Change room families’ future still uncertain

Fadela Slamdien – Sep 15 2011 – The New Age

Six families living in decrepit change rooms at Athlone Stadium in Kewtown are still in the dark about whether the council has plans to relocate them.

The council issued eviction notices against the families, some of whom had lived in the change rooms for 10 years, as they wanted to demolish the buildings to extend the parking area as part of a R406m upgrade of Athlone Stadium for the soccer World Cup.

When the families ignored the notices, the city took the matter to court, claiming the premises were unfit for human habitation and alleging the occupants were involved in “illegal activities”, which they strenuously denied.

But magistrate Mas-Udah Pangarker refused to evict the families. Instead, she ordered the city to either provide the families with alternative accommodation in the surrounding area if it wanted to demolish the building, or allow the families to remain.

Media: 2010 legacy sweet for some, bitter for many

THE most obvious “spectacle” of the international event’s legacy is the Cape Town Stadium, its indelible mark fixed on the city’s skyline.

The 55 000-seat stadium has been used for various events, including sports, international concerts, and private functions. Its running costs, however, have been a major liability for the city, with former operating company Sail StadeFrance pulling out of the lease agreement because of the risks of unprofitability.

Guardian: Life in ‘Tin Can Town’ for the South Africans evicted ahead of World Cup

Campaigners say conditions in Blikkiesdorp or ‘Tin Can Town’ are worse than in the townships created during apartheid

David Smith Cape Town

Guardian, Thursday 1 April 2010 21.50 BST

For more photos in the Guardian, click here.

Youths playing football in Blikkiesdorp, Cape Town. Photograph: Gareth Kingdon

Children squint as wind whips the grey sand into their faces. A teenager braves the flies and stench of a leaking outdoor toilet to draw water from a standpipe. He stares vacantly along regimented rows of corrugated iron shacks encircled by a tall, concrete fence. No grass or trees grow here.

This is Tin Can Town, or Blikkiesdorp, described by the mayor of Cape Town as a “temporary relocation area” (TRA), but by its residents as a concentration camp. Many say they were forcibly evicted from their former homes and moved here against their will. And for this they blame one thing: the football World Cup.

Media: World Cup bosses kick out homeless

Charities have condemned plans to hide thousands of South African beggars, tramps and street children while the World Cup is on.

Source: Metro.co.uk

About 300 have already been moved from Cape Town, where England face Algeria on June 18.

They have been taken to nearby Blikkiesdorp camp on Cape Flats, where 1,450 families are packed into an area designed for 450 people.

Blogs: South Africa Make The Fake House for World Cup 2010

Source: WorldCupBlog.org

I wasn’t a huge fan, but I remember an episode of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray falls out with wife Debra because she’s cleaning the house before they have visitors. I couldn’t find a video clip, but thanks to the excellent OpenSubtitles.org I can quote the argument verbatim. Imagine Ray sitting down and Debra aggressively tidying around him:

Ray: Ow! Why do you always do this? Every time we have people over we spend all day making the fake house.
Debra: lt’s not fake. lt’s the way the house should be all the time.
Ray: But it isn’t, so actually it’s like lying, huh, right? ls that what you’re about, lying to people?
Debra: Could you just start clearing everything off the rug, please?

What does this have to do with football you ask? Well, turns out South Africa are “making the fake house” for World Cup 2010 by removing the homeless population from World Cup venue cities and temporarily dumping them into overcrowded settlements.

Telling the world that neither this City nor the World Cup works for us!

25 March 2010

Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Release

The poor in South Africa have mandated their leaders from social movements like the Anti-Eviction Campaign, Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Landless People’s Movement, Sikhula Sonke, the Anti-Privatisation Forum, etc, to speak about issues that are relevant to poor people. The poor have not mandated us to support political parties and their elite agendas.

The poor who make up our rank and file members of our movements want us to tell the world that in South Africa the poor are treated like terrorists and criminals. Our members are intimidated, harassed, arrested, and tortured every single day. And we are tired of being treated as second-class citizens.

As part of our effort to tell the world about our struggle, two Anti-Eviction Campaign members will be embarking on a trip to Germany, Scotland and Switzerland at the invitation of activists from those countries.

Media: ‘Economic cleansing’ in BBC’s World Cup backyard

Evictions are designed to improve South Africa’s image, campaigners say

By Stewart Maclean in Cape Town

Monday, 22 March 2010

The Independent

Some of the evicted women are being forced to sleep rough on the streets

On the one hand, a glass-sided television studio with panoramic views of Table Mountain and Cape Town’s spectacular new 68,000-seater football stadium is installed by the BBC for the forthcoming World Cup. On the other, destitute locals are evicted from their only home, barely 100m away. Welcome to the two faces of modern South Africa.

Amid considerable fanfare the BBC last week announced its intention to use a historic hospital in Cape Town as its central headquarters during this summer’s World Cup. The corporation will spend several hundred thousand pounds building the pentagonal glass-sided studio on top of the six-storey Somerset Hospital.

But just days before the deal was made public, 150 destitute locals, mostly women, were forcibly evicted from a hostel in the shadow of the stadium, 100m from the BBC’s new home. Poverty campaigners claim the evictions were part of an effort to cleanse the image of the nine host cities South Africa will present to the world. “The World Cup is going on at the expense of South Africans who urgently need housing, public services and jobs,” said Ruth Tanner, from the charity, War on Want.

Preparation for World Cup disenfranchises South Africa’s poor

South African informal traders, such as this fruit seller in Johannesburg, are facing eviction in the lead up to the World Cup. (Photo credit: Creative Commons)

By Allyn Gaestel – Media Global

3 March 2010 [MediaGlobal]: South Africa is eagerly preparing to host the World Cup in June 2010, but the government’s preparatory development projects are negatively impacting the country’s poorest citizens.

Media: Traders take to CTN streets

2010-02-24 05:06:26 – Voice of the Cape

“Down with Premier Helen Zille and Mayor Dan Plato.” These were some of the chants that could be heard as several angry informal traders and hawkers took to the streets on Tuesday morning in protest of new rules and regulations regarding the informal sector, which was implemented late last year. Traders from Bellville, Mitchells Plain and Cape Town gathered at Keizergracht to march to the City of Cape Town’s offices in the CBD.

The Real Story Behind South Africa and the World Cup

Sunday, January 31, 2010

INTERNATIONAL NEWS – F4BMagazine

Allison Grill

It’s Not Just A Game

The World Cup is arguably the most popular sporting event in the world.  Fans from all over the world rally around their home countries, all eyes on the month long football tournament (seeing as this is an international event, I am going to try to avoid referring to the sport as soccer.  My apologies if I fall back into it).  The World Cup is exciting—there is no doubt about it.  Stadiums get full of crazy, screaming football fans.  Those who cannot attend will stay up throughout the night to watch their national team live.  People take to the streets to celebrate big wins.  If you are like me, and thrive off of collective excitement, it is hard not to get swept away.  I don’t even particularly like football.  Sure, I can get down with a pick up game every once in a while and I will always come prepared with a soccer ball when working with kids (especially if we don’t speak the same language. This has proved to be a lifesaver time and time again).  But please don’t ask me to name a football player who is not Beckham or Ronaldinho.  So why choose the World Cup as the focus for this article if I don’t know a damn thing about soccer?   Because, as per usual with international sporting events (see:  just about every Olympics ever) there is another story that needs to be told.  A story about the people whose country is being invaded by contractors and rich tourists.  A story about the political and social upheaval that often accompanies such events.  In this case, a new story about South Africa.