Mercury: Time is perfect for rethink on housing policy

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5210685

Time is perfect for rethink on housing policy

October 21, 2009 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

THE Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of the application brought by Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) and declared a section of the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act, introduced with much fanfare in 2007, to be unconstitutional.

The judgment means the Act will now not be reproduced in the other provinces, as mandated by the Polokwane resolutions. And, perhaps more importantly, the whole policy of eradicating slums by forcibly removing shack dwellers to peripheral transit camps lies in tatters.

In 2004 the government introduced the Breaking New Ground (BNG) housing policy in the wake of a widespread realisation that post-apartheid housing policy was replicating apartheid social planning.

The new policy allowed for shack settlements to be upgraded on site via participatory development techniques. It was a major break with the tendency to seek the eradication of shack settlements via forced removal to the urban periphery. The policy was welcomed across civil society as a major advance over the first decade of post-apartheid housing planning.

However, with the exception of the innovative deal signed between ABM and the eThekwini Municipality in early 2009, the new policy was never implemented.

The state ignored its progressive new policy and instead returned to the apartheid language of “slum eradication” and the apartheid strategy of forcibly removing shack dwellers to peripheral transit camps.

This was often undertaken with considerable violence on the part of the state.

Shack dwellers’ organisations across the country have opposed the return to apartheid-style urban planning and have often successfully appealed to the courts to stop evictions.

The KZN Slums Act was an attempt by the state to legalise its return to repressive urban planning practices.

The Constitutional Court has now ruled that the act is illegal and made it impossible for the state to legitimate its turn to repressive practices.

The government now has to rethink its housing policy. The obvious solution would be to actually implement the BNG policy.

The deal negotiated between the eThekwini Municipality and ABM between September, 2007 and February 2009 shows that it can be made to work if there is enough political will.

This deal provides for services to be provided to 14 settlements and for the upgrade of three, including the Kennedy Road settlement, via BNG.

ABM’s achievement in stopping the Slums Act in the Constitutional Court and, simultaneously, working out viable alternatives in negotiations with the eThekwini Municipality is a remarkable achievement.

The movement has, like the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), achieved a fundamental challenge to bad policy and practice.

It has also, again like the TAC, found and perhaps even developed progressive forces within the state to realise its objectives.

Organisations such as the TAC and ABM are precious resources for our democracy. They are both, in different ways, able to speak and act with great effect for groups of people marginalised from mainstream society.

They have, justly, both been celebrated here and around the world for their contribution to human rights. We should all, therefore, be deeply concerned about those who think that the ABM had no right to question authority and to take the government to court.

As the many democrats within the ANC will certainly agree, the kind of engagement that ABM has engaged in is the very stuff of democracy and is the right of any citizen, organisation or movement.

Open debate and judicial overview of key decisions enrich our democracy and are always to be welcomed.

There was also a time when the TAC was under attack from the state. TAC protests were violently attacked by the police in Queenstown and here in Durban and all kinds of slander was circulated about the movement – including the bizarre allegation that a movement that began its work by campaigning against the drug companies was being funded by the same drug companies.

But there is now a broad recognition that the TAC’s challenge to the ANC has resulted in a deep improvement in the ANC’s response to the Aids pandemic.

As the government, hopefully in partnership with civil society, reconsiders its housing policy in the wake of the judgment against the Slums Act, there needs to be a similar recognition of the enormous social value of the work undertaken by ABM.

In recent weeks there has been an incredible outpouring of civil support for ABM across South Africa and around the world.

No doubt this support will step up in the wake of the organisation’s achievement in the Constitutional Court.

Democrats in the ANC need to affirm the right of civil society organisations to freely advance the interests of their members even when this brings them into disagreement with the government of the day.