Turning laudable visions into tangible outcomes

THE dawn of a more democratic political dispensation in this country, that momentous day of long voting line accompanied by song and dance, was characterised as the glad dawn of the morning star, the springtime of the world.

God’s people were finally on the move. There was so much hope in the air you could almost reach out and touch it. That sense of hope, and optimism (my least favourite word), seems to have evaporated like morning dew at sunrise, dried up like a raison in the sun as it were.

What happened? There is no doubt that a life under the present political dispensation is much better than what came before, if only because it allows for experimentation in ways of being urban that have no parallel.

Cities in Africa are a work in progress, but progress seems tortuous and slow. For every two steps forward there is one step back. Creativity and innovation exist side-by-side with a sense of stall. There is also a love affair with mishmash, throwing things together as it were. Things borrowed from elsewhere and hastily assembled, deconstructed, and recycled. Cooking, praying, selling, waiting, and begging, all concentrated in space and time, creating an ambiguous sense of place that defies the logic of planning. And this seemingly chaotic state of affairs provide a fertile ground for experimentation and innovative forms of urban.

There is also a sense of being hurried along, of incessant movement, from the blue-light brigade that seem to defy all traffic regulations, to impatient taxi drivers that bulldoze their way in search of the next fare, and panhandlers bouncing from one car to the next in-between street lights. Always on the move, including getting out of the way, the unrelenting rush to get things done.

In the poetic words of Abdou Malik Simone, African cities are also huge intersections of bodies in need. Infrastructures, relationships, and networks are all stretched to breaking point by the sheer diversity and intensity of demands placed on them. Hopes and dreams are deferred or shattered. In another sense these cities are wasteful places. A pervasive feeling of despair and hopelessness among many segments of society prevails.

In his famous book Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino tells us that cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears. To this I add hope, not optimism. Hope is a sense that things can be made better through action, while optimism is a mere belief that everything will be. The one is active and the other is passive. Above all, we need to understand why we are catching hell in the first place in order to try and alter the status quo. To this I suggest there are four culprits:

A first culprit behind the state of affairs of cities in Africa is (that) the extent to which market forces have penetrated society is unprecedented. This involves the buying and selling of goods and services (commodification), including human beings. International Convention Centres, 5 star hotels, and international standard airports, all part of the prerequired garb for aspiration as the much-touted African World Class city that caters for a certain segment of the city, business and tourism. This is hard to fault in a system that pits cities and regions against one another as attractive places for investment.

CBDS, a hive for both formal and informal economic activities are ripe for regeneration. Unless the process is managed equitably, this risks falling prey to a market-driven process to the detriment of inhabitants. The African townships seem not to be immune to this market-driven/commodification process through the promotion of tourism in these places.

The lack of political will and the realities of neo-liberalism couple with the elites have put paid to any hope of changing the status quo. The important labour of sustaining an urban life is done by an increasingly insecure, more often part-time, and disorganised labour. But the working class is constituted out of the urban rather than exclusionary working class.

Institutions that used to act as a buffer against this force are no longer immune. I have in mind the church, the big black church and the family. Everyone and everything seem to have a price tag. Well, almost everything. One’s ability to consume urban services determines the right to reside in the city. There seems to be an inbuilt system of displacement that engenders confrontation among competing interests with varying degrees of success.

A city that is saturated by market forces promotes a life of addiction to sensual stimulation. Cloud nine, floating in space, feeling good, to borrow a line from one of the incomparable late Miriam Makeba’s song, is trending.

Spiritual malaise is the second culprit. The combination of spiritual malaise and commodification provides a lethal cocktail that runs through the veins of the city, and promotes a sense of hopelessness and nihilism.

For the third culprit I am reminded of a conversation I had with a friend. He remarked that we seem to be concerned more with the physical environment than the environment, a made-up word for sure, but I got the drift. There is nothing wrong with protecting the natural environment but everything right. We have neglected the environment. The love of self is possible without being egocentric. I believe it is possible to love oneself without being egocentric.

The fourth culprit is a gangster mentality that informs our interaction with one another. Recently, a builder I contracted was threatened with physical harm if he continued because he was not from the neighbourhood. Those who are organised, and loud, and demanding, tend to get attention. Confrontation is the first default in dealing with one another. The individual has no hope to alter their situation. How cities serve their citizens, celebrate diversity and challenge inequality remain contested issues in planning, particularly as nations across the globe undergo dramatic swings towards isolation, closing of borders, and proclamation of death of multiculturalism.

Part of the way forward include turning laudable visions into tangible outcomes. To paraphrase a popular maxim, hope delayed is hope denied. The focus has to be on the marginalised and least organised.

There is a biblical precedent to this. Matthew 24:40 states: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Our job is to keep hope alive.