Second open letter from Mzonke Poni, Chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape, to Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille, September 21 2011:
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Dear Mayor de Lille
Thank you for the reply from your chief of staff to our letter dated 12 September. We have now had time to circulate it amongst our members and to discuss it carefully.
We do appreciate your invitation for the leadership of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape to meet with the mayor. There has, after so many years of struggle in Durban, been no such invitation from any mayor in Durban and we note and appreciate your willingness to meet with us.
As we have previously stated we have no interested in attending stage managed events that are designed for the media rather than to enable genuinely open discussion. We are committed to participatory democracy and to participatory budgeting and urban planning methods and would like to find forms of engagement that are genuinely participatory. As we have both noted in the past the current policies are failing to address the urban crisis in Cape Town. We cannot accept that so many of our people will live their whole lives in shacks.