Stop the fire cycle
EVERY year runaway fires sow death and destruction in thousands of informal settlements across South Africa, with by far the worst-affected areas being the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
As far back as 2008, Durban academic Matt Birkinshaw blamed government policy for this phenomenon. In a report on shack fires in Durban, he pointed out that these fires were becoming increasingly prevalent as local governments refused to tackle the challenge of growing shack settlements head on.
“Shack fires,” he stressed, “are not acts of God. They are the result of political choices, often at municipal level.”
Sadly, in almost a decade, change has been minimal. In what has become a depressingly familiar scenario, the urban poor have had to bear the brunt of a never-ending series of vicious cycles of death and destruction caused by fire.
Little has been done to alleviate the plight of those forced to live in makeshift dwellings on open pieces of veld cheek-by-jowl with sometimes thousands of their homeless compatriots.
The reason for shack fires is obvious: Poor people have been denied land. They are usually last in the queue for housing. Their water supplies and access to emergency services are inadequate.
Clause 9 of the Freedom Charter says: “There shall be houses, security and comfort”, while Section 26 of the Bill of Rights in our constitution says: “Everyone has the right to have adequate housing”, and that “the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right”.
We believe the state – whether at national, provincial or local government level – is failing in its duty to provide adequate housing for the poorest of the poor.
This is why we were forced to witness yet another fire tragedy over the weekend – in Imizamo Yethu, close to Hout Bay, where three were killed, 3 500 shacks razed, and more than 15 000 people left homeless.
The best way for the authorities everywhere to stop these tragedies is to follow the precepts of our constitution and to provide the poor with decent housing.