10 00 12 18

COMMENTARY:

It’s the start of the morning rush, in Durban, South Africa. Under the system of white supremacy called apartheid, Africans were prevented by force from living in the city. But as apartheid weakened, they moved in, and built suburbs of shacks.

This is Foreman Road, home to 7,000 people.

10 00 43 20

Clearing the slums is the authorities’ rallying cry -- but if that means leaving the city, most shackdwellers don’t want to go

10 00 54 18

Name-super:

S'bu Zikode

Shackdweller

S’BU ZIKODE:

People have their reasons why they are squatting in the city. People are not stupid. It’s not that people like to live in the shacks. No one will ever want to live in these conditions, but they need to be closer to their working places. They are here to access education and healthcare, and better services. So people are here for a reason. They cannot allow anyone to move them because they are in the cities to access better life.

10 01 34 01

COMMENTARY:

Post-apartheid South Africa has one of the few constitutions in the world that make adequate housing a citizen’s right. When democracy started in 1994, Durban’s 800,000 or so shackdwellers put their faith in the African National Congress -- the former liberation movement.

Now, however, they’ve started their own movement. Abahlali baseMjondolo -- literally ‘the people of the shacks' -- is voluntary and community-based. Its slogan is ‘Talk to us -- not about us’.

10 02 10 15

S’BU ZIKODE

Leaders often want to be listened to. They still do not understand what democracy is. They think democracy is about us giving them respect, it’s about us listening to them, without us having a voice.

For the first time the poor now are beginning to speak for themselves. Now that threatens those in high authority who are paid to think for us, who are paid to speak for us.

10 02 42 03

COMMENTARY:

In September 2007, Abahlali members marched to the local municipal office with a memorandum of demands.

10 02 58 02

The march was legal. Abahlali had notified the police in advance and had permission to be on the streets.

10 03 08 22

They’d asked the mayor -- Obed Mlaba -- to receive their memorandum in person; they, and the Anglican and Methodist bishops who were with them, waited for him.

10 03 19 18

Name-super:

Mariet Kikine

Shackdweller &

Abahlali member

MARIET KIKINE:

There were church leaders there. We were free and happy. When we were busy praying we closed our eyes. Before we even said 'Amen' they poured water onto us -- we were running -- they started to shoot us. I am one of the people who got six rubber bullets in my body. Since I was born I never ever had a pain like that for that night. Our government from South Africa, a woman of my age -- 54 years -- I didn’t break anything; after that they arrest us, they say we're making violence; they open a case for violence - public violence. For that thing they’ve done to me, I’m not stopping to fight government for my rights. Now they make me brave. I’m not turning back anymore.

10 04 31 24

COMMENTARY:

The shack suburb of Kennedy Road was hacked from the bush in the 1980s and is on land owned by the state.

But life here is insecure. Residents have no rights of tenure. The local authorities treat them as transient, even though several generations have grown up here.

10 05 00 07

The official policy of the National Housing Department is that shack settlements should be upgraded - but national policy is implemented by provincial governments and municipalities, and Abahlali members have campaigned in vain for the municipality to upgrade Kennedy Road.

10 05 17 20

Name-super:

Fanuel Nsingo

Abahlali activist

FANUEL NSINGO:

These shacks are for people; we are not animals, we are just people, like them that work in the municipal offices.

10 05 29 20

COMMENTARY:

Some 7,000 people live in Kennedy Road and need basic services. But Abahlali activists are battling on the most elementary of issues -- like lavatories.

10 05 43 05

Name-super:

Z0dwa Nsibande

Abahlali activist

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

Almost plus-minus 500 people are using this one toilet; male and female and children are sharing one and the same toilet.

10 05 51 07

COMMENTARY:

The municipality supplies five of these chemical lavatories. It’s also built a number of pit latrines. In March 2008, Abahlali said they hadn’t been emptied for over a year.

10 06 10 15

Then there’s a battle over rubbish collection.

10 06 15 04

FANUEL NSINGO:

This refuse must be collected by the municipality once a week. Sometimes they don’t come.

10 06 21 06

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

We fought very hard to get the refuse bags; now we have every time to phone them and remind them that they’re supposed to do it.

10 06 29 14

FANUEL NSINGO:

And now, just imagine how close we are to that dumping ground, but now they are leaving all this refuse here that they can manage to collect within 3 minutes.

10 06 42 16

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

And they are always complaining that the shackdwellers are not clean.

10 06 48 20

COMMENTARY:

This is the main municipal dump for Durban. Kennedy Road grew up right next door to it. With so many thousands of people living here, you’d think the public health authorities would be doing everything to improve sanitation and safety. You’d be wrong.

10 07 06 08

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

There’s no lights here, there’s no street lights. So you cannot get up during the night; it’s not safe, because it’s dark.

10 07 15 12

FANUEL NSINGO:

One has to urinate in a bucket in the shack there. You know, it’s so difficult for one to go carrying urine -- just a half a kilometre up there. You see, from one shack-dwelling at the bottom, up there [gestures]. And people would think you are mad. So It’s just better for me to come out of my shack and I just throw out the urine.

10 07 38 24

COMMENTARY:

In South Africa the biggest killer of 1-5 year olds is diarrhoea. These shackdwellers aren’t ratepayers -- but they are citizens!

10 07 50 12

FANUEL NSINGO:

This water is part of the water that comes from the top there.

10 07 54 05

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

Look at the children; children are eating -- they are having their breakfast in front of this dirty water.

10 08 00 06

FANUEL NSINGO:

We are tired of eating in these filthy conditions; we are tired of a fight without a win; but we have not even seen one big guy coming to address us here. They just move in good cars when they go to the parliament. They must bring those briefcases and try to address service delivery here.

10 08 22 04

Name-super:

S'bu Zikode

Leader, Abahlali baseMjondolo

S’BU ZIKODE:

Millions of South Africans that are living in the informal settlements are being marginalised, are being forgotten. The president of the country, the premiers, are so far, they are high enough for them not to see the ground. But what about this local government, what about the municipality? The city manager and the mayor? Why are they so blind to our suffering? How long will people live in these conditions, you know, without any ear that is prepared to hear?

10 09 02 18

COMMENTARY:

Durban is part of a huge post-apartheid municipality called eThekwini, which appears to be nailing its ‘development’ hopes to the 2010 soccer World Cup.

eThekwini is building a state-of-the-art stadium-cum-shopping mall at a cost of R2.6 billion. It’s the centrepiece of a drive to make Durban a ‘world-class city’.

Sihle Sibisi, an Abahlali activist, is unimpressed. He’s lived for some 20 years in this shack, or ‘jondolo’, alongside his neighbour, Mariet Kikine. She’s the woman who was shot six times by the police -- in the back.

10 09 50 12

MARIET KIKINE:

Our government has got plenty of money to renew the airport and big money to build the stadium. No money for the poor people. But when they want the vote, where do they go first? -- to the jondolos.

10 10 07 20

Name-super:

Sihle Sibisi

Abahlali activist

SIHLE SIBISI:

As we are poor, we are going to get poorer and poorest. Those people who are rich, they are also richest after 2010, because now when we are not getting housing this year, next year they do not care about us because it’s the election, and after the election then 2010 World Cup. After 2010, there’s World Cup cricket; after World Cup cricket, the World Cup rugby. So what we -- what we said, for this 5-year plan, where we fit in for the city municipality -- where do we fit in?

10 10 48 10

COMMENTARY:

In the years immediately after the end of apartheid, Durban council actively supported the city’s poor, including shackdwellers. The emphasis changed in 2001, when the enlarged municipality adopted the less sympathetic policy of slum clearance. Attitudes continue to harden. The provincial government has recently passed a law that criminalises the building of shacks. What’s happening now in Kennedy Road seems very like a war of attrition against the shackdwellers.

10 11 21 18

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

The municipality came here and cut the wires -- they’re telling us that this is an illegal connection, but as you can see, these posts were put in by the municipality themselves.

10 11 32 09

FANUEL NSINGO:

They just want to justify that shackdwellers are stealing electricity. Shackdwellers cannot consume more electricity than the mines. Do you think these shackdwellings can consume so much electricity, making the whole country go dark in the process? I don’t think so.

10 11 51 00

S’BU ZIKODE:

There is a policy that prohibits the electrification of any informal settlement in the city, but that particular policy is a killer. So many people have been killed by the fact that they cannot access electricity. They have to use these paraffin stoves which often explode, and candles.

10 12 12 01

FANUEL NSINGO:

And just imagine how many flood-lights are there, at one power station, there’s at least three to four flood-lights, just for a small station like this, but we don’t have even a single one -- a single flood-light here in these shack-dwellings.

10 12 27 04

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

If they can afford to put lights there, why can't they afford to put lights here, for the people?

10 12 38 18

COMMENTARY:

This is the kind of suburb where the ratepayers live.

10 12 50 09

These areas used to be for whites only; now they’re open to anyone with money to buy. Much more money than before -- in 7 years property prices rose 200 per cent. This, in a city where 40 per cent of working-age adults are unemployed.

10 13 17 13

S’BU ZIKODE:

We know that this country has enough resources for its citizens, and we know that this country is rich, and we know exactly what makes it rich. The fact that we are kept in these settlements is one factor that makes it rich. The fact that our poor people have to walk and work in the kitchens and laundries of the rich people makes this country rich, and it makes the city rich.

10 13 47 00

MNIKELO NDABANKULU:

It’s a part of a continuous struggle, so we are just saying our unity is our own strength.

10 13 54 05

10 13 59 10

COMMENTARY:

In Foreman Road, the local development committee has joined Abahlali baseMjondolo.

MNIKELO SYNCH:

Forward, to housing development.

10 14 07 12

COMMENTARY:

Mnikelo Ndabankulu, a shackdweller in Foreman Road, is a volunteer activist in Abahlali. The movement is driven and sustained by the energies of unpaid organisers like him.

10 14 27 20

But ‘coming out’ as an Abahlali activist means coming out as a shackdweller and, more than ever in South Africa, there’s stigma attached to living in a shack, or jondolo.

10 14 40 00

Name-super:

Mnikelo Ndabankulu

Abahali activist

MNIKELO NDABANKULU:

One of the main objectives of Abahlali is for people to get confidence and pride in their communities. Some people even fear to say that I’m staying in a jondolo. They see it as a shame or as an embarrassment to stay in a shack, but we have to build that self-confidence. You have to accept that you are poor and then you can try to get alternatives on how to change our lives. When you say I am staying here, then you are here and you’re fighting for - for the development of where you are staying. If you cannot stand up and fight for a house, you are going to hide for life now.

10 15 32 08

We say this government must build houses for us here. We are not just fighting for housing in general; we are fighting for houses in the city.

10 15 44 05

10 16 09 20

COMMENTARY:

The municipality of eThekwini is, in fact, spending millions of rands building new houses. The problem is, it’s doing so without consulting shackdwellers and in places they can’t afford to live because public transport isn’t subsidised. Shack-owners in Foreman Road have been told they might have new houses in Verulam.

Verulam is a rural area 27 kilometres from here, and this man can’t afford to live there.

10 16 17 08

MNIKELO NDABANKULU:

He is working around here, a 30 minutes walk from here to his workplace; but if he stays in Verulam, he has to take a train from Verulam to the city, and then from the city he has to take a taxi, so his income will be spent on transport.

10 16 34 08

SHACKDWELLER:

Transport -- if I'm going to Verulam...if I’m working somewhere here, our neighbour, he’s paying me only 20 rand a day, so how much am I going to spend to come to this side here to do my work? So that’s the thing, we don’t like to go that side.

10 16 48 12

S’BU ZIKODE:

Poor people will resist any relocation without their consent, so the key issue here is about people being consulted. If you consult people then you show that you respect them.

10 17 06 20

If you force them to live wherever you feel like, without their consent -- people, of course, will not say no to houses; they will take your house, but they will either rent it out or sell it, and they run back to the shack. That is the huge problem that our government is facing, but because it cannot respect and listen to us, it will always face this problem.

10 17 31 00

MNIKELO NDABANKULU:

The government is always trying to relocate people to far away places like Verulam, Parkgate, Mount Moriah, which is costing too much on transport costs since the price of petrol is rising -- day in, day out. So we do not want to even hear the issue of relocation; we want upgrading and development where we are currently staying.

10 17 55 04

COMMENTARY:

People get involved in Abahlali baseMjondolo because it helps them 'stay where they are currently staying'. This is what’s left of the shack suburb of Motala Heights. In October 2006, a municipal demolition squad arrived here unannounced, and started breaking up houses -- though they were themselves breaking the law, because they didn’t have a Court Order. Through Abahlali and the Legal Resources Centre the residents got a High Court interdict that halted the demolitions. They’re resisting relocation to a municipal housing development some miles away. Their poor Indian neighbours are also under pressure, and some have joined Abahlali.

10 18 45 20

The municipality’s housing development, called Nazareth Island, cost at least R20 million to build. These residents say the ANC ward councillor has called them ‘animals’ and told them they should ‘go back to the farm’.

10 19 01 20

Name-super:

Louisa Motha

Abahali activist

LOUISA MOTHA:

I grew up in these shacks; my mother gave birth to me here. She suffered a lot under the apartheid government. When this settlement started, in 1979, the government would destroy our houses, and we’d sleep outside. If the present government says this place is for animals then I am an animal. I’ll live with them, because I’ve got nowhere else to go. I was born here, and gave birth to my own children here. I’ve got nothing to 'go back' to, certainly not a farm.

10 19 41 05

SHACKDWELLER:

I came to this place in 1994. I liked it because I was working nearby. There are factories near here, so it’s easy for us to go and look for work. And we live with the Indians; we can do their washing and cleaning so we earn money, and our children don’t go to bed hungry.

10 20 05 12

SHACKDWELLER:

I’m dressed this way because of the Indians. All the clothes I have are from them. We’re asking for houses to be built for us here, not anywhere else.

10 20 16 14

SHACKDWELLER:

The council wanted us to go to Nazareth Island. Many of us didn’t go because then we’d be far away from our little jobs, and we’d have to use money to travel to work.

10 20 31 14

SHACKDWELLER:

If we had gone to Nazareth, some of us might be doing crime already, like pick-pocketing, because we'd need money to come and look for work. Some of the people that went to Nazareth, their children don’t go to school anymore. They can’t pay the fares because they’re not working.

10 20 49 06

SHACKDWELLER:

We’re asking the councillor to build houses for us where we are. We’re asking him to build crches and places where we can learn a trade, like sewing or catering. We want to stay here and learn skills.

10 21 10 00

COMMENTARY:

These are modest enough ambitions, but there’s no sign they’ll be realised, even thought the Motala Heights settlement is on land owned by the municipality.

A powerful local businessman wants the land for a private housing development. It seems the shackdwellers are in the way.

10 21 34 12

SHACKDWELLER:

I was stubborn; I refused to go to Nazareth. As a result, I was shot here with a rubber-bullet; it was very painful. They were tear-gassing us, and we ran away up the hill. There was corrugated iron everywhere from the shacks they demolished, and I fell and got cut on the leg.

10 21 59 16

SHACKDWELLER:

The harassment from the council tells us we don’t belong in South Africa, and that only certain people have freedom in South Africa. Freedom is for those who have money. But low people, like us here in Motala, are not safe. Even the law doesn’t protect us. That’s how we see things.

10 22 26 01

SHACKDWELLER:

This is where I got hit. They were firing tear-gas, trying to remove us. But we didn’t want to go. We’ll live here till the end of time. We are not going anywhere. Do you want to say something, little one?

10 23 07 08

COMMENTARY:

Mpola is an old apartheid-era township, not a shack settlement; but all is not well here either. This homestead is scheduled for demolition by the municipality, who say the land is needed for... something else. Residents say this is part of a pattern of arbitrary behaviour by the local councillor.

10 23 29 20

RESIDENT:

Those who are receiving services are those who are friends and relatives of the councillor and his committee, yes, not the whole community. And also those who belong to the same party the councillor belongs to.

RESIDENT:

If you're not in the same party it means you are not going to get the services.

10 23 54 03

COMMENTARY:

The councillor in question belongs to the ANC. This man -- former ANC cadre Mbongeni Madlala -- says he recruited him. Now Madlala’s an activist in Abahlali.

10 24 09 09

Name-super:

Mbongeni Madlala

Abahlali activist

MBONGENI MADLALA:

Many of Abahlali members are from the ANC.

JENNY:

Why are they in Abahlali?

MBONGENI MADLALA:

Because they are fed up of these empty promises by the leaders.

10 24 24 04

COMMENTARY:

In Mpola the municipality is very busy, building new, state-subsidised houses.

10 24 31

MBONGENI MADLALA:

We don’t want these houses because they don’t have foundations, just concrete; they are without trenches underneath, so just concrete only. They say it’s R32,000. And we don’t believe that. As you can see, these houses are too small for that amount. What we want is a breakdown sheet that states clearly how much was taken from that R32,000 buying bricks, buying tiles and all the stuff, so that we know at the end what -- what is the residual. So that’s what we need to know; as the community it’s our right.

JENNY:

And have you had any luck getting that breakdown?

MBONGENI MADLALA:

No. When you ask questions like that, they just deny you. They just come to tell you that we are putting these houses, whether you like it or not; they just put it and they put it just in front of your house. Not where you want it to be built. They just build it wherever they want to build it.

10 25 46 14

COMMENTARY:

These people have their old township house -- and now, in their front garden, they have a new Reconstruction and Development house.

10 26 11 13

MBONGENI MADLALA:

This house was never built on R32,000. This one. So that means that this one is not R32,000. If we were given vouchers we would renovate the house that we have, rather than having many houses. The government of the apartheid era knew that a person needs to live in a 4-room house, but the government of this time is building 2-room houses. How can you live with your whole family in a 2-room house? We want to know who passed this plan. These are the houses we voted for, this is the democracy we were fighting for, the freedom we fought for. Yes.

10 27 05 02

S’BU ZIKODE:

We are not aiming at undermining the current government, but even the prominent members of the ruling party will definitely say this is not what we fought for. So we are busy rolling up our sleeves in order to partner and engage the authorities so that they can see what we see, feel what we feel; so that they begin to understand the real issues.

10 27 31 20

Name-super:

Zodwa Nsibande

Abahlali activist

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

As from 1994 up to 2008 -- how many years now, 14 years? -- they should have done something by now.

10 27 38 13

Name-super:

Fanuel Nsingo

Abahlali activist

FANUEL NSINGO:

It’s a political game, because once we approach elections we will start to get those big guns now trying to do some little stuff here, but that little stuff which doesn’t cost a lot of money in terms of the real money that has been allocated to them.

ZODWA NSIBANDE:

We are understanding this game now.

FANUEL NSINGO:

Yeah. So we are a shackdwellers’ movement which consists of all party supporters who are loyal to the DA, who are loyal to the Inkatha, who are loyal to the ANC. So what we only need is a change, but beware that there is a revolution at the end if you fail to deliver, and people discover the game of political gimmicks.

10 28 19 22

COMMENTARY:

Down at the beachfront, the work of creating a ‘world class city’ goes on. It would be a shame if the only people who benefited were tourists and soccer fans.

But the recent Elimination of Slums Act appears to tell shackdwellers the city doesn’t want them. Abahlali are challenging the new law in the courts, saying it’s unconstitutional.

10 28 47 06

On-screen captions

S’BU ZIKODE:

We understand that the idea is to draw more investment in the cities by chasing the poor people away. This new legislation makes it a crime to build shacks, it makes it a crime to resist demolition and eviction. So we fear, therefore, that if we can allow this Act we will have a situation where it becomes criminal to be poor in South Africa. So we’ll fight and we’ll defend our right to cities. Because fighting and defending our right to city will mean that we fight and defend our right to life.

On Saturday 14 September 2008É

at 3 o’clock in the morningÉ

a fire started in the Foreman Road settlementÉ

down at the bottomÉ

where there’s just this one tap.

The fire rapidly consumed 1000 housesÉ

most of this hillside.

On Monday morning,

the municipality sent in the bulldozers.

The shackdwellers resisted.

The struggle continues for a place in the city.

END CREDITS