The Struggle for Services in Shack Settlements in South Africa

29 August 2024
IBP Asivikelane Conference

The Struggle for Services in Shack Settlements in South Africa

S’bu Zikode

Thank you program director, IBP and organisers of the convening, Asivikelane comrades, Comrade Axolile Notywala, SALGA President Mr Stofile, SALGA and municipal officials, and everyone.

I have decided to share the sad story of the late uMama Khuzwayo who was burnt to ashes during the shack fire in Kennedy Road in Durban to emphasise the importance of provision of basic services in shack settlements in South Africa, may her soul rest in peace.

I was still new in the Kennedy Road settlement in 2001 when there was a devastating shack fire. We all ran to assist in putting that fire off. At that time there were still only five communal water stand pipes that served that community of thousands of people, and six pit latrine toilets.

While the flames were too much to handle, the water was fetched from far away. We could not win against the fire and eventually we stopped and watched as the flames went higher and higher and all the worldly goods of the family went into ashes. Unexpectedly a huge sound burst from within the flames. It seemed obvious to me that a gas stove or fridge had burst.

I found that the explosive sound was uMama uKhuzwayo’s head being consumed by the fire. When I turned around and spoke to the people next to me, I realised that I was the only person that was experiencing this for the first time. This was a part of shack life that everybody knew well.

People reminded me that uMama uKhuzwayo lived with a disability. One of her legs had been amputated. And so she could not run and escape the fire. I was traumatised and angry for some time.

In the same settlement, baby Mhlengi Khumalo, a one year old, was burnt to death in 2005. Abahlali organised a memorial service to honour baby Mhlengi and to publicly denounce this incident. We began the work of politicising shack fires, of showing that they are not just random events but a direct result of the social abandonment of the poor, that we were being left to burn. Almost twenty years later this work of politicising shack fires continues.

In November 2008, a four-month-old baby Nkosingiphile Cwera, was taken by a different kind of horror, another kind of horror resulting from the abandonment of the poor. The baby was sleeping with his mom during the broad daylight in summer and it was hot. His mom was woken by the cries of her baby. When she woke up, she saw a big rat biting her baby on the head and right arm. She quickly chased it from the house. Her baby was bleeding on his head and arm. The local clinic was closed over the weekends and the mom had to wait for the clinic to open on Monday. However, the baby passed on the following day, on Saturday. We issued a press statement and the story was widely covered in the media. Abahlali baseKennedy threatened to sue the city of eThekwini. The city rushed to fumigate the whole settlement following the media reports.

There are big rats in the informal settlements. I was astonished to witness a big rat that threatened a cat in Kennedy Road. The cat could not stand the size of the rat and eventually turned away and walked away.

It is not just the big events of poverty such as that of shack fires, floods and collapsing buildings that are catastrophic to human abandonment. Many people do not know that living conditions of people in shack settlements have far reaching health consequences. Poverty kills. Social abandonment is an enemy of the people that we must all confront.

The social abandonment of the poor continues year after year, decade after decade, When money is allocated for us it is often just a way for people who get tenders to become rich. During the Covid crisis the National Department of Human Settlement rolled out about 40 000 water tanks to shack settlements across the country. Many of those tanks were never filled up with water, and many of those that were filled up with water were never refilled. In the M7 settlement in Durban the water tanks were actually destroyed by the municipality’s Land Invasion Unit during an eviction. Can you imagine this kind of cruelty from the same people who are supposed to be providing basic services?

We are abandoned by the state when it comes to giving us support and care. But when it comes to destroying our homes and communities, and repressing our struggles, the state is vigorously present. The left arm of the state is absent but its right arm oppresses and represses us.

In the 1980s, during the time of the mass struggle against apartheid, people made deep and wide calls for real transformation. When democracy came those calls were forgotten and all that we were promised was service delivery. Real transformation was reduced to service delivery. Every protest was said to be a service delivery even when it was not, such as, for example, when it was against evictions or corrupt councillors. It was often assumed that it was legitimate for us to demand services but not to demand more than that.

To note that this is not to say that services such as refuse collection, sanitation, water and electricity are not hugely important. They are and we struggle for them and appreciate all solidarity as we struggle for services, including from Asivikelane. The victories that we have won in terms of attaining services, sustaining services and changing policy on service provision are hugely important.

In our movement the struggle for services is part of a wider struggle for land, housing and dignity, for democratisation from below and against the extraction of rent, corruption, repression. Our vision is for communities and cities in which people can flourish. Our settlements need support to develop into nurturing communities. They should be understood as land reform from below, as, when they are carefully planned as our new occupations are, as grassroots urban planning.

We cannot deal with the problems of poverty and how the humanity of the poor is vandalised without dealing with the bigger question of creating a just economy and a democratic politics. Land, wealth and power must be fairly shared. The state should be supporting grassroots democracy and urban planning not criminalising it.

Resolving the crisis produced by the absence of basic service in shack settlements requires a holistic approach grounded in building popular democratic power to achieve participatory planning and management.

We have to reject the constant problem of our poverty becoming an opportunity for elites to be enriched. Services must be understood as a public good, not an opportunity for politically connected people to enrich themselves.

Even our own initiative often becomes an opportunity for people to profit. We have seen instances where residents of the shacks have embarked on cleaning campaigns, and sometimes on projects to develop community safety strategies, and then, suddenly, outside contractors or NGOs are brought in and given money for doing what the community was doing for free.

Technical issues must be addressed with great care. The best experts must be brought in to deal with technical issues. But technical approaches cannot replace the need for popular democratic politics. Technical experts need to work with democratic popular organisations on the basis of mutual respect.

To begin to resolve the crisis of failed service provision many things need to change, such as the development of a sense of shared citizenship and belonging, and community ownership of local state processes.

The idea that residents of shack settlements are not fully human, that we are not human enough to be treated with respect and dignity, to be included in discussions and planning relevant to us needs to be done away with.

The idea that only rich people are real citizens, that poor people do not contribute to society, also needs to be done away with.

The wealthy in Durban North called us “squatters”. Some black journalists, some of whom were raised by struggling single moms, allied themselves with the rich and their hostility to the poor. This needs to change. They call us “squatters” because according to them we do not belong in or near to their communities.

The idea that poor people are troublesome and make unreasonable demands needs to change.

The idea that we are beneath the law and cannot think for ourselves needs to change. The definition of citizens in relation to their socio-economic status is a serious problem that must be confronted.

What has happened to the idea of ubuntu and ubuhlali? Why is there no recognition for all the work that poor people do, including raising the children of the rich, cleaning their homes, doing their washing and guarding their homes and businesses?

The middle classes and the rich in South Africa like to talk about the Constitution. They often don’t seem to understand that when the Constitution talks about rights the rights are not dependent on the socio-economic standards of individuals and communities. Rights are inseparable, interlinked and interdependent. They are for everyone everywhere.

The idea that shack settlements are temporary is a scam because people have lived in many settlements for over 30 years. The number of people living in shacks is growing and it will continue to grow as a result of mass unemployment. Millions of people are without work and cannot afford to pay for formal housing.

When people do not feel a sense of identity and belonging in wider communities, in cities and in the country, they can fail to take responsibility to look after land and communities. For instance, when we were doing cleaning campaigns in communities some people even said that “asizanga ukuzolungisa iTheku/iGoli/iKapa la. [We have not come to clean the city of Durban/Johannesburg/Cape Town here]. This attitude shows that cities have not been kind to people and therefore people are often not kind to these cities. If they do not feel it is their land, their space, their community, their city, their country they may not want to care for wider society.

Another problem is the misuse of service provision to reward political loyalty and punish autonomy. Denying basic services to shack settlements as a form of punishment should be a criminal offense by law.

We want shack settlements to be recognised as communities of dignity where infrastructure such as road access, storm water drainage, electricity, water and sanitation, serviced sites, etc, are provided via participatory democratic processes. We want the shack settlements to be the places where we can build families and raise our children with love and care. They should be places where we can have economic opportunities, good schools, health care facilities and safe environments to realise our dreams. They must be communities where women are safe, loved and supported. Children must be able to grow in safety and to flourish. The state and wider society should be supporting shack settlements while simultaneously working to end poverty.

Decentralisation

As long as our small towns and rural villages are neglected urbanisation and migration to the cities will continue. There must be massive investment in development and industries in our small towns and rural villages. Women must have access to land. Young people must have opportunities. Decentralization could create economic growth and enhance economic opportunities. Local economic opportunities can enable people to improve their rural homes instead of building urban shacks. Investing in our own homes without having to build other homes in cities could make the burden lighter for urban poor. Of course, though, those who choose to live in urban life should be supported to do so. But right now, people are forced to live in urban life because life in rural areas is often impossible.

Not everyone who lives in a shack settlement is looking for a Breaking New Ground (BNG) house. Not everyone who lives in a shack settlement qualifies for government assistant housing. We also need to keep in the mind that the number of houses being built by the government was never enough but has now plummeted. If things stay as they are most people living in a shack will never get a government house.

We have to struggle to force the government to support us to build houses as well as to make shack settlements more habitable.

When shack settlements were not properly planned at the outset and have not been democratically managed, supporting democratic forms of organisation to plan settlements from below in partnership with the state and NGOs is important. Strategies such as re-blocking, creating fire breaks and space for creches, community halls and gardens are all important.

Service sites must be provided and people who are able to improve their shacks and build their own houses must be supported. All of this must be taken in the interests of the public good and not private profiting by politically connected people. In this way the state resources actually go where they are needed the most. Upgrading shack settlements with the people rather than for the people is an empowering process. Collective security of tenure is very important and in fact urgent for people to be able to invest in their own communities and families.

Communities are being built, movements are being built, ubuntu is being built and yes, solidarity and dignity are being built from below. These processes must be recognised and supported. Abahlali has been built on a very strong foundation of respect for human life, for families, for all kinds of families, and for community.

The values of ubuhlalism, justice and equality have carried us over the 19 years of Abahlali’s existence. Freedom is a place and our struggle is for places of respect, dignity and hope. We struggle to work with people and not for people. We struggle with people and not for people because the poor are the people who matter as people and as citizens. And sometimes we make mistakes together. When we make these mistakes, we rest assured that there cannot be pointing of fingers at the leadership because the mistakes were made with people and not for people. It is often better to be wrong with the people rather than to be right without the people.

In our collective journey we win victories of courage and dignity when progress is made towards sharing land, wealth and power. Land must be restored to the people, and secured and democratically managed by the people who live on it and work it.

I thank you.