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Home » 2001 » #436 » International News » SOUTH AFRICA: 'The aunties' revolt'

BY RICHARD PITHOUSE

DURBAN — Lotus Park is a ghetto with a view. The unpainted, cracked, leaking blocks of flats sit on a hill in Isipingo, south of Durban. In the valley, you can seen the houses of the rich and, along the freeway, you can make out the derelict shells of the abandoned clothing factories where the people of Lotus Park used to work. The air is poison here. It eats at the rich and poor alike.

The first batch of letters arrived on Thursday, January 18. They instructed people to collect registered letters at the post office. Many of the older women had had their state pensions cut off some months back and hoped that these letters meant that their grants had been reinstated. They put on their best clothes and walked, excitedly, to the post office.

The letters they signed for told them that, due to failure keep up to date with their rent, they would be evicted from their council flats on January 27. Community leaders guess that 400 to 500 people are facing eviction. How do you tell your children that men with sunglasses and guns are scheduled to throw you out of your home in nine days?

More letters arrived on Friday. It was clear that they were being sent out alphabetically. Mrs Munisamy knew that it wouldn't be long before they got to her. She was scared. She couldn't sleep.

Mrs Munisamy has lived in Flat 2, Petunia Court, Lotus Park for 22 years. She has been severely asthmatic for 20 years. She is 65. She looks 75. Poverty can do that. Her daughter, Kantha, is 28. She looks 11. Cancer can do that. Kantha has a son. His name is Carlton. He's six years old. Brown bread suppers and poison air haven't taken the sparkle out of his eyes.

Their flat is empty. The one old photograph on the turquoise wall, the few kitchen utensils and worn-out mattresses could be packed up in a few minutes. There wouldn't be much work for the men with guns.

Mrs Munisamy used to get a pension. It was R540 a month. Her rent is R268, her rates are R61 and she must also pay lights and water. But the family's medical bills alone are way over R540 a month. Poverty is expensive.

She was told that she could only continue to receive a pension if she got a new ID book. The bureaucrats were rude to her. Most people are rude to the poor. But she persevered. The ID book didn't come in time though and the pension was stopped. She finally got her ID book three months ago. But the pension people said that the office is closed till the end of the year. The plastic cover on the ID book shines. It is the only new thing in the flat.

Cancer

Kantha's had odd jobs here and there. One day she got a proper job at the airport. But then she was diagnosed with cancer. She can't eat solids anymore. A tin of soup costs R4.90 so most days she just has black tea. She is supposed to go to King Edward Hospital three times a week. Each visit costs R37. She hasn't been for eight months. She needs a transfusion. The hospice helps her a lot though. She is deeply grateful for their help.

The cancer is eating Kantha's mouth. But she talks a lot. About how she wants to work and to be able to pay her rent. About the good headmaster who accepts Carlton into his school without fees. About the neighbour who quietly brought round some second hand school clothes for Carlton. About the shopkeeper too lazy to count the cents she scraped together for a loaf of bread. He threw then back in her son's face. About the green beans she is growing on an empty piece of land. About the man who's had a councillor rezone and sell him that land so that he can expand his bar and casino. She wants to apply for a disability grant but she hasn't got the R20 to get to the grant office.

Preggie Naidoo, the newly elected left-leaning independent councillor for the area, called a public meeting for Sunday afternoon. Three hundred people, mostly women, squeezed into the hall. Outside gray skies and acid rain. Inside the room hums with restless, excited energy. Preggie is in a militant mood. He promises: “Nobody will kick anybody out of their home”.

Heinrich Bohmke, brought in to give legal advice, tells the people that the council is seeking to evict them in terms of a law that was taken off the statute books years ago. He explains that because the council has made no plans for alternative accommodation evictions will be unconstitutional. But he warns that although he will be able to use the law to delay the evictions for some months the council will eventually be able to get the technicalities right. Struggle, he advises, is the only hope.

From the floor people talk, with disgust about local ANC leader S'bu Ndebele's threat to punish communities that didn't vote ANC, about the R44 billion the ANC government is spending on new weapons for the military and how the residents can't reconcile cuts to their electricity with ANC election posters promising free basic services for all. But there is no ideology here. This is about survival.

Activist intellectual Ashwin Desai is received rapturously. He explodes with righteous anger. He speaks, passionately, about oppressors and the oppressed. About the grand sweep of colonialism and the minutiae of life in Lotus Park in 2001. He demands that the ANC build houses and stop evicting people. He castigates Mandela for “going around with beauty queens while the poor are suffering”. He promises that “We will not allow one person to be evicted in Isipingo”.

It is decided. The people will resist. They will stand against the men with guns.

After the meeting a young woman with a child on her hip excitedly explains: “The eviction notices have bought us together. We have been suffering alone for years. Especially since so many of the clothing factories closed down when the cheap imports came in. We were ashamed. We never knew that the person next door was going without a plate of food. But we are together now and the togetherness is holding us.”

Mass meeting

The legal work is done. The council is not allowed to proceed with the evictions. A mass meeting is called for Sunday 28 January to update everyone.

This time there are 800 people. Only about half the people are able to squash into the hall. The others throng the parking lot. The speeches are surprisingly low-key. But the people are restless. A woman says that she has heard that the apartheid-era mayor, Pastor Poobal Govender, has circulated a letter in support of the evictions. The chair of the meeting, Angie Pakkiri reads the letter out. There is an explosion of anger.

An old man stands up. He carefully takes his hat off. Silence ripples out around him. “We must”, he says, with steel in his voice, “go to Govender's house”. The meeting erupts into a chant of “Go to his house! Go to his house!”. The people file out to the parking lot. They line up quietly in the fading light and begin the 1km march, through Isipingo's winding streets to Govender's house. They are serious and orderly.

They are about 50 metres from Govender's high security glass and steel home. A man comes striding through the crowd, pushing people aside, shouting and swearing at them. He's 25, built like an ox and easily six-foot-four. He has a Z88 police issue 9mm parabellum in a holster on his right hip. Everybody knows that he is Govender's son, Shadrack. A police officer who, along with three others, is alleged to have beaten to death a young deaf man who had come to the Chatsworth police station to lay a charge. He cocks his pistol, pulls back the hammer, rams it into Ashwin Desai's face and screams “I'm gonna fucken kill you!”. A fireman, whose mother lives in the flats and who is just as large as Govender, steps up and stands shoulder to shoulder with Desai.

"They must all be evicted", Govender says, jabbing his gun into Desai's face. He starts waving his gun around wildly telling people that he knows where they live and that he'll get them.

Two uniformed police officers arrive. Everybody knows that one has a mother in the flats. People make way for them. They walk up to Govender and speak to him. It's hard to hear what they are saying but it's clear that they are in control now. The people start to laugh at Govender's threats. Govender is tamed. Charges will be laid against him later.

The people turn around and stride, confidently, back to the flats. Everybody's talking. Everybody is an expert on the web of corruption that ties the local business mafiosi together with corrupt councillors and cops. Everybody has a story. A woman says that when Pastor Govender was mayor he had her evicted from her flat and replaced with his sister. She blames him for the collapse of her marriage. When he came canvassing for the conservative Democratic Alliance she reminded him of the story. He told her to forgive and forget. But now she beams — her teeth white in the night.

People stand around the flats in small groups. Talking. Planning. Remembering. Laughing. Hoping. A rebellion has begun. Against the corruption and abuse of local feudal lords. Against the assault on the poor in the name of a technocratic business is business policy.

This is not the politics of conferences and pontification. There is no party to co-opt these energies. The people know that they are challenging the powerful but they feel the power in their new solidarity. They don't doubt that justice is on their side.

The Munisamys aren't in their flat. They must be out here too. Somewhere. Melting into this new community.

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