The Star Publications Monday November 9, 2009

Fuad (Kuala Lumpur Mayor) apologises to Jinjang residents for miscommunication

By BAVANI M

KUALA LUMPUR mayor Datuk Ahmad Fuad Ismail has apologised to Jinjang Utara Longhouse Sector D residents for the fiasco that took place last week at the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) headquarters. “I am sorry. This is a miscommunication with my officers and it should never have happened and could have been avoided. But we made a mistake and we are truly sorry for it,’’ said Ahmad Fuad.

Angry lot: File pic shows PERMAS president Tan Jo Hann tearing up the DBKL letter at the DBKL headquarters after officers failed to turn up for the meeting.

The mayor was responding to the incident last week where 12 residents from the longhouse were kept waiting for two hours despite being told to come at 11am for a meeting with the officers.

After waiting for so long, the residents, who had taken time off from work to attend the meeting, lost their temper and staged a walkout. They had requested a meeting with the DBKL to discuss their living conditions as their 16-year-old transit homes were falling apart. Fuad also said he would go down and meet the residents next week to see for himself their living condition.

In 2002, about 200 families from Sector D were given notices to move to another longhouse about 500m away. They were informed that low- cost units were being built for them to rent and buy. Developer Mega Legacy was supposed to build low-cost units at RM42,000 each in 2006, but nothing has materialised.

“We will give an ultimatum to the developer to submit the development plans for the units and if they fail to do so we will terminate their contract. We cannot be helping developers who fail to deliver,’’ Fuad said.

For now, Fuad said the developer must carry out rectification work on the units which were falling apart. “I realise that something must be done and quick as safety is also a concern. The developers must take responsibility for this.

“If they fail to do so we will take back the land. We regret that enforcement was not done sooner.

This issue is long overdue and I will personally look into the matter,’’ he said.

The Jinjang Utara Longhouse was built to house squatters relocated from various areas in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. There some 2,000 residents living in the longhouse. Out of that number, 276 residents are from Sector D.

SAUL ALINSKY

Editor's note: Hi I stumbled upon this article about Saul Alinsky, the renown Community organiser, many said he sort of "developed" Community organising, read about him and his work! share your comments!

Few know it today, but Chicago was the birthplace of a powerful grassroots social movement that changed political activism in this country. "Community Organizing" was pioneered in Chicago's old stockyards neighborhood by the soberly realistic, unabashedly radical Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky's hard-nosed politics were shaped by the rough and tumble world of late 1930's Chicago. Back then, the city, still in the grips of the Great Depression, was controlled by the Kelly-Nash political machine and by Frank Nitti - heir to Al Capone's Mafia empire. In 1938, with a freshly minted graduate degree in criminology from University of Chicago, Alinsky went to work for sociologist Clifford Shaw at the Institute for Juvenile Research. He was assigned to research the causes of juvenile delinquency in Chicago's tough "Back-of-the-Yards" neighborhood. In order to study gang behavior from the inside, Alinsky ingratiated himself with Al Capone's crowd, and came to realize that criminal behavior was a symptom of poverty and powerlessness.

The Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood, setting of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, was an immense slum in the shadows of Chicago's giant Union Stockyards, one of the largest factory complexes ever created. Its inhabitants were poor; they had no rights and no job security. In the course of one year, wages were cut three times. As Alinsky watched and decided that he could no longer stand by as a silent observer. He believed that widespread poverty left America open to the influence of demagogues and that the only antidote was active, widespread participation in the political process. Alinsky envisioned an "organization of organizations," comprised of all sectors of the community - youth committees, small businesses, labor unions and, most influential of all, the Catholic Church.

He consulted with Herb March, a union leader organizing stockyard workers for the CIO - the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He teamed up with Joe Meegan, a powerful organizer with strong links to the Catholic Church, through whom he was able to convince a powerful Bishop Bernard Sheil to join the fight against unfair labor practices. Alinsky also recruited leaders of previously hostile ethnic groups: Serbs and Croatians, Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Lithuanians - always appealing to their mutual self-interests. Finally, on July 14, 1939, Alinsky and Meegan convened the first Back-of-the-Yards Council meeting, chaired by Bishop Sheil. The event was revolutionary in American history because it was the first time an entire community was organized. The union, the community and the Church became one and the same. More...