Still far from the dream of Biko – Reflections on the 1976 youth uprising

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/57070

Still far from the dream of Biko
Reflections on the 1976 youth uprising
by Mphutlane wa Bofelo

Imprisoned at 17 as an anti-apartheid activist, Mphutlane wa Bofelo emerged even more determined to confront the system. It was the dream of ‘the freedom of our people’ that people act with boldness and bravery, he writes, even though ‘we knew the ultimate price could be death’. Yet 33 years after the 1976 youth uprising, confronting living conditions in Durban’s Kenville squatter camp, wa Bofelo considers why ‘former freedom fighters can sometimes be more vicious in attempts to abort freedom’. As Kenville residents consider class action against the government for decent housing, wa Bofelo wonders why South Africans should have to go to court to secure constitutionally enshrined basics of water and housing. ‘How can you have a sense of self-respect and dignity when you live in opulence but your brothers and sisters… live in squalor?’ asks wa Bofelo. ‘Pity how it seems we joined the struggle to be rich materially but poor in spirit!’

June 16 is a day that brings both painful and joyous memories to me, as in the 80s a whole lot of things happened as we dodged bullets and caspirs, fighting to ensure that days like 16 June, 21 March, 1 May and 12 September are not treated as ordinary days. I guess that is the reason why yesterday left me full of tears. Like many of my peers, I joined the struggle against apartheid-capitalism at a very tender age. At the age of 17 I was arrested and subjected to severe torture. I spent 18 months in detention-without-trial, after which I was given a one-year prison sentence for ‘possession of subversive material.’

Most of us came out of prison more determined to confront the system. We established organs of people’s power and made it impossible for the apartheid regime to continue with their business as usual. We dared to grasp the bull by its horns and established underground structures of Umkonto weSizwe(MK), Azanian National Liberation Army (AZANLA)and Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) under the watchful eyes of the system and its stooges and vigilantes. What kind of dream made us to do the kind of bold and brave – and sometimes reckless – things we did when we knew the ultimate price could be death? We knew that the ultimate price was the freedom of our people, not death! You can never kill a free spirit. But when I look at the kind of conditions I saw yesterday, I wonder why it is that former freedom fighters can sometimes be more vicious in attempts to abort freedom or even kill the spirit of freedom.

Yesterday I joined the provincial executive committee (PEC) of the Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA) as they marked the national youth uprising of June 1976 with a visit to its members, supporters and the general residents of the squatter camp next to the refuse recycling dump near the Kenville Suburb in Durban. This the place where all the sewerage from Durban is emptied. This visit really left me in tears. The objective of the visit was to listen to the views and stories of the residents and share ideas with them on expediting the process of finding decent and habitable housing for them, as well as ways of ameliorating their conditions in the meantime. The chairperson of SOPA in KwaZulu-Natal, Asha Moodley, and general secretary Patrick Mkhise told the residents that their aim with the visit was to highlight the plight of the multitudes of people who still find themselves landless and homeless after fifteen years of democracy.

Moodley also told the residents that they thought it prudent to hear from the residents what the situation is and also to be guided by them as to the possible action that can be taken to address their situation. She also emphasised that the party decided to visit after the election so that their fact-finding mission and discussion with the community should not be misconstrued as an electioneering and vote-catching ploy. The briefing that the PEC of the Socialist Party of Azania got from the residents was that their families have been squatting in the vicinity of Kenville for thirty years. In the 1990s they were moved to the squatter camp near the refuse damp.

The major problem is that this specific place is not conducive for human settlement. Whenever it rains the whole area is flooded. The shacks are built with wooden and plastic material, and are so close to each other that when one shack catches fire the whole block of shacks is consumed by fire. The suffocating smell from the refuse dump exacerbates the health hazards in the area. The Ethekwini municipality has built eight communal toilets, four for women and four for men. These toilets are at the main road on the outskirts of the squatter camp, which makes it difficult for people living far to use the toilets. It also exposes residents, particularly children and women, to crime at night. The communal taps are also located at the main road on the outskirts of the area. The residents get their electricity through illegal connections from the poles that deliver electricity to the formal houses in Kenville.

As a result of these illegal connections many children have been electrocuted to death. The residents listed unemployment and poverty as the major problems facing them and indicated there are no poverty alleviation programs by either government or NGOs in the area. There is also no safe space and facilities for children to play. Another problem raised in the meeting was that political affiliations often are a stumbling block to the capacity of residents to speak in one voice in addressing their issues. There are three political parties with visible and active presence in the area, Inkatha Freedom Party, African National Congress and the Socialist Party of Azania. Often the government takes advantage of these divisions to throw a spanner in the works of any effort towards united action on the issue of housing. Between 2005 and 2006, the Socialist Party of Azania had a series of protest marches where it submitted a petition on the housing demands of the residents to both the provincial government and the eaThekwini municipality. There were also series of meetings between SOPA and the Ethekwini Municipality where the party tabled proposals on decent and habitable housing alternatives.

After endless meetings without meaningful decisions, the municipality representatives ultimately told SOPA that since it is a political party it must prove its worth by attaining seats in the local government where it can raise issues relating to housing, or else it must shut its mouth. Last year the residents of the squatter camps around Kenville marched to raise their issues. It is alleged that at this meeting the local councillor of the area under which the squatter camp nearby the refuse dump falls told the meeting that there were no problems in his area. In view of this history, the 16 June consultation mandated SOPA to explore possibilities of petitioning their local councillor as well as class action whereby the eThekwini municipality and the provincial government is taken to court for attack on the rights of the residents of the Kenville squatter camp to housing, security and human dignity.

The meeting also agreed that residents across the political spectrum need to be consulted and that contact be made with the local development committee. The committee was established by the Ethekwini municipality though some residents have reservations that it is mostly constituted by ANC members who just endorse whatever they are told by government officials. After the meeting the leadership of SOPA had a brief informal discussion with two members of the development committee.

The committee members informed SOPA that by October this year some households in this squatter camp will be relocated to the adjacent area where there are some spaces in between formal houses and shacks. They indicated that shackdwellers from other areas in the vicinity of Kenville are also going to be relocated there. This means that only a small number of the shackdwellers at this specific squatter camp will actually be relocated. The said area is already dense and is still within the vicinity of the refuse dump, which means there really will not be much change in the wellbeing and quality of the lives of these residents. The resettling of people from a squalid dumping place to just lesser squalid conditions raises the question as to the significance of the change from the department of housing to the department of human settlement.

The positive interpretation will be that ‘human settlement’ entails the provision of more than housing, and indicates that the houses will have adequate yards that provide for food gardening and other activities and should go along with social amenities and be within reasonable distance to places of employment, etc.

The negative interpretation will be that in the meantime, while government cannot provide housing for all, it will resettle people from inhabitable shack squatter camps to shack dwellings or concrete slabs (RDP ‘pondokies’ in informal settlements with some modicum of development, but still lacking several essential amenities. The progress report (the two gentlemen were very delighted to use the term) provided by the gentlemen from the development committee seem to point in the direction of the latter definition. (One hopes that Kenville scenario is an exception, and only time will tell). Essentially ‘the progress report’ by the two committee members indicated no tangible progress. This means that SOPA in collaboration with other civil society organisations and progressive institutions should still consider the class action and other ways of forcing government to provide decent, habitable housing with proper yards and social amenities.

How is it possible that we have arrived at the point where people take a people’s government to court for such basic things as water and housing, which the constitution fully enshrines? Just recently a South African court ruled in favour of the people for their right to water. Guess who took the people to the appeal court to try and overturn the decision of a judge who is probably inherited from apartheid era? The appeal court ruled in favour of the people. Guess who is thinking of appealing the decision through the constitutional court? Who stood against the decision of the victims of the apartheid-capitalism to take the big corporates that benefited from this system to the international court? Who? Who killed Biko and Hani and Solomon Mahlangu and Hector Peterson and Muntu ka Myeza and Masabata lwate and many others? The Boers and their vigilantes only killed the flesh. The spirit of Mahlangu, Biko, Hani, Peterson, lwate is being killed here and now by us. The Boers failed to kill Biko and Hani. We are succeeding where apartheid-capitalism failed. We kill the spirit of Tambo and Biko everyday. We hate each other. We kill each other. We rape our children . We burn our grandmothers. We love beautiful things for ourselves but ask our brothers and sisters to endure conditions such as Kenville squatter camp. for them Rome will be built in zilion years, for us it takes only one day in office as a CEO, counsellor, director, business big-shot to relocate from Zamdela to Vaalpark and from Mofolo to Hougton.

Who killed Biko? Botha? No, Botha did not, could not, kill Biko. Malan could not. Only we could. Only we can. NONE BUT OURSELVES ARE THE ENEMY. To kill the enemy we really have to kill the enemy within. Who said Black Consciousness is no longer relevant? Wake up black people and all justice loving whites and peoples of the world. Black Consciousness, instil in us the love for ourselves, so that we can radiate that love to embrace all human beings with love. We are still far from this dream of Biko, Africa giving the greatest gift to humanity: A more human face. This is only possible if we love ourselves. An African proverb says: ‘Do not accept a gift of a suit from a naked person.’ How can a person who does not love himself and his people lie to you and say he loves you. How can you have a sense of self-respect and dignity when you live in opulence but your brothers and sisters, fathers and uncles, neighbours and relatives live in squalor? Pity how it seems we joined the struggle to be rich materially but poor in spirit! ilitye lika Biko li nxonxozile lizovulwa ngubani? Vuka ntsundu. tsoha guerilla, steve biko o batla masole. o robaletseng. AZANIA KE YA RONA.THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES. THE STRUGGLE IS ETERNAL.