, to me, to us?
An in-depth panel discussion on race and class within South Africa and how these systems and ideas operate structurally and interpersonally to limit nd shape our organising for social justice.
Saturday, 31 August 2013
1oam - 3pm
Contitution Hill
11 kotze Street, Braamfontein
For more info and to RSVP
Kwezilomso Mbandazayo
jhbpeoplespride@gmail.com
082 817 0097
Friday, 16 August 2013
JHB People’s Pride Calendar 2013
1. “Go Back to Your
Lokshin”: Race, Class and Queerness
|
Saturday, 31 August 2013, 10h00-15h00, Constitution
Hill
An in-depth panel discussion on race and class
within South Africa and how these systems and ideas operate structurally and
interpersonally to limit and shape our organising for social justice.
2. Know Your Law
|
26
August – 7 September, daytime tours, Constitution Hill, dates and times TBA
A series of
educational walking court tours
guided by legal experts that will cover the history, the function and the
relevance of the Constitution and the Constitutional Court in advancing social
justice in South Africa.
3. The Use and Abuse
of the Queer Body
|
Saturday,
14 September 2013, 10h00-16h00, Johannesburg Art Gallery
A participatory art
exhibition and panel discussion
covering the theme of homonationalism and pink washing, in which guests will
creatively engage with, critique and transform artistic representations of
queerness while also rethinking strategies to challenge the hijacking
of queerness for narrow political ends.
4. Your Rights in
Public Organising
|
16 September, 10h00-15h00, Constitution Hill
The JPP, in partnership with the Right to Know Campaign, will
host a workshop to conscientise
members of the LGBTIAQ public on how to organise pickets, protests and marches,
as well as help them to understand their rights with respect to the Regulation
of Gatherings Act (1993).
5. Multimedia Advocacy and Production Skills
|
18 September – 2 October, every Wednesday, 10h00-15h00, venues TBA
Three skills building workshops by the Advocacy and Media Production Studio on banner-making and t-shirt and poster printing. Workshops will take place in Ekurhuleni, Soweto and Johannesburg. Each workshop will accommodate up to 20 participants per session.
6. Retrospective on
Queer Organising
|
24
September – 12 October, Constitution Hill
An exhibition that will draw on the
resources housed at GALA and the queer public at large to offer a retrospective
overview of the struggles and victories in queer organising in South Africa.
7. A People’s Panorama
of Film
|
25-27
September, 16h00-18h00, 1-3 October, 17h00-19h00, Constitution Hill
A film festival presenting films from the
global South on queer activism, local struggles and rights to natural resources,
from forests to water, the nature of the body as a political and erotic landscape,
and other topics from the JPP Manifesto.
8. Reflections and
Experiences from Continental Queer Organising
|
1-4
October, 18h00-20h00, Afrikan Freedom Station
A discussion and social
gathering hosted by the Coalition of African Lesbians, in which queer
activists from the continent will share their experiences of organising LGBTIAQ
movements and Pride events in different countries.
9. JHB People’s Pride
March
|
Saturday,
5 October 2013, 10h00-18h00, Constitution Hill
Monday, 3 June 2013
Press Release May 2013
New Organising Committee to Organise a People’s Pride in Johannesburg on 5 October 2013
Johannesburg, 20 May 2013
A meeting on 18 May of the recently formed organising committee of about 30 individuals decided on a broad programme of action for the annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, and queer (LGBTIAQ) Pride in Johannesburg. Johannesburg Pride 2013 will consist of public art installations, performances, exhibitions, direct action, workshops, and debates over the months leading up to a march on October 5.
The organising committee emerges from two public meetings hosted by the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) and the One in Nine Campaign during April and May 2013 attended by a broad range of activists and other members of the Johannesburg queer public.
The meetings discussed issues concerning the manner in which Pride has been organised in Johannesburg in the recent past. They identified the ways in which previous Pride events have reinforced racial, class, gender and other social hierarchies, overlooking the problems confronting a vast majority of LGBTIAQ individuals and communities in and around Johannesburg and in South Africa as a whole, and ignoring their daily struggles for adequate housing, safety, education, and access to public services such as transportation and health.
In a society still largely stratified along racial lines, this failure translated into Pride events that catered, often explicitly, to affluent, mostly white individuals. This deliberate de-politicisation of Pride and emphasis on festivities for the affluent is a slap in the face of individuals from economically marginalised communities, particluarly black lesbians and gender non-conforming people, whose lives are characterised by high levels of structural and interpersonal violence. In privileging corporate sponsorships and promoting the market value of such events, Pride ceased to be an inclusive space that was safe and accessible to all members of LGBTIAQ communities.
The meetings also generated a “Pride manifesto” that lays out the principles and vision for a “People’s Pride,” including anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-sexism, anti-ableism and the positioning of LGBTIAQ struggles within broader socio-political and economic contexts and struggles in South Africa, and globally. Pride is envisioned as a widely inclusive and decidedly political movement for social justice.
The organising committee, which is mandated to organise Pride according to the manifesto, is in the process of creating a People’s Pride calendar; the events and actions will serve to:
- Build solidarity with other politically oriented Prides in the greater Johannesburg region and beyond, such as Soweto Pride and Ekurhuleni Pride;
- Educate and conscientise communities about the struggles that shape our experiences of being queer in South Africa;
- Honour the contributions and resilience of queer Africans; and
- Celebrate the hard-won legislative freedoms we have today, recognising that we are not free until we are all substantively free;
- Articulate demands for furthering social justice for all.
For further information:
- Kwezilomso Mbandazayo: 078 136 7854
- Sekoetlane Phamodi: 076 084 8077
- Email us at JHBPeoplesPride@gmail.com;
- Join the Reclaim Our Pride facebook page;
- Attend organising committee & mass meetings; (announcements on facebook)
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