eMouse Cracks : IMC-SA

The oldest residents in New eMouse were born in Old eMouse. They lived in self built houses on land owned by the Marianhill Monastry. Attempts to move them off the land began in 1979 and in 1990 they were finally moved from Old eMouse to New eMouse in 1990. The Marianhill Insitute sold off the land on which they had been living for an industrial park and built the 97 families that could afford them 'houses' - fibreglass and brick in new eMouse. There was no drainage put in and all the houses fill with water in the rainy season. Everything rots and most people have respiratory diseases. The houses are cracked right open.

People were given the title deads for these houses on 17 February 1998 and the area was handed over the Municipality. Earlier this year Councillor Dimba, the same Dimba who came to tell the people in the Motala Heights settlement that they 'must go back to where they came from' with a pistol on each hip, told them that because they have title deads the area is now 'developed' and there will be no further development...There are 3 standpipes, no functioning toilets and around 4 shacks built next to each house.

This weekend eMouse joined Abahlali. Their Development Committee will no longer report to the BEC of the local ANC. It will work with Abahlali and report to the people of eMouse. Local hegemony for authoritarian 'development' organised through the councillor system is cracked right open.

She has built 4 jondolos for her children.

Silindile considers herself luck. She works as a 'contractor' for Polyman polishing up lamps with sandpaper. She works 7 - till 4:30 5 days a week and gets 50c a lamp. She averages around R200 a week. She lives in a shack with her monther, Louisa Motha, who never got a house when people were moved out of her house at Old eMouse.

Mrs Motha never misses an Abhalali meeting. Usually she has to sleep over at Kennedy Road because there aren't taxis at night. She is struggling full time at the moment.

After he lost his job at CI caravans he started making cupboards. He is 71 and still works an 8 hour day. Two of his children live in adjacent shacks with their families.

The growling sound in their house is the baby's chest. The furniture is all up on planks to try and keep it dry but it is still all rotting from the bottom up.

Mr Pewa has resigned from the BEC. From now one the Development Committee is only answerable to the people of eMouse. They have finished with the Councillor. He has seen what Abahlali have done elsewhere.

The Urban Foundation was the response of capital, working within the World Bank's then consensus, to the late apartheid influx into the cities. Then it was all self-help, popular entrepreneurship - 'you can live in a shack and develop yourself from there, your future is in your own hands'. Now it is mostly, as it was in the 50s, 'slum clearance' - you are a blight on the landscape - you will be dumped in a rural gehtto'