Notes for Abahlali baseMjondolo meetings to Discuss the Slum Elimination Bill

KWAZULU-NATAL ELIMINATION AND PREVENTION OF RE-EMERGENCE OF SLUMS BILL, 2006

Notes for Abahlali baseMjondolo meetings to Discuss the Bill

1. AIM OF THE BILL

The Bill says that its main aims are to:

· Eliminate ‘slums’ in KwaZulu-Natal

· Prevent new ‘slums’ from developing

· Upgrade and control existing ‘slums’

· Monitor the performance of departments and municipalities in the elimination of ‘slums’ and the prevention of new ‘slums’ from developing.

It has detailed plans to make sure that all of this really happens. The Bill also says that it aims to ‘improve the living conditions of communities’ but it has no detailed plans to make sure that this really happens.

The Bill does not aim to:

· Force local and provincial government to deal with the conditions that force people to leave their homes and move to shack settlements

· Force local and provincial government to immediately provide basic services to shack settlements like toilets, electricity, water and speed bumps while they wait for upgrades or relocations

· Force local and provincial government to follow the laws that prevent evictions without a court order, the laws that prevent people from being made homeless in an eviction or to follow the Breaking New Ground Policy that aims to upgrade settlements in situ (where people are already living).

Question 1: Do we need this Bill or do we just need the government (local, provincial and national) to begin to follow the existing laws and polices that protect against evictions, forced relocations and which recommend upgrades?

Question 2: Is this Bill for shack dwellers or is to protect the rich, and especially the landowners, from shack dwellers? Is this Bill better for Ricky Govender or Lousia Motha?

2. DEFINITION OF IMIJONDOLO

In the Bill the word ‘slum’ is defined as an overcrowded piece of land or building where poor people live and where there is poor or no infrastructure or toilets.

The Bill uses the word ‘slum’ in a way that makes it sound like the places where poor people live are a problem that must be cleared away but it does not admit that the poor have been made poor but the same history of theft and exploitation that made the rich to be rich and it does not admit that places where poor people live often lack infrastructure and toilets because of the failure of landlords or the government to provide these things. In this Bill the word ‘slum’ is used to make it sound like the poor and the places where they live are the problem rather than the rich and the way in which they have made the poor to be poor and to be kept poor by a lack of development. In America black community organizations have opposed the use of the word ‘slum’ to describe their communities because they say it makes it sound like there is something wrong with them and their places rather than the system that makes them poor and fails to develop their places. They also say that once a place is called a ‘slum’ it is easy to for the rich and governments to say that it must be ‘cleared’ or ‘eliminated’ but if a place is called a community then it is easier to say that it must be supported and developed.

There is also a problem with calling imijondolo ‘informal settlements’ because once a place is called ‘informal’ it is easy for people to say that it shouldn’t get any of the ‘formal’ services that people need for a decent life like electricity, toilets, refuse collection and so on.

And what about the word ‘eliminate’? Often this word is used when a state decides to assassinate (murder) someone who is seen as a threat to that state. It is a word that speaks of violence, not care.

Question 3: The people who live in the imijondolo must decide for themselves what they want their communities to be called. Is ‘imijonodolo’ fine or would ‘shack settlement’ or ‘shack community’ be better? Is it right to talk of ‘eliminating’ (murdering) imijondolo? Do imijondolo need care and support or violence from the state?

3. SUPPORTING THE RICH AGAINST THE POOR

· The Bill makes it criminal to occupy a building or land without permission from the owner of the building or the land

· It forces municipalities to force landowners to evict people on their land (or in their buildings)

· It forces municipalities to seek evictions if landowners fail to do so.

· It forces municipalities to make a plan to eliminate all the ‘slums’ in its area within six months of this Bill becoming law.

· It forces municipalities to give an annual report on its progress towards eliminating all ‘slums’

· It forces the provincial Department of Housing to closely watch Municipalities and to support them to make sure that they evict people from land that they have occupied

· It forces the Provincial Department of Housing to support ‘any project adopted by a municipality’ to ‘relocate’ people from imijondolo.

· It says that Municipalities may evict people when evictions are in the public interest.

· It forces landowners to protect their land against the poor with fences and security guards. Landowners who do not protect their land against the poor will be guilty of a criminal offence.

· It forces landowners to evict people from their land.

Question 4: When people are forced to move from one area to another against their will should we call this a ‘relocation’ or should we call it a ‘forced removal’? Which definition gives more protection to the poor?

Question 5: Who decides what is the ‘public interest’? Who decides what is ‘public violence’? Who is the public really?

This Bill does not provide any protection for people who have been made poor by the same history and economy that made the rich to be rich and who have decided to occupy land or buildings that are owned by the rich but are not being used by them. In some countries the poor have a legal right to take land or building that are owned by the rich but are not being used by them. There is no reason why South Africa can not also give this right to the poor.

Question 6: Should the law protect the property of the rich first or the need for the poor to find housing first?

4. TRANSIT AREAS

The Bill allows Municipalities to buy or take land to accommodate people that have been evicted while they are waiting for new developments. These are called ‘transit areas’. The Bill does not give any guaranties as to where these ‘transit areas’ will be, what services will be provided there, if communities will be kept together or broken up when people are taken to these places or how long they will have to live in these places.

Throughout history and in many countries governments have put their political opponents, the very poor, people who were seen as ethnically and cultural different and people without I.D. books in camps. These camps are always supposed to be temporary – a ‘transit’ between one place and another. But very often these camps have become places of long and terrible suffering.

Question 7: Is there any good reason to move poor people out of their homes to camps while they wait for new developments? Can we trust that these camps will be in areas where people want to live, with proper services and that people won’t end up spending years in these places?

5. EXPROPRIATION OF LAND

The Bill gives Municipalities the right to expropriate land. This means that they have the right to take land from landowners. This could be a very good thing for the poor if land was taken in the cities so that the poor could live safely and legally next to work, schools and clinics. But the Bill says nothing about which land should be taken. It only says that land can be taken to set up a ‘transit area’ or for people ‘removed or evicted from a slum’. Therefore it seems that the right to expropriate land will most be likely be used to evict the poor from the cities not to defend their right to live in the cities.

Question 8: If a government uses its right to take land from private landowners should it do this to protect the poor by getting them good land in the cities or should it be used to quickly move the poor out of the cities?

6. CRIMINALISING THE POOR (AND THEIR ALLIES)

This Bill makes any one who tries to stop an eviction a criminal who can be fined R20 000 or sent to prison for 5 years. If it is passed it will make us all criminals. When Sutcliffe, Mlaba etc and the SMI/CCS have called us criminals they have been lying. They have been lying to protect their own power to speak for the poor from the democratic power of the strong poor asking government and NGOs to speak to them and not for them. But if this Bill is passed they will be right – we will all become criminals.

Question 9: Is it right that it should be criminal to defend people’s homes from demolition and to defend people from eviction?

Question 10: We all know that the Municipality breaks the law every time that it evicts us without a court order and every time it leaves people homeless but Sutcliffe, Naidoo, Mlaba etc are never arrested. We all know that Nayager breaks the law every time that he arrests and beats us but he is never arrested? If the laws that exist now are now are not used fairly do we have any guarantee that this law will be used fairly? Who will decide who is a ‘criminal’ for trying to stop an eviction?

7. WHO SHOULD PLAN THE FUTURE OF OUR CITIES?

Durban and Pinetown and Pietermaritzburg and all the cities in this province, this country and in the world were built by the work of the poor. But poor people didn’t only build our cities. They have also done a lot of the planning of the development of our cities. It was the poor who decided that black and white and rich and poor shouldn’t live separately and who took unused land so that everyone could live together in our cities. Our cities look the way that they do because of both the planning of the rich, the planning of various governments and the planning or ordinary poor people. For example it was Biko Zulu who decided to start a settlement in Jadhu Place near to the schools in Overport and the jobs in Springfield Park and not any government.

Question : Should the poor be able to participate in planning the future of our cities or should governments and the rich do all the planning?