The Fire Spreads: Quarry Road joins the squatters’ movement

The Fire Spreads: Quarry Road joins the squatters’ movement

by Fazel Khan

For far too long our communities have survived in conditions that are intolerable. We have been promised many things and these promised (sic) have never been fulfilled. We now see that all they want is for us to vote for them. We cannot and will not continue to suffer this way…”
– extract from the handwritten memorandum presented to Councillor Jayraj Bachu by Quarry Road residents, 4 October, 2005

On the 4th of October over a thousand residents of informal settlements around Clare Estate and Reservoir Hills embarked on a protest march. They were demanding toilets, land and decent housing within the area, and the resignation of their Ward 23 counsellor – Jayraj Bachu. Although most of the marchers were from Quarry Road Informal Settlement, a sizeable number were from the many much smaller settlements scattered around the area. This is the third time in three months that people have marched on their councillor from their settlements. But this protest marked a new stage in the development of the abahlali base emijondolo movement because it involved twelve settlements from all over Reservoir Hills (Ward 25) as well as settlements on the Clare Estate (Ward 23). With the exception of the Quarry Road settlement all the Ward 25 settlements were new to the emerging movement.

The development of this unity was no easy achievement. For a start these settlement are separated by large distances and are scattered haphazardly and this makes solidarity difficult for people who are usually have to invest most of their time with more mundane activities like finding work, feeding their families and, of course repairing their shacks. People have been pushed into the edges of existence. Neo-liberal capitalism has made them like the “proles” in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.

The commitment to political solidarity amongst these physical scattered informal settlements was remarkable. The Quarry Road Settlement, located mid-way on the marching route, decided to first march in the opposite direction, five kilometres up steep hills in the blazing sun, to collect their comrades in Reservoir Hills. The protestors then returned the same along the same route with their new comrades, past their settlement, before continuing uphill again towards Clare Estate as they headed for councillor Bachu’s office. This gruelling march was not only undertaken by able-bodied adults, but also by pensioners who in some cases have spent over 20 years in the Quarry Road settlement. Old age and scorching heat did prevent them from demonstrating their solidarity with each other, or from venting their anger at government’s neglect. In addition, the working minority in the Quarry Road Settlement decided to show their support by taking a day off work to join the march.

The camaraderie of seasoned activists from Kennedy Road Settlement led by S’bu Zikode, who in the last couple of months have successfully staged three peaceful protests demanding the resignation of their adjacent Ward 25 councillor, was fantastic. These seasoned activists (from Kennedy Road), in March fell on the wrong side of the law when they defiantly blocked the N2 national highway, a vital economic link between North and South Coast. The State was not amused so they tear gassed them and arrested 14 who were to spend ten days in jail. However, they latter organised two highly successful peaceful marches that put the municipality under major pressure and forced important concessions. These marches inspired people in Ward 25 to organise their own march. Many people in Kennedy Road had incurred major costs in their own struggles – cell phone bills, transport costs etc, yet money was still raised to help with the costs of the sound system and T-shirts for the Ward 23 march.

When they finally arrived at Jayraj Bachu’s residence, after walking up and down the hills for hours, the protestors toyi toyied in front of the gate, and then presented a memorandum. The memorandum contained the following demands:

The return of their portable toilets, which were removed from the Quarry Road Settlement at the beginning of the year, within 5 days.

A demand that houses be built for them in Clare Estate and not elsewhere. This was accompanied by a promise to resist forced removals and evictions from the city with a view to dumping people in semi-rural areas on the periphery of the Metro.

A demand that Jayraj Bachu resign as councillor of Ward 23 within two weeks and hand over the keys of his office. Bachu was informed that if he does not resign they would declare that Ward 23 does not have a councillor.

The marchers were very angry and frustrated by politicians who neglect them as they irk out a living on the fringes of poverty. They were angry with elected representatives who only look after their own interests. This was best expressed by part of their memorandum that said that, “ [this] country is rich … [but] because our work for which we get very little pay from those who are rich. We are not recognised by our government for whom we voted”. Clearly, these people, who many middle class academics and activists dismiss as illiterate masses needing proper revolutionary guidance, have an excellent grasp of the complex socio-politico-economic dynamics that affect their lives. These people, stigmatised as “illiterate”, showed that they understood very well the cause and effect of a global economic system that exploits poor unskilled causal workers, yet respects capital and the rich.

The highlight of the march was a mock funeral for councillor Jayraj Bachu. The protesters carried a coffin with a teddy bear (wearing Raybans and tie) inside. As Raj Patel noted this teddy bear looked a lot more ominous that the bear used in the mock funeral for Yacoob Baig. They chanted to the ancestors thanking them for finally taking Bachu into their midst. But the chants made it clear that although Bachu was now amongst the ancestors he would not make a good ancestor because of his lack of compassion towards people’s suffering. The purpose of this mock funeral was to show that Bachu had made no difference in their lives as their elected representative. He was dead and useless.

Of course, the city’s elite is afraid of protests that uncover their incompetence, lack of compassion, and gross negligence in the performance of their duties. The day after the march the Witness reported that the eThekwini Municipality speaker, James Nxumalo, had called on protesters not to hold mock funerals of councillors. He drew a parallel between the mock funeral of councillors and several recent murders of councillors – most recently in Umlazi. It strange that the mock funerals that are actually very funny political satire that parody incompetent councillors, should be likened to criminal acts perpetrated by gangsters for selfish ends. The speaker was seeking to criminalize a legitimate form of political expression.

The city’s officials have gone on a major propaganda campaign aiming to discredit these protests. The city’s Head of Housing Couglan Pather was quoted saying that, “we offered accommodation to the informal dwellers a few years ago [and] about 400 people moved but most refused. This has led to the current situation of only six working toilets and uncleared (sic) pit toilets.” What Pather does not say is that the houses offered were in a rural area outside Verulum, which has very little opportunities for work, education, healthcare or shopping facilities and community halls etc. If they were to move, the transport costs to and from work, would suddenly constitute the bulk of the monthly expenses of these low-income communities. Nevertheless, it would be very convenient for the likes of Pather for the poor to move to the periphery of the city, far from tourists and delicate middle class sensibilities.

The municipality’s propaganda was not entirely successful because there was good media coverage for the protests and grievances that caused them. Up to 7 articles appeared in Durban dailies highlighting the plight of informal settlers and city officials’ inertia to remedy the situation. Isolezwe, a mass circulation Zulu newspaper, ran the story for two pages and the local Clare Estate – Overport weekly, Rising Sun, had the protests as their leading front page story. Community Radio station Al-Ansaar dedicated a full hour and half to the story.

A key paradox of the juxtaposition of suburban homes and shacks in Clare Estate and Reservoir Hills is that while some of the people in the big houses would love to have the squatters moved out of the city many others are dependent on the settlements for very cheap labour. All the small industries in the area employ labourer from these communities. And many shack dwellers also work as domestics and gardeners; some as painters, carpenters, or handymen for piece jobs in homes around the area.

The recent protests by the abahlali base emijondolo are a new and welcome breath of fresh air in the previously stale and stagnant political terrain in Durban. It seems that we are at the start of a new phase of mass struggle in the city. And it is interesting to note that many commentators on the left think that the contemporary revolutionary class may have shifted from the working class to the informal settler underclass. Slavoj Zizek, the brilliant Slovenian psychoanalyst, says slum dwellers (informal settlers) represent a new counter-class. Whilst cautioning that they should not be idolised, he says that informal dwellers, “fit the old Marxist definition of the proletarian revolutionary class. Even more than the classic proletariat, they are “free” in the double meaning of the word—“freed” from all substantial ties and dwelling in a free space outside state…they are large collectives, forcibly thrown into a situation where they must invent some mode of being-together.”

Inventing some mode of being-together is exactly what is unfolding as the scattered settlements join hands in solidarity to demand a better life. In fact, these settlements have now formed a formal struggle steering committee to give more impetus to their demands. The committee is composed of members of executive committees of all the squatter settlements on the Clare Estate and in Reservoir Hills. This committee is composed of 15 women and 16 men and the ages of the 31 members range from early twenties to the late 60’s. Meetings are thoroughly and formally democratic and the same is true of most of the constituent organisations.

At the steering committee’s first meeting on the 8th of October a way forward was chartered in the struggle for land and housing in the city. The first resolution was to block the voting stations in the forthcoming local government elections because they see no reason to vote for councillors who never deliver on their promises. The second resolution was that the huge Foreman Road Settlement would, with the support of the local taxi associations who stand to lose their business of forced removals are carried out, march in the city centre to present a memorandum of demands to Mayor Obed Mlaba. The committee ended its first meeting with the anthem, as it was sung during the struggle against apartheid, with no English or Afrikaans. It was as if Kempton Park and the consequent demobilisation of popular struggle had never happened. The anthem, sung as it always was before, was a deeply moving affirmation of a new solidarity and a new militancy. Neither the “Rainbow Nation” nor the African Renaissance have any meaning for people forced to live as they lived under apartheid. It’s not yet Uhuru. The struggle continues.