ELBOWING IN
City unleashes its officials on jobless, homeless, naked man
Bulelani Qolani, who appeared naked in a widely circulated video this week after he clashed with Cape Town law enforcement officers trying to tear down his shack, greets police minister Bheki Cele yesterday. Cele, who visited Khayelitsha in Cape Town with Western Cape police commissioner Lt-Gen Yolisa Matakata, told Qolani’s neighbours in Empolweni: ‘A naked man was taken out to be seen by the whole world. This is another level of brutality.’ Cele said municipal law enforcement officers occupy a grey area when it comes to accountability. ‘It’s a structure that’s a bit rocky and does not fall under protocols of the law,’ he said.
● Layers of Bulelani Qolani’s dignity have been steadily stripped away since he was born 28 years ago.
He quit school in Bhisho, Eastern Cape, when he was in grade 10, leaving his mother and three siblings behind to seek a better life in Cape Town that did not entail grinding poverty.
He found a job as a taxi driver, but in March the wheels fell off when the Covid-19 lockdown left him out of work and unable to pay rent on his backyard flat in Khayelitsha.
Newly homeless, he joined dozens of other backyarders who erected makeshift structures on municipal land in nearby Empolweni.
The story of his life up to that point is replicated across SA, but it changed on Wednesday when a bystander videoed a naked Qolani’s scuffle with City of Cape Town law enforcement officers, who went on to tear down his shack with him inside.
The video quickly spread on social media and has become the topic of a PR nightmare for the council, a parliamentary debate and an intervention yesterday by police minister Bheki Cele, who visited Khayelitsha to meet Qolani.
The father of four told the Sunday Times that although the incident had degraded him, his biggest worry is that his elderly mother, Nolist, will find out about it.
“I hoped to find a better life when I moved to Cape Town and I was determined to work hard to improve my life,” he said.
“But my life is worse. I drove a taxi but earned very little and could not afford to pay my monthly rent, and I joined other backyarders who set up homes on this piece of land. We have been evicted twice since then, but we do not have anywhere else to go. We cannot afford rent, I am unemployed.
“My list of worries is as long as my arm. I am worried about shelter, employment, my mother back home and my safety, among other things. I can tell you that my neighbours are in a similar position.”
Cape Town mayor Dan Plato apologised to Qolani for Wednesday’s “shameful” treatment and the council commissioned an independent investigation, which is due to submit its report by Friday.
But Plato also said Qolani had staged the encounter, claiming there was video evidence that he was clothed before the incident and walked out of his shack naked in an attempt to prevent it being torn down.
Qolani said images of him wearing clothes were from a visit by law enforcement officers on Tuesday. “What the mayor is saying is laughable,” he said, repeating his initial claim that he was bathing when officers burst into his home and dragged him out.
“I had just asked my kids to leave the room so that I could wash because we share one room. I heard my kids screaming and scurrying around as the law enforcement officials destroyed the homes,” he said.
“Before I could cover myself up these guys were already destroying my shack. I asked them, ‘What is happening?’ They said, ‘We cannot have any communication with you.’ I asked them for a court order and then they asked me how long my home had been standing there and I told them it has been two weeks.”
He said his pleas to be allowed to dress were ignored. “I gave them my ID, being one of the few legal documents I have, hoping that by doing so they would respect my rights. But things heated up. They peppersprayed me and dragged me outside in the full glare of the public.
“At some stage during the tussle, an isiXhosa-speaking officer approached and said, ‘Hey bhuti, susokolisa [brother, stop causing trouble]’. I thought he would have empathy, because if you drag a Xhosa man naked in public like that, you have killed him. By doing so, you are not only attacking me but you are attacking all Xhosa men.
“Those law enforcement officials must understand that they did not only compromise my dignity but that of each and every Xhosa man.”
Qolani opened a criminal case against the city council and the officers at Harare police station on Thursday. Then he and his neighbours returned to the site where they had been ejected, which they have named eThembeni, place of hope. There they picked up the remnants of their homes and tried to rebuild them.
Cape Town’s mayoral committee for water and waste, Xanthea Limberg, said land invasions on the Empolweni land were disrupting a R162m project to install a new water main for Khayelitsha.
“The city is installing a 6.3km pipeline from Faure to Khayelitsha along Baden Powell Drive. Land invasions are halting this project intended to strengthen bulk water supply to the whole of Khayelitsha,” she said.
“This is crucial to the assurance of water and sewerage supply in Khayelitsha.”
● On July 1, 97 days into the lockdown, harrowing scenes emerged from eThembini informal settlement in Khayelitsha. Bulelani Qolani, a 28-year-old man, had been brutally humiliated. The City of Cape Town’s antiland-invasion unit had stormed his shack while he was bathing, probably using a plastic basin. Naked as he was, members of the unit dragged him out of his shack.
Humiliated, degraded and stripped of his dignity, he fought back. He fought for the restoration of his humanity, and to not be seen in his nakedness without consent.
He fought valiantly, with a degree of success, eventually making his way back into the shack.
Within seconds of this short-lived success the officials began to strip down his shack, once more exposing his nakedness. Qolani had nowhere left to hide. His place of refuge had been demolished. It had reached the point of soul paralysis.
Speaking to Newzroom Afrika journalist Athi Mtongana by phone, Bulelani said: “Basihlisile isidima sam — they have deprived me of my dignity.”
He disclosed that two of his children ran away during the incident. No child wants to see their parent — the site of comfort and protection — dehumanised in that manner.
The imagery left in the children’s minds will resonate strongly with history books on the brutality of the apartheid state when, one day, they lay their hands and eyes on them.
The City of Cape Town had come under the spotlight in April, during the hard lockdown, when it terrorised residents in the same Empolweni informal settlement community of which eThembini is a part. Then, the city targeted 49 shacks for demolishing, prompting the Legal Resources Centre to take the matter to the Western Cape High Court. The court ruled that the evictions, effected over the Easter weekend, were unlawful. This meant the people could return to occupy the land.
Following the ruling, the mayoral committee member for human settlements, Malusi Booi, accepted the court outcome but was still defiant. He said the judge “has made an interim ruling on humanitarian grounds and without considering the merits of the application and has allowed the 49 occupiers to re-erect structures”.
After that the city took an even harder line. Only the 49 could “legally” be on the land. Any other person would face the full might of the city’s law enforcement. Logically, this does not follow. The parcel of land is the same irrespective of how many people occupy it. Of course, the city could argue that the burden would be amplified if it allowed more occupation.
The continued occupation, however, simply unveils the problem of landlessness in the city. Demolishing shacks does little to hide it.
Covid-19 has left many people jobless, meaning some must leave their rented homes and seek new places to erect structures for refuge. Many backyard dwellers have also been evicted by their landlords to comply with social-distancing protocols. They therefore seek vacant land to erect structures they can call home.
The City of Cape Town’s approach lacks context and sensitivity to the difficulties we face during this pandemic — especially the difficulties faced by poor people.
Some have asked, who are the poor? They are people who are locked up on the margins of society without much security, often left to the dangers of precarious employment.
When seismic shocks hit society, the poor are hardest hit. Within a day or two they sink into destitution, with its food insecurity, lack of means to make a living and devastated household dynamics due to the new shocks that introduce renewed vulnerability.
Some of the people labelled land invaders by the City of Cape Town are these poor people. They have lost income and the means to make a living for themselves and their families because of the lockdown.
The lockdown is necessary to contain and manage the spread of Covid-19. But it means that, even more than usual, precariousness is the reality for poor people. The least any government institution can do is be alive to this reality.
Instead, the modus operandi of the City of Cape Town is one that abhors poor and destitute people and seeks to rid the city of their presence. It achieves this either by disrupting their adaptation traits to survive within the city or by neglecting their demands.
There have been many claims about how the city places spikes under bridges and
The City of Cape Town’s approach lacks context and sensitivity to the difficulties we face during this pandemic — especially the difficulties faced by poor people
divides benches at parks using steel arm rests. This is to make it difficult for homeless people to sleep at these spots. Simply put, it’s an antipoor people strategy.
In 2019 this crystalised in a municipal bylaw that sought to fine homeless people who sleep in public spaces. This was deemed a “swoop on homeless people”. Where else are they expected to sleep, when there aren’t adequate shelters for homeless people?
In SA you cannot wish destitution away. We are the most unequal society in the world. Therefore, we must grapple with all its consequences. This appears absent in the minds of those who lead the City of Cape Town.
They are preoccupied with beautifying the city so that it is palatable to the tastes of those who travel from afar to enjoy its scenery.
Hidden far away from the tourists are the lived experiences of people like Bulelani Qolani. People who are brutalised, maimed and dehumanised for the city to achieve its socalled quintessential beauty.
That beauty has no justice. It is a hollow beauty devoid of humanity. In essence, on
July 1 the City of Cape Town placed itself on a national mirror. We saw its brute force and disrespect for that one inalienable right — the right to human dignity.