valentine's at pineapple city

valentine's with pineapple city elder members,
originally uploaded by stephatriseup.

last week i met two sisters who have lived at banana city settlement, on the grounds of UKZN-Westville, since 1950, long before the university was planned for that area.

they call the area pineapple city, because there used to be a lot of pineapples grown in the community. somehow, nomalizo says, people began to refer to it as banana city, confusing it with another settlement nearby that could be seen thru banana tree groves.

in 1950, before forced separations of communities, the area was populated with a mix of african and indian families. now, this part is a hilly open space with room for farming. farther up toward the university is where the more densely populated part of the banana city settlement is (see previous post in jan about evictions).

i didn't take this photo-- sibu was pressing us about taking a nice valentine's photo. he was pretty obsessed with valentine's day all afternoon, and thought the flowers and red(-ish) pitcher made a nice touch.

i'm working on this new flickr thing, and thanks to raj's camera i've got a lot more photos from joe slovo. i've been working on a story out there with my friend esther about construction flaws in the new RDP (Reconstruction and Development Plan--ANC's original pre-1994, pre-neoliberal attempt at a just development plan) houses for shackdwellers. most are pretty new one-room houses, and most have pretty serious flaws, like roof tile leaks or cracks in the shower, or plumbing problems.

check out these young ones, who were following me and my camera around, standing with me in the bathroom with an overflowing toilet. luckily this time the water is relatively clean, and not sewage water, like the babies at foreman road play in outside their homes.

on the way back, while on the N2 expressway heading north from Chatsworth, this taxi whizzed by. [click for a close-up view.]
just missed getting a photo of "Violence is Nasty."
if i can get some other opportunities to take photos of taxis here i will, there are a gazillion cool designs, reminds me a lot of the brush painted Our Lady of Guadalupes on vans in Chicago. most pretty telling about the whole taxi culture here--Snoop and Dre are popular, there's a whole legion of "arab" and "thug" taxis, but also stuff like "Love Peace" and "Jewish Brothers", way too many "sexy lady" references, and all sorts of random pop culture. i need to start taking notes.

til soon.
steph

time to march.

Abahlali baseMjondolo has just issued a press release about an upcoming poor people's march. They are estimating about 20,000 people will participate. It's going to happen 2 days before the scheduled elections here, and a march permit has not been granted. In fact, it seems like the city manager is saying [as he has in the past] that Abahlali's march will be considered illegal, and that they've not filled out the right forms to request a march [Abahlali has the right forms]. It's actually illegal for him not to permit the march.

Abahlali is organizing a lot of allies to march, as well as taxi companies to help assist people getting down to the city centre. People are also talking about walking to town to take part.

here's the english version of the press release:

Shack Dwellers’ March
27 February 2006

Hawu! Hawu!

No House! No Land! No Vote!
Ayikho indlu! Awukho umhlaba! Alikho ivote!

WHEN: 8:00a.m. Monday 27 February 2006

WHERE: The march will start at Botha Park and will proceed to the city hall where our demands will be presented to Mike Mabuyakhulu.

WHY: Why are people marching in their thousands? We need answers to our questions about housing * when, how, where and how many houses do they plan to build? The government must give us proof because they have been telling us lies for a long time.

ORGANIZERS: The shack dwellers of this world. We invite all other poor people everywhere to join us and say “enough is enough!”

SUPPORTERS: This march is also supported by, and will include representatives from organisations outside of ward 25 including the Banana City Informal Settlement Area Committee; the Bayview Flats Residents' Association; the Combined Staff Association (UKZN); Eastwood Community Forum (‘Maritzburg), Groundwork; the Mandela Park Anti-eviction Campaign (Cape Town); the Right to Work Campaign; the Socialist Students' Movement (UKZN); the Sydenham Heights Flats Resident’s Association; eThekweni Eco-peace Party; the eThekweni Social Forum; the Wentworth Development Forum and the Westcliff Flat Residents' Association as well as people from Cato Crest, KwaMashu, eMandeni, Umlazi, the Eastern Cape and Jo’burg.

FOR COMMENT AND FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. S’bu Zikode 083 5470474, Mr. Philani Zungu 0729629312; Miss Fikile Nkosi 0842501446; Mr. Mnikelo Ndanbankulu 0735656241; Miss Thandi Khambule 0720979136; Mr. Moses Mncwango 0762250260, Mr. Chazumuzi Ngcobo 0722796588, Mr. M’du Hlongwa 0723358966, Mr. Lungisani Jama 0737634967


The Shack Dwellers’ Struggle

Many promises to people living in shacks have been broken. Across South Africa shack dwellers have been blocking roads and saying ‘Enough!’ There were more than 6000 protests last year. In Durban, in Wards 23 and 25, thousands of people marched on councillors Yacoob Baig and Jayraj Bachu to demand that promises to provide land, housing and basic services like water, electricity and toilets be kept. People have also been marching against plans to move shack dwellers out of the city to rural places like Verulum far away from work, schools, clinics and police stations. The media have understood that people are suffering and have supported the marches very strongly. Other struggling communities have also offered strong support.

We cannot continue to suffer like this. The time has come to say “Enough!” and to demand that the promises made to us be kept. The time has now come to march on Mike Mabuyakhulu. We must tell Mabuyakhulu that if we don’t get satisfactory answers to the questions that we have asked about land, houses and basic services then we will not vote in the elections.

THEY ARE SELLING US!
BATHENGISA NGATH!

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
SEKWANELE! SEKWANELE!

NO LAND, NO HOUSE, NO VOTE!
Ayikho indlu! Awukho umhlaba! Alikho ivote!

***
the only press regarding the beating of S'bu by a police officer outside the SABC debate last weekend has been by Richard Pithouse, on indymedia south africa's front page. see his account here.

Also, Raj has an editorial that should be published this coming Sunday about it, so as soon as it's available i'll get a link to it up. Here is a piece from the end:

"...Mike Sutcliffe last week banned yet another request to march. The reason? An incorrect form had been submitted. This is a little aggravating for Lungisani Jama to hear – he completed and presented the appropriate form at the Mayor’s offices two weeks ago, but they wouldn’t accept it, telling him to fill out a different (and incorrect) one.

"This behaviour from city officials, the SAPS and the SABC has a rather concerted flavour to it. With the best faith in the world, it’s hard not to see something systematic about the repression of Durban’s poorest residents. Were this 1991, we’d know what words to use to describe this kind of repression – for the tactics are the same now as they were then.

"Abbie Hoffman, the American critic and activist observed, that “You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.” A democracy needs an independent media, and a police force not beholden to its politicians. The actions of Mike Sutcliffe, the Mayor, the SABC and the SAPS have an awful orchestration to them, pointing to only one conclusion - South African democracy gives its dissidents little comfort. And without these freedoms, without genuine democracy, we can add two further certainties to our opening list. Without freedom to dissent, the 2006 municipal elections in South Africa can be considered neither free nor fair."

5 year houses, 5 year seats

puddling on here. the strike is still going. which means no email/web access at the university. luckily i have david's computer here at home to use for a few spare minutes at a time.

the pressure is building, on campus, but also around town with the election looming. on sunday evening, there was a televised debate in nearby cato manor community hall (a HUGE shack settlement just over the next ridge of hills from the university and where i stay). s'bu zikode of abahlali was supposed to be on the panel, but when the program started, it was only 4 candidates, representing political parties, one being the ANC's mayor Obed Mlaba. I could see red t-shirts in the audience, but it wasn't the mass numbers i was expecting. Mlaba made some comment about how houses were being developed for residents of the mjondolos, but a lot of them were in places that would require relocation.

About half way through the show, with a thunderous storm going on outside and the signal coming in and out, S'bu appeared, and grabbed the mic, angry. Unfortunately for me, my zulu is not up to par yet, so i wasn't sure what he was saying. there was a cut to commercial break, and just as the program came back with the commentator still talking to S'bu from the floor, the signal went out.

The next day I heard that the police had actually barred the 60 member Abhlali contigent from entering the hall, even though S'bu had an invitation from SABC, and he was supposed to be on the panel. The police said there was no room left, even though it was evident as ANC t-shirted people were let in, that there were still plenty of empty chairs. S'bu and many others were beaten with knobkerries by the police, before some of them were let in to the debate. There was no mention of this on TV, or in the papers about what happened.

i will not blame Abahlali if they continue to escalate their struggle. obviously they are making an impact, if they are receiving this kind of horrible response.

***
with so much going on, i can't seem to write enough. it's hard to believe i'm really starting to miss things like my laptop and wifi, a cell phone that works, and i really wish i had a digital camera. it's been relatively easy to borrow other people's stuff, but downloading photos, for instance, requires logistics that are hard to come by when friends here are all wrapped up in the struggle at the university.

which means that stuff like filming the new houses being built at joe slovo will have to wait, and writing up a piece about these 70-year-old sisters who have been living at Banana City settlement [well they say the settlement's original name is actually Pineapple settlement, because they used to grow lots of pineapples there] since the 1950s.

every time i talk to a new person, a new issue seems to spring up. esther (a friend of mrs gule, see here) from joe slovo called me last week to say that the new RDP houses are leaking. Sure enough, we looked at 5 in a row, and they all had the same problem-- faulty and CHEAP construction meant that the concrete used to build the walls was cracking, and the wall between the shower and the main room of the house had holes, so water spilled onto the floor, leaving unhealthy fumes, and mold, i'm sure, as well.

these are houses built between last summer and december, and people have been living in them only for a matter of months. these are the houses that shack dwellers are being resettled in. these houses with leaks in the walls, not to mention the leaks in the roofs with no waterproofing or any type of ceiling under the roof tiles. it's all in the open.

someone from the ANC told a grandma we visited that her house would be good only for 5 years. 5 YEARS. then what? with the backload in constructing these buildings, one would think that there would be more energy put into building a lasting home for people. what happens in 5 years?

5 years means another election, coincidentally.

Or maybe it's not so much of a coincidence.

what's in a name?

today, friday, at UKZN, union organizers were barred using the Steve Biko lecture hall to show video footage from previous days of the strike.

The Steve Biko lecture hall at Nelson Mandela Medical School.

Steve Biko. A leader of the struggle against apartheid, who elaborated upon the ideas of black consciousness in his writings, who was kicked out of this same med school for organizing black students. Who never got a medical degree. Who was assassinated at age 30.

Nelson Mandela.

I'm not the first to ask this today but what is the point of naming the halls of our great universities after heroes, if we ignore the injustices they were fighting for?

Vice-chancellor Makgoba tried to fan flames of racism amid the unions today, remarking on a radio show this morning that the strike was being led by white academics who did not want to be under the authority of an African boss. And in a phone call to an African union leader, not knowing he was on speakerphone, he apparently directed some racial slurs of his own toward Indian organizers.

This has simply added to the resentment against him. My friend Richard says that this strike and the protests have been incredibly multi-racial, and quite a diverse community of struggle has formed because of it. More people turned out today to protest at Howard College Campus than any other day this week.

see photos and commentary from Richard at: South Africa Indymedia.

latest news via text message: "due to the students and common good of the university makgoba proposes to set up a joint task team to deal with all issues, and a moratorium in the media." 5:53 pm

FREE UKZN

It's wednesday, and day 3 of a strike of the staff [and some students] at University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where the Centre for Civil Society has its home. "FREE UKZN", "WE DEMAND ACADEMIC FREEDOM", "NEGOTIATION IS A RIGHT"... just some of the great slogans on union t-shirts today.


UKZN has undergone some recent restructuring, where 4 colleges/universities have combined under one entity. The biggest grievances right now stem from Vice Chancellor Makgoba's business-like approach to running the new university, including doubling student registration fees from 2000 to 4000 Rand, and giving staff only a 4% raise instead of a previously negotiated 8%. There are also large numbers of retrenchments (staff contracts being ended or not extended) meaning that lecturers and professors are being forced to do more with less.


Makgoba is also at the heart of a conflict to reinstate well-known activist academic Ashwin Desai to a research post at CCS. Desai was "banned" from University of Durban-Westville in the mid-90s because of his involvement in a union campaign and strike then, but the previous chancellor at UKZN had allowed him to return. Ashwin had been a researcher at CCS before leaving to apply for a new position. Makgoba, who says that he as vice-chancellor does not have the power to "unban" Desai, has held up Ashwin's re-hiring, and has criticized support for Ashwin from academics like Noam Chomsky, who he alluded to getting old and contracting dementia. [See Sunday Times article: So Many Questions, and an op-ed supporting Ashwin's reinstatement: Makgoba should fight for Desai]

(ashwin, speaking at howard college Tuesday)

Makgoba is also thought to be behind National Intelligence Agency inquiries into Richard Pithouse and Fazel Khan's support and work with Abahlali baseMjondolo, and although Makgoba has pronounced that no academics should be working with the shackdwellers movement--this includes Banana City settlement (see below) that sits inside the boundaries of Westville campus-- he continues to say that he supports his academic staff in whatever they choose to study and write about. Staff at UKZN do not believe in Makgoba's committment to academic freedom.


The University council so far will not negotiate with the union committee. The strike rally was set to remain outside the administration building at Westville's campus today until Makgoba and council decide to meet with representatives. It was a hot day today, so i'm hoping for progress and that Makgoba and co. didn't wait out the sun to take care of the crowd.

Behind the scenes, Makgoba has been calling Fazel and other union reps to set up a meeting to negotiate. But in multiple instances, he has cancelled these meetings just as they are about to occur. One of his right hand men, Professor Chetty, a member of the sociology department, sent an email to staff earlier in the week that said that no one but 2 chosen university representatives were to talk to the press. This astounded a great deal of the university community, and angered a whole lot of South African sociologists, who are gearing up to host the international sociology conference here in July. Chetty is the former head of the SA Sociology Association, and present leadershave taken his statements as an affront to their hard work to bring a number of radical intellectuals to the country this summer.

(fazel khan, sociologist, union organizer extraordinaire)

The administration has been telling the media that only 10% of staff has been involved in the strike, and that today was the last day. Tomorrow may be quite a wake-up call.

{photos thanks to amanda and the good folks at CCS, more at http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/9673.php, and http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/9648.php)

****
thursday update: strike news on front page of IndyMedia South Africa

Stanley Naicker, a middle aged staff member at the University, who was also involved in the strike action in 1996, was arrested and later released yesterday for climbing into a window in the admin building to try to confront makgoba. his story is here.

Due to the strike, no one's getting email access... so it may be awhile before i can post/write again. til soon.

echoes of biko & fanon

so i think i've been dwelling a bit too much on the outcomes of my visit here. i've had a couple of strange encounters with the research director at CCS, who can't understand why i don't want to give a presentation of "my work"-- what i've been up to or whatever. He kept probing me to see if my resistance was due to some lack of confidence... and surely that's part of it, but i think at this point it's more about not having something more to share, and not feeling like i'm the person to be sharing. not yet, or not here.

i didn't come here to get sucked in to "academia," though what i have told most people upon meeting and trying to explain what i'm doing here is that it's kind of in between time before i apply to urban policy/sociology programs back home in the fall. but hanging around all these academic types [maybe a little too much], and being identified by folks at kennedy or foreman road or elsewhere thru CCS, it's hard not to be put in that role.

it's a strange place to be: there's an unspoken rift at the center between patrick bond and other researchers, for prioritizing the time of american academics coming here to do research in the "field" vs. supporting local African scholars. i feel like i need to be careful not to take for granted the good relationships built up by richard and other academics at CCS with residents from abahlali, who for awhile were rightfully skeptical of white folks and other outsiders coming in to "help." and, obviously the simple privilege of getting here to Durban and being able to buy a ticket and not work for a few months (increasing debts aside, or added to that privilege the fact that i can put off the thoughts of paying debts for a few months), and leave when i want.

i came across richard's blog yesterday, and his really thoughtful writing has reminded me of the importance of not turning in to some sort of objective researcher, what ashraf cassiem [an activist in town from the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town] was talking about yesterday, in all his struggles with NGOs with tons of funding who ask him for favors--"can you show this group around your hood, can you bring 20 of your folks to this workshop"--without giving him any resources in return. ashraf, without a job, without a high school degree, has been going to court in Cape Town and representing members of the AEC who have been threatened with eviction. taking the SA Constitution's Bill of Rights, which has a provision that allows someone to advocate for a fellow member of your organization if a right of that person (in the bill of rights, like rights to housing, or dignity, or for children to grow up in decent surroundings) that you work for as an org is being infringed upon by other people. he's postponed cases, and even won some, against powerful bank and real estate attorneys. no job. no funds. no law degree. no outside support.

[one great program at CCS, RAASP, is a workshop that trains activists to do research and write their own papers about their struggles. Ashraf wrote one, see it here. most of the funding he got for the research, he said, he used for AEC projects, since his interviews were all with people he knows.]

ashraf, richard, others, mention often what fanon emphasized as the necessity of intellectuals/ academics/ middle class activists to be invested in and acting as a part of a present existing struggle. to be a part of a collective environment of critical engagement with this struggle, where ideas are created in "mutually transformative dialogue," [from richard's blog], rather than what this guy from the Illinois lieutenant governor's office said to me at some point last year, something like "making money off of other people's poverty." and from what i've heard, there's a lot of that going on here, just like home (or more likely, because of the mentality at home that's crossed the ocean to the 'developing world'). how the anc has tried to de-politicize social movements, how USAID etc has been funding NGOs or individuals that purport to represent orgs or movements, how academics take over the democratic structures of organizations like the Social Movement Indaba, and try to tell people how democracy should work, how the working class will rise up under their leadership, or how their org should be run.

there are a lot of things to get involved in here... elections in 4 weeks, folks especially at foreman could use some constructive criticism (and not hand-holding) toward outreach in their community. there are tons of families, like mrs gule from joe slovo settlement in mobeni heights, who because of tribalism and racism-- or just plain bureacracy, usually the reason-- has lost her housing allocation. these interviews alone could probably take up all of my time. banana city residents still live under the threat of eviction and water cut-offs. resources (without strings attached) needed to be found to keep the university of abahlali basemjondolo going every saturday and to create a local abahlali housing development corporation. a big march by abahlali soon. not to mention the UKZN staff strike starting tomorrow, and the campaign to un-ban Ashwin Desai from the University.

quite an exciting time... but my small place? let it not do too much damage. let me be an instrument to engage in mutually transforming and constructive dialogue.

as ashraf says, time to go and do it, now. no time to wait. why wait?

winds of change...

first, a very happy 4th birthday to Nthlembe, the daughter of my host sister Busi Ndlovu (from my study in Zimbabwe in 2000). Busi and her husband, Wiseman, and daughter live not too far from me in Durban, and i finally got a chance to spend an afternoon with them and catch up on 6 years of news. The most exciting being that her youngest sister, Sane, who is my age, had TWINS on December 17th. And, Rose, their cousin and my housemate when I was living with the Ndlovus (same age, as well), has a new baby boy, born earlier last year.

i feel so behind in the times. it was nice to hear about the family and see photos, even if some of the news included my slim-looking host father being relegated to walking or biking the 5 kms or so to work at the University since there is no petrol, and Sane having difficulty finding enough baby formula to keep her hungry babies satisfied.

the Ndlovus are lucky, their children are all doing well, but at the same time they are a good representation of what is happening to Zimbabwean families who can escape Mugabe's dictatorship: 4 daughters, living in 4 different countries. Samu, the eldest, has moved to London with her husband; Busi is in Durban; Phili is working on an engineering Ph.D in Germany; and Sane is at home in Harare. The number of Zimbabwean refugees living in other countries right now is estimated in the millions.

busi hopes for a family reunion this coming christmas, where she'll get to meet the new babies and see all of her sisters in the same place for the first time in years. i hope by the time december comes a reunion is still possible.

***
A great article on the upcoming elections and the future of the ANC, posing some of the questions I hope to ask of people over the coming weeks:

Winds of change keep blowing
SUNDAY TRIBUNE January 29, 2006
By Alan Dunn

... This is a generation with changing values and fresh aspirations, an ambitious new crop driving to succeed in a competitive society, one which cares less about the sacrifices of the liberation struggle.

Much like young Britons today think Churchill is an insurance company, tomorrow's generation in South Africa thinks Jan Smuts is a highway, and know little about Albert Luthuli or other liberation hall-of-famers.

They've heard about the dark decades, from their parents and grandparents who endured them, but this unhappy past has little bearing today on acquiring skills, finding a job, and getting ahead in a highly competitive environment.

For them, joining the country's burgeoning middle class means eyes straight ahead, not casting them back to what was. Attending a self-improvement course would be more pressing to them than busing in for a Freedom Day celebration.

If they bother to vote, these people will measure a political party by its competence, by its immediate impact on their lives. Neither history nor allegiance will guide their pens as they step into the polling booths.

Another sign of ANC vulnerability is the anger at non-delivery in townships and villages throughout South Africa. It's an irritation now, a minor factor in the returns the ANC will enjoy on March 1, but it is the first time the dominant party has been openly, repeatedly and spontaneously challenged by disenchanted supporters who were once viewed as die-hards.

This is, perhaps, the beginning of greater disaffection and wider resistance to the ANC. It certainly is an early sign of an electorate which will in future be swayed by governmental performance.

It must be unsettling to ANC strategists, though bravado and the dictates of winning politics will never allow them to admit this.

They may take some heart, though, in seeing the slogans on T-shirts and scrawlings on cardboard: "No homes, no votes". They may find a sliver of solace in the negativity of a stayaway vote rather than the damage of a vote for a rival party. This, in turn, must be unnerving for the rival parties. None of the angry citizens has yet chanted "Broken promises, vote DA", or "No power, vote PAC".

Which raises tough questions about the impact and ultimate potential of the opposition parties. Hard as it is trying, the quick-eyed DA is unlikely to foment this discontent and convert it into a windfall of votes.

Opposition stagnance aside, the mess that is the lowest level of government in this country is exposing the weaknesses of the mighty party. And maybe it is also signalling the ANC's future, and the upgrades it will have to undergo to remain the force it is.

***
i'm going to be writing some more articles about evictions and the housing allocation process, which is a mess, so stay tuned. please send positive thoughts my way to keep me focused and confident that i can be productive in my last month here. i'm hoping that research i do this month will make itself into presentation form by the time i have to leave. so much yet to do!

love to you all.