The urban palimpsest: Part 1, wiping the slate
By: David A. Smith
The best thing to happen to the informal settlers of
March 9, 2009
On 9th March 2009, a fire razed 500 shacks to the ground, and left 1,500 homeless.
(Unless otherwise captioned, all photos are from iKhayalami and cover the March 9-11 rebuilding days.)
What evolved was a partnership between the community and iKhayalami, where an entire section of Joe Slovo was planned, cleared and rebuilt using materials and expertise supplied by the NGO, and the labour and community access supplied by the leadership – all done at just 10% of the cost of more formal housing developments.
The story that follows (a large set of pictures is here, from which this post’s images are drawn) is remarkable for what happened but even more for what it demonstrates about why slums are both resilient and change-resistant, how they become political and economic stalemates, and what becomes possible when tragedy cracks options open. It also flashes insights into the role of Mission entrepreneurial entities (MEEs) and the responsive power of networks.
Slums are dense – perhaps this too is part of their definition. Every inch of land is used, every cubic of shelter space occupied. People constantly rub and jostle people. Bold strokes of movement – like, say, comprehensive redevelopment of the neighborhood – are impossible without clearing the space – the physical, political, social, and economic space.
I heard the tale from a report, written by Tom Herbstein of the University of Cape Town’s African Security and Justice Program (ASJP), and circulated by SDI member affiliate FED-UP, South Africa’s Federation of the Urban Poor led by Rose Molokoane.
Rose Molokoane, at Rockefeller’s
The actors, in addition to the residents themselves, are FED-UP; iKhalayami, a grass-roots development MEE; the Community Organisation Resource Center (CORC), a technical-assistance network; and the City of
What’s in a name? In the case of Joe Slovo, much.
The story begins fifteen years ago:
Joe Slovo is an informal settlement in the Langa
Irresolution arises when legal authority collides with physical reality, because both are immovable objects. The law may be an ass, for it is as stubborn; and people who have nowhere to go are just as stubborn in refusing to leave.
Joe Slovo was about to embark on an extended legal battle with National Government, around the actual and threatened relocation of residents to transit camps in the Delft area to make way for the N2 Gateway Pilot Housing Project.
Irony abounds in slums. Here is government trying to upgrade a neighborhood, but the residents, deeply suspicious, refuse to be relocated. They fear that once they have vacated their land, they will lose their leverage and hence their housing and their expectation of government service.
Adding to the irony is the settlement’s name. Joe Slovo, with his wife Ruth First, was a key early ally of the African National Congress (ANC), today
For decades he and the ANC’s leadership – Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu – carried on an ongoing struggle to end apartheid. They adopted a Communist line –
Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela, and Joe Slovo
– went to jail during the 1956 Treason Trial (charges later dropped –
Nelson Mandela on his acquittal
– went into exile –
– and upon his return in 1990 became founders of a new, fully democratized South African government –
– of which, in the final irony, Joe Slovo was the first housing minister.
Roughly three weeks into his tenure as housing minister, Slovo liked to recount, he had picked up the paper one morning to read New government announcement and reflexively muttered “what are those bastards up to now?” Then he stopped, as he tells it, and said, “Hey – we are those bastards now.”
I am that bastard now
Thus the heirs of Joe Slovo were proposing to relocate the residents of Joe Slovo so that they could build a new Joe Slovo – and for fifteen years, stalemate had ensued, stalemate in the face of occasional tragedy:
January 2005
iKhayalami was first exposed to Joe Slovo after a large fire razed 3,000 shelters and left 12,000 homeless.
This was an opportunity missed, for action requires pre-tragedy organization.
While iKhayalami were not directly involved with Joe Slovo at this time, they began to look at ways to create a link with the community.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
Organization takes time, and requires an investment of trust. That can start with savings:
October 2007 – A Fed-UP savings scheme initiated
A small savings ‘Federation’ (Fed-UP) was created in Joe Slovo, directly linked with the Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC) and indirectly linked to iKhayalami. Its aim was to support residents save money for future improvements to their own housing situation. However, due to general lack of understanding around Fed-UP’s operations, coupled with suspicions by leadership, opposition blocked Fed-UP’s activities by discouraging membership and meetings within the community.
Slums have many enemies within – alternative power structures, ignorance, suspicion. These are seldom defeated by direct assault; instead they are taken by slow, patient siege – and by people who take right action when opportunity presents itself.
Joe Slovo anti-eviction protests
In a slum, opportunity often comes disguised as fire.
Limited activities of Fed-UP continued until February 2008 when a smaller fire claimed 150 shelters. iKhayalami, aware of the importance locally and nationally that Joe Slovo represented, made contact again with the intention of helping their limited number of Federation members who had lost homes and were now destitute.
Membership has its privileges – isn’t that the line?
A vital dialogue began between the Joe Slovo leadership, the Federation members and iKhayalami.
Politic phrasing.
While the leadership were open to the offer of emergency assistance, they strongly opposed the idea of distributing shelters only to Federation members, a move they saw simply as dividing the community yet further.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
Any alternate-power leadership loses its legitimacy if it does not deliver better benefits to its members than those obtained by non-members. iKhayalami’s offer of help thus represented a direct threat to the incumbent power structures (which the report declines to name); worse for the incumbents was the offers’ unassailable legitimacy. Who wouldn’t want a free shelter, and who wouldn’t understand that only thoser who had been members should get one?
Existing Federation members however, felt it unfair that after being penalized for taking part in the saving schemes, they now had to share the “benefits” with the rest of the community.
And quite rightly so!
In this shift of attitudes not the shifting power allegiances; the Federation members now saw iKhayalami as a more promising ‘political party’ than the incumbent. The result was a pragmatic fudge:
Very pragmatic
As material was only initially available for 10 shelters, and far more families were homeless, iKhayalami suggested that both the Joe Slovo leadership and the Federation members draw up lists of those most in need, which they did.
More power shift – now the Federation is acknowledged by the Joe Slovo leadership as a sovereign power with which to be treated.
To end the deadlock, these lists were compared by iKhayalami and 15 recipients selected between the two that tried to balance whom each group saw as most needy. iKhayalami agreed to finance a further five shelters and consensus was reached.
Because affordable housing always costs money, stakeholders can often be brought to political consensus by a little more mother’s milk of politics – and some creative rationalization:
Extending support to non-Federation members was possible because while iKhayalami provides housing for Federation members, this relationship is not exclusive and the organization’s main aim is the upliftment in living conditions of the most desperate in poor communities. Thus they had no objection to supplying housing units to non-Federation members in this moment of crisis.
Joe Slovo, March 2009, with
That last phrase is key – during crisis, human beings like other primates will suspend their territoriality in service to species protection. Yet this was only a small crisis, and the solution was correspondingly small:
Communities are expected to participate in building their own shelters under the guidance of iKhayalami staff. However, in this case, as only 15 shelters were constructed, and the most desperate were the ill and elderly, iKhayalami ended up building most of the shelters themselves.
As a long-time houser, I smiled at this rueful admission. Whenever housing resources are scarce, there arises a tension as to distribution: serve the most people (shallow subsidy) or neediest people (deep subsidy)? And if you subsidize the neediest, you reward dependency – which you can justify only if they are dependent through no fault of their own.
Small scale also prevented any slum improvement:
iKhayalami had also planned to block these shelters together but it was quickly realized that this would be impossible as any shacks had already reclaimed most of the burnt out area and the leadership were still not entirely understanding – or trusting – of the concepts proposed. As a result, the shelters were built where they could be fitted in amongst the rest of the community.
They still stand today.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
With a toehold, the new group expanded the reach of its coalition government:
The real success of this period was that a relationship had developed between the leadership and iKhayalami and, as people now understood the Federation’s saving scheme, membership in Joe Slovo soared.
Building on this, iKhayalami, with the Joe Slovo leadership, identified a need for a hall as community meetings were at that time being held in the open. Money had been raised previously by iKhayalami for a community creche to be built somewhere in Cape Town and it was decided to channel these funds into a 54m2 iKhayalami structure, constructed in December 2008.
The newcomers kept bringing gifts, so the incumbent power structure kept tolerating their presence.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
The newcomers kept selling the vision:
Throughout this period, discussions had continued between iKhayalami and the leadership around the possible ‘blocking out’ of Joe Slovo.
The vision aligned with the goals of the formal power structure:
On 5th March 2009, a public forum was held in Gugulethu,
The focus of the forum was on informal settlement upgrading, an
Thirty members of the Joe Slovo leadership attended and participated in the event.
Then came the fire.
Joe Slovo, March 2009
[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]