My sister messaged me during the week, furious that they – the Ekurhuleni municipality (my home constituency), the police, the army, private security companies, the human settlements department – were pulling down shacks along the N12.
To be clear, my sister is not advocating for people throwing up houses wherever they feel like it, but her distress was that it was winter-cold outside.
If you think an icy night spent in a corrugated iron box is tough, then try it without the box.
Many people did, except for the 60-odd “illegals” who were carted off to the Benoni police station for the night, where at least they had a roof. I think.
Authorities under scrutiny
It seemed almost like an election is on the horizon, the authorities behaving as if everything is running well at their offices, as if Ekurhuleni’s service delivery is smooth, its books tidy, its hands clean, its governance laudable and it’s not in debt to the tune of billions of rand, while Ekurhuleni whistle-blowers Marius van der Merwe and Mpho Mafole were not murdered, but instead randomly walked into passing bullets.
Meanwhile, at the N12 settlement, rubber bullets were fired and homes flattened while residents – many with paperwork – were out for the day, their possessions destroyed inside.
The destruction included big items – a fridge, a bed – and small ones too: one woman had left her children’s lunch out for them, another man lost his work uniform.
These were meagre yet important things and irreplaceable when you don’t have money. Basic building materials were crushed as well, rendered unusable, which matters when you must keep rebuilding your home.
‘Illegals’ or human beings?
Yet these are people we are talking about, with hopes and beating hearts. Many had been living there for years, scraping by in dangerous conditions.
Where was the humanity? This wasn’t the first time, either. They had been moved on from other informal settlements, shunted from pillar to post, the irony being that they have neither pillar, nor post, unless built with their own hands.
What could be salvaged was carried away, bereft humans like tortoises with their homes on their backs.
Stoking xenophobia
The authorities say “illegals,” they say “zama zamas,” they stoke xenophobia – and why wouldn’t they?
When people are looking sideways at each other they cannot look up, to the top, where the real problems lie.
