South Africa

South African shack dwellers: “The police are attacking us”

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:22:39 +0100

Image by posted by MrUmhlangarocks on YouTube.

A group of Durban shack dwellers say that local police attacked, abused, and intimidated residents on Friday night. It's the third alleged police-related attack in two months. But why would authorities target a group of shack dwellers?

Our Observer says that the November 13 attack is part of a mission to get rid of an increasingly powerful shack dwellers' rights group which is critical of ruling party ANC. Just two months ago the police failed to react to fatal clashes (see video below) in the neighbouring shantytown of Kennedy Road - which is also home to the movement. Activists condemned the violence as "coordinated" and the police as "complicit", in an open letter to President Jacob Zuma, which received over 1,250 signatures.

Since then, 32 "Abahlali baseMjondolo" movement members have been arrested, including 13 on Friday night (released on Monday). The group says it is "under attack" from the police. FRANCE 24 contacted the South African Police Service; they are yet to reply.

ANC using Caster Semenya for political gains?

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:25:09 +0200

Winner of this year's 800m Olympic race, record-breaking 18-year-old Caster Semenya has been crowned a hero back in her home country, despite - and moreover because of - allegations over her gender. But is her case being used for political means? Two South African media scholars weigh in.

Give your opinion on the affair.

Sean Jacobs and Herman Wasserman were born and grew up in South Africa. Sean now lives in Brooklyn and teaches at the New School college in New York City. Herman lives in the UK, teaching at the University of Sheffield.

It may be true that race-obsessed, populist elements in South Africa's ruling ANC are exploiting the controversy around world-beating athlete Caster Semenya for political gain. The rallying of support by the ANC has been roundly criticized in media reports both internationally and in South Africa, as well as by the ANC's political opposition. It might also be that the ANC is charging up emotions to divert people's attention away from their dismal social conditions instead of working harder to change them. This is, however, more a case of politicians trying to keep up with public opinion than the other way round. Denying this would be giving politicians too much credit, and disregard South Africans' ability to form their own opinions about a controversy that, for many, reflect their own struggles for recognition, respect and equal treatment.

And as with so much else in post-apartheid South African society, the mass support for Semenya (5000 people turned up at the airport to welcome her back, she has received encouragement in newspaper editorials, cartoons and the blogosphere, and even met with Nelson Mandela) is a paradoxical one that tells the story of a country deeply divided yet at certain moments strangely united around a common cause.

What can we learn from this response?

South Africans are sports mad. They measure their emotional state by the fortunes of their national teams and fiercely loyal to their athletes. When the former minister of finance, Trevor Manuel declared that he supported New Zealand's All Black rugby team (as did many black South Africans in defiance of the white-controlled game which barred them from the national team) he was criticized by supporters of the team which reminded him that Mandela was now the Springboks' number one fan.

Sporting codes remain largely racially segregated, a legacy of early twentieth century attempts to racially police sports: football for blacks and rugby and cricket for whites. But increasingly black and ‘coloured' (in apartheid parlance) sports heroes like Bryan Habana (rugby) and Wayne Parnell (cricket) are adored by all South Africans alike.

In this light, a decision by an international body to doubt the success of one of "us" was likely to be met with a nationalistic response, which could easily be reframed as an anti-imperialist one.

The clumsy and callous way in which the IAAF handled the inquiry into Semenya's gender seemed for South Africans to smack of a patronising attitude towards their country as a backward, "underdeveloped" place from which it was unlikely that an athlete of Semenya's extraordinary talent could emerge overnight.

Here the ANC might have a point in asking whether a white athlete -- -

read: European or North American --- would have been similarly publicly humiliated before a ‘gender' test was carried out. If there is something you should not tell South Africans, who are relishing their re-entry into the global arenas of commerce, sports and the arts, it is that they cannot compete at the same international level as others or that they are inferior or backward.

And by rejecting statements by Semenya''s parents (and her birth certificate), her trainer, school teachers and classmates who all testified that she grew up as a girl, the IAAF was seen to say: ‘Who are you to tell us you're a woman, we don't trust your birth certificate and- we will tell you if you are a woman.' To some South Africans the IAAF was implying that her parent's -- hardly cosmopolitans or members of South Africa's black political class or emerging economic elite -- were in on a massive conspiracy.

The response at Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg also reflects ordinary South Africans' experiences of marginalization. People want to believe in a dream, thus coping with their precarious and struggling existence in a country marred by poverty, violence and inequality.

The public response to Semenya''s gender testing also shows up how some in the West, for all its pretence, lives by outdated constructions of what are male or female ideal body types or behaviours. South Africans, only recently emerged from colonialism and Apartheid that was underpinned by pencil tests and ethnic shibboleths, are for all their faults very wary of essentialised categories.

What is more, by rejecting the prescriptions and impositions of international athletic tsars in white laboratory jackets, South Africans--generally socially conservative--are discovering for themselves the arbitrary and constructed nature of gender. In a country with high levels of gender-based violence (including violence against lesbians, perceived as women acting like men by their attackers), this is a positive sign. Interviewed by a Kenyan TV station, one of Caster's classmates said, ‘I am proud of her gender.' The t-shirts of some of Caster's young female supporters at the airport said it all: ‘If Caster is a boy, I am a boy too.'"

Vuvuzela: the trumpet of discontent

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:09:06 +0200

Photo posted on Flickr by "El Argentinito".

Around a metre long and able to produce a bellowing and enduring screech, the plastic horn that can be heard at every football match in South Africa is facing extinction after the emergence of a movement to ban it at the 2010 World Cup.

The vuvuleza debate is causing quite a storm both in and outside the football world. FIFA President Sepp Blater has publicly attempted to blow the instrument as a way of showing his support for South Africa's favourite noise-maker. British daily The Guardian however denounced it in publishing Spanish player Xabi Alonso's description of the "trumpet noise" as "unbearable".

The dispute is hotting up online too with both pro and anti groups already on Facebook, one of the latter calling for members to write to FIFA and demand that the horns be banned.

A site has been set up to keep an eye on the developing teams. When the Observers went to press, those voting not to ban the instrument outnumbered their foes by four to one.

A South African fan plays the vuvuzela. Posted on Youtube by "Sebafsud".

Unrest in South African shanty towns – ready to host the World Cup?

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:38:03 +0200

Photo: blogger Sydelle Willow Smith.

Protests over living conditions in South African shanty towns turned violent on Wednesday when discontented slum dwellers around the country clashed with police forces. Similar outbursts last year resulted in over 70 deaths when rioters also targeted foreigners from neighbouring countries; a cause for concern for the hundreds of thousands of World Cup fans planning to travel to the country in a year's time.

Police responded to stones and bottles with rubber bullets and tear gas. The protestors, who marched in their thousands in townships in Johannesburg, Western Cape and the northeastern region of Mpumalanga, demand better basic services such as increased water supplies and toilet facilities. Jobless protestors demand higher unemployment benefits.

The crisis comes just two months after African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma was elected president after promising improved conditions for the country's poor. Instead, conditions have worsened after South Africa hit its biggest recession in 17 years. More than a million people remain living in shacks and over 23% of the country is unemployed. Which is perhaps why they find it hard to believe that the government is spending nearly $145 million (€102m) on next year's World Cup, taking place across the country between June 11 and July 11. With around 500,000 foreigners planning to make their way to the event, the government is under pressure to quell the violence before the games kick off.

Slum turned vegetable garden

Ségolène Team Observers — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:43:35 +0200

Before and after: a pile of rubbish... turns vegetable garden.

A blogger tell us how an ingenious idea got a group of Kenyan shantytown residents to transform their quarters into a biological farm.

This post was published by "Afrigadget", a blog run by Erik Hersman.

Kibera, Africa's biggest slum seen from space.

Not surprisingly, popular images of people living in desperate conditions aren't far from the truth when it comes to this corner of Nairobi - but out of the madness comes a little hope.

Raw sewage flows above ground.

"I witnessed some amazing innovations in Kibera and conclude that people have adjusted to their situation and are making the most of it. Because of the stress associated with limitations on land, energy, water, and food, the people have found innovative ways of surviving. This post is mainly about farming.

"Black on black racism at the height of stupidity"

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:31:00 +0200

An anti-xenophobia protest in Johannesburg yesterday. Photo: Christo Doherty.

Forty-two people have been killed since the outbreak of violent clashes between native South Africans and Zimbabwean refugees in Johannesburg.

The violence began at the beginning of last week when mobs of South African youths started attacking foreign migrants, many of whom are Zimbabweans who have fled their country because of a brutal crackdown following elections at the end of March. The aggression towards the refugees is thought to be a reaction to rising food prices and high unemployment rates among the poor working classes, who blame Zimbabweans for taking their jobs. Since the beginning of the chaos, 42 people have been killed, 400 arrested and 16,000 displaced. Yesterday, President Thabo Mbeki called on troops to halt the attacks.

Like the good old apartheid times

Julien — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:21:59 +0100

Forced to eat meat mixed with garlic and urine, cleaners at a South African university are going through their "initiation" process. Participating in beer-downing competitions, races and mock rugby games, if the black workers are sufficiently entertaining, they go away at the end of the day with a bottle of whisky.

This is what happened at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein in central South Africa last September, when five elderly black cleaners were filmed completing the humiliating tasks. On Tuesday (26. Feb) the video of the events surfaced on the internet, causing outrage across the country. Now, the four victimisers are facing criminal charges, and mass protests are taking the country by storm.

A blogger thrown backstage of the ANC

Julien — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:01:59 +0100

Our observer Ndumiso Ngcobo was the only blogger who was able to attend the ANC (Africa National Congress) congress which ends on Friday. He sees the election of Jacob Zuma, who succeeds Thabo Mbeki as the party leader. Ndumiso Ngcobo follows the week's events and offers a fresh look at the ANC with a humorous parody.