[The fire in a Johannesburg building killing 73 people is the
result of decades of disastrous housing policies and the
criminalization of poverty in South Africa.]
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APARTHEID BY ANOTHER NAME  
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Laura Burocco
September 8, 2023
Il Manifesto Global
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_ The fire in a Johannesburg building killing 73 people is the result
of decades of disastrous housing policies and the criminalization of
poverty in South Africa. _

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The Johannesburg fire last week is reminiscent of the Grenfell Tower
fire in London in June 2017. Seventy-three died in Johannesburg, 72 in
London. The empire and the colony, which had managed to preserve,
under the legal form of apartheid, what Walter Mignolo calls
“coloniality”: the logic of colonialism that survives even after
its official demise. In earlier times, South Africa was a glaring
example of how it never actually went away; nowadays, the same could
be said about the French African Financial Community (CFA) regime, as
recounted in Katy Léna Ndiaye’s film _Money Freedom_ (2023).

South Africa is one of the richest countries on the African continent.
The country is host to the (private) hospitals where the African
political and business class comes for treatment, from all parts of
the continent. Until some years ago, just a short distance from the
burned building, in Johannesburg’s CBD (Central Business District),
the “vibrant” urban experience of Maboneng was being promoted for
young creative professionals, both black and white. The city
regeneration project, synonymous with gentrification, eventually
achieved the exact opposite of its goal: the gentrifiers, those who
had never even dreamed of living near the center, left. The buildings
are now abandoned, likely destined to be occupied by squatters.

The Johannesburg CBD was abandoned in ’94, with the end of
apartheid, after black citizens came in who previously needed a
passport to be allowed access. The municipality had created a new
center: Sandton, a shopping mall with mixed-use (residential and
commercial) where a giant statue of Nelson Mandela welcomes with open
arms everyone with a credit card: both blacks and whites, as a result
of the BEE (Black Empowerment Economy), a policy with laudable
intentions – to facilitate wider participation by blacks in the
country’s entrepreneurial economy – which fostered the rise of a
black elite, already partly present in latent form, as described in
Patrick Bond’s book _Élite Transition_.

Addressing the tragedy of six days ago, Johannesburg Mayor Kabelo
Gwamanda (from the Al Jama-ah party) and Lebogang Maile (ANC), head of
human settlements and infrastructure, did not fail to heavily
emphasize the dereliction and criminality found in what are called
“hijacked buildings”: i.e., occupied properties. To note, Al
Jama-ah is a Muslim fundamentalist party that the ANC and Effhanno
have elevated to the leadership of Johannesburg as part of a coalition
agreement established in order to secure control of the city against
the opposing party, the Democratic Alliance (DA).

These “hijacked buildings” – depicted in fictionalized form in
Ralph Ziman’s _Jerusalema_ (2008) – are occupied buildings where
the illegality doesn’t come from the occupation itself: given the
absence of a housing policy worthy of the name, people will occupy.
But afterwards, criminal groups take over the buildings and subject
the residents to extortion. This is the criminality, not the fact that
people claim their right to housing by occupying abandoned buildings
in central areas of the city, close to job opportunities. The
exploitative practices of prostitution of women and girls, the rapes,
the drug trade, the murders that happen in these places are ignored by
the city authorities, unable both to respond to crime as well as to
provide “adequate housing” for citizens, as explicitly required by
Section 26 of the South African Constitution. Instead, they always
bring out the rhetoric of criminalizing poverty.

There is nothing new or surprising here: the South African housing
crisis is one of the worst legacies of apartheid racial
discrimination. Attempts had been made to address it in ’94 with the
Reconstruction and Development Program launched by Nelson Mandela’s
government, but the program did not achieve its intended results, and
in fact quite the opposite: many of the housing policies it ended up
producing are nothing short of offensive to human dignity. Such as the
Temporary Relocation Areas, set up to remove thousands of residents of
“informal” areas during preparations for the 2010 World Cup, and
where people still live nowadays, without basic services.

In the case of Johannesburg’s CBD, a book was published last year
called _The Blinded City_ by Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, which deals
with the development of this problem over the past decade in the South
African city center.

The building that burned down last week was known as Usindiso and used
to serve as a shelter for abused women and children until it was
abandoned by the municipality, resulting in the building falling into
disrepair until it became what representatives of the City of Joburg
are calling “hijacked.” In response to the officials’ claims,
the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) issued a statement
denouncing the fact that “the Usindiso fire is an example of how the
city handles its shelters. Laying the blame on NGOs, as those who
speak for the city are currently doing, demonstrates the city’s
unwillingness to take responsibility for the housing crisis in urban
centers.”

Everywhere in the world, an effective housing policy requires a
greater understanding of what affordable housing in urban centers
entails, and how it relates to issues of poverty, poverty alleviation,
and the creation of sustainable cities and communities. In contrast,
we are increasingly seeing housing strategies based on speculation, a
trend fully embraced in South Africa as well: it’s enough to look at
the level of rents in the wealthy enclave of Cape Town, similar to
those in Milan. Not surprisingly, it’s the favorite “habitat” of
many Londoners for the Christmas vacations.

_Originally published in Italian on SEPTEMBER 6,
2023https://ilmanifesto.it/lapartheid-resta-di-casa_

* South Africa
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* Great Britain
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* gentrification
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* colonialism
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* Building Collapses
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