Decades ago, Richard Pithouse and I were reading Alain Badiou’s Being and Event, and discussing his ideas with our comrades in Abahlali baseMjondolo. If you’re picking up a trace of Badiou’s set-theory-as-ethics in this quote by the organisation’s General Secretary – “Every human being, everywhere, must be counted as a human being” – then this might explain it. Thapelo Mohapi, who offered this counter to the xenophobia of South Africa’s Operation Dudula, wasn’t part of ou...
