Joburg is getting two summits this November. One will take place in air-conditioned anonymity at Nasrec, where the G20 will gather to adjust the global thermostat of inequality by half a degree, all while booking out the most luxurious hotels and murmuring about “sustainable frameworks.”
The other — 10km away at Constitution Hill — will thrum with the unruly heartbeat of the majority: We the 99%, the people’s summit that promises less jargon, more joy and a live soundtrack by DBN Gogo.
This is the counterpoint to the closed-door cabal. While the suits at Nasrec debate growth metrics that seem to never reach the township, Constitution Hill will become a three-day experiment in radical optimism. It will smell of protest paint and street food, sound like Maglera Doe Boy and Lebo Mashile, and feel — briefly — like a world in which the many outnumber the few.
The organisers call it a “living space of resistance, imagination and renewal”. The summit’s rallying cry, People before profit, is as old as capitalism itself, but relevant, as billionaires build rocket ships to escape a planet ostensibly being wrecked.
Kearabetswe Moopelo of the New Economy Hub says inequality isn’t an accident, “It’s a choice,” made in boardrooms, not in backstreets. The global economy is less a market than a magician’s trick: the coin vanishes, and somehow it’s always from the pockets of the poor.
We the 99% isn’t a protest or a manifesto. It’s a performance and a party. The summit crescendos into The 99% Uprising Festival on November 22 — free if you’ve attended the summit, R350 if you prefer to miss the serious stuff and want to find the revolution on the dance floor. Expect DBN Gogo’s basslines, The Brother Moves On’s spiritual jazz rebellion and iPhupho L’ka Biko’s dream of a freer, more generous South Africa.
If Nasrec is about control, Constitution Hill will be about connection. While the G20 perfects the language of power, We the 99% will be perfecting the art of listening to the voices usually tuned out by the world’s volume of wealth, technology, politics and privilege.
As movements from Soweto to São Paulo have learnt, if you can’t join the table, you might as well bring your own sound system.
We the 99% People’s Summit runs from November 20 to 22 2025 at Constitution Hill. Register free at www.wetheninetynine.com
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