Nathan Geffen
3 July 2008
opinion
On Thursday 22 May, Cape Town changed forever. The xenophobic violence that started 1,200 kilometres away in Gauteng spread to Du Noon township. On Friday the TAC offices began to get reports of violence on trains and Somali shops being looted. The details were scanty, but by Friday evening the consequences became visible even in the affluent city centre. About 150 people sought refuge outside Caledon Square, the city's main police station. Hundreds more gathered at the central train station so they could catch a train to Johannesburg in the morning and then leave the country.
A group of mainly Congolese men at Caledon Square, explained that they had no trust in any South African government institution and demanded to see the UNHCR so they could be repatriated. They said they would not move from Caledon Square until then even if it rained. One of them is a published writer and another lost his computer training school, worth tens of thousands of rands, in the violence. Angry young Burundians screamed at me that they wanted nothing more to do with my country. Malawian youths mournfully described how they felt they had no choice but to return home.
A Malawian husband and wife huddled with their child in the cold train station. The couple had been beaten and they were now returning home. Three men, who had not been beaten themselves were nevertheless terrified and determined to get back to Zimbabwe.
Soon we found out that thousands of immigrants, and some non-Xhosa speaking people from other South African provinces, had gathered into community centres in Khayelitsha, the metropolitan area's largest township, to escape the terror.
As Friday night progressed, we realised that there were thousands of displaced people across the Cape Peninsula and that government was not organised to respond to their urgent needs of food, blankets and sanitation. We managed to organise provisions for Caledon Square and the station, but by 3am we had decided that we would have to be back early in the morning to do the same on a massive scale across the city. I got a couple of hours sleep and went back to work, joined by colleagues and volunteers.
Early next morning, the TAC, AIDS Law project, ARASA and Sonke Gender Justice offices at 122 Longmarket Street were nearly instantly converted from an activist centre into a disaster relief one. Saturday was a chaotic blur: none of us had experience in what had to be done. Dozens of people were doing hundreds of tasks, some answered the endlessly ringing phones and recorded details of new refugee centres springing up all over the city, some put out calls anywhere and everywhere to get food, blankets and other donations delivered to our offices, others raised money. I have a vague recollection of barking orders, shouting, ranting, losing my temper non-stop for 19 hours. Despite the mess, we managed to fulfil nearly every critical demand that came our way. The city's Disaster Management provided a little help but was clearly not prepared for such a large disaster.
The TAC Khayelitsha office, with much fewer resources than us, also quickly revamped itself to become a 24 hour distribution point for emergency relief and assistance, including safety, at one point supporting six refuges in the township sheltering over 2,000 people.
By Sunday, our Cape Town office had dramatically improved the system and turned Saturday's chaos into an ordered operation with a control room that collected information which was then sent to a dispatch system. By Monday, we had a venue where large amounts of donations of essential materials were delivered. ARASA with the assistance of SHAWCO, conducted health assessments of sites. Sonke produced anti-xenophobia posters and t-shirts saying "Foreigner", which have been an instant hit. Our operation ran non-stop for 60 hours and even when we closed for the first time on Monday evening, it was only for a few hours. The TAC Khayelitsha's operation was as impressive and run by much poorer people.
Hundreds of volunteers, organisations and companies lent a hand. Jewish, Muslim and Christian organisations worked together. Habonim Dror made several thousand sandwiches in one day. The Bo Kaap mosques helped out many of the women and children staying at Caledon Square. His People sheltered up to 800 people at their N1 City church. The Methodist churches all opened their doors to refugees. St Georges Cathedral, the long serving bastion of struggle politics, was the venue for a large anti-xenophobic rally addressed by the Chief Justice. An enormous, urgent and co-operative civil society effort ensured that thousands of people, who have turned Cape Town into a fledgling cosmopolitan city, were reasonably fed and warm after the worst pogrom in our country's post-freedom history.
For three days we almost entirely replaced the role of our incapable state. We built a database of all the refugee sites and shared it with City Disaster Management or anyone else willing to help. And we organised clothes, warmth and food for thousands of people.
Our database eventually listed just under 70 sites and over 20,000 people displaced. By mid-week the numbers had dropped to about 15,000 because people felt safe to return to their homes in some areas. But hundreds, perhaps thousands, caught trains and buses to leave the city and would not have been recorded at all. Many refugees have also been put up in private homes. My guess is that the pogrom drove 30,000 people to spend at least one night out of their homes in the Western Cape.
South Africa's official opposition Democratic Alliance runs the city. The ruling ANC runs the province and national government. For the first few days, there was hardly any response by the provincial and national government. So our media statements were more favourable toward the city. But what shocked us was that the mayor, Helen Zille, and the provincial premier, Ebrahim Rasool, would not meet or work with each other in the face of Cape Town's biggest disaster. Every time we spoke to either party, we would be given long, frankly boring and childish excuses with the one blaming the other for non-co-operation.
The city's response, albeit better than the province at first, was also awful. The inefficiencies can be forgiven - perhaps; the city is simply not prepared for a disaster of this size. However, the decision by the mayor to establish what are essentially refugee camps in damp, cold conditions on the outskirts of the metropole, unserviced by adequate transport or health-care is wrong for many reasons, which will be explained in part two.
The Caledon Square group is steadfastly refusing to go to one of these camps. At one point they went on hunger strike with the simple demand that they wanted a lawyer. Several lawyers offered services free to them the next day. We have since gained their trust and as I write this they are staying in a Jewish school hall in the mainly white suburb of Sea Point not far from the city centre. The people who run the school have been overwhelmed by their dignity and political acuity.
Nearly every immigrant I have spoken to wanted to leave South Africa. It will take time for this entirely justified anger to subside. On the positive side, successful reintegration efforts are happening in a number of places including Khayelitsha, Masiphumelele and elsewhere.
Two weeks ago most people in South Africa and many people throughout the world believed we were the so-called rainbow nation, a country that valued its diversity. Despite hiccups left over from the apartheid era and a high crime-rate, this was apparently a society working hard to be tolerant of difference. On Thursday 22 May I believed I lived in a city that was becoming urbane and sophisticated. These myths have now been shattered - and they were never true. It is shameful that a terror so awful has been unleashed that some people would rather return to failed states like Zimbabwe and Somalia than stay in Africa's richest and, at least so we thought, most successful country.
The decade of racial politics by President Thabo Mbeki who has fostered corruption, paid lip service to accountability and service delivery, denied the science of HIV, prevaricated on crime and helped keep the Mugabe government in power, has been sharply exposed. Government, at every level, failed to respond appropriately to the xenophobes' pogrom. And we all failed to realise how the inequalities in our society would rupture it so hideously so quickly.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
