As the horror of the Johannesburg fire becomes clearer, a macabre but familiar South African ritual has begun, with citizens blaming the dead and politicians blaming everyone else as they wait for the standard solution to take effect: the inevitable forgetting of the whole thing a few days later.
Victim-blaming is a well-established tradition in South Africa, but some of what I saw on social media on Thursday morning was in a class of its own. At least one of our compatriots believes that if you come to South Africa from Africa looking for a job, and you don’t have legal permission to be here, you deserve to die in a fire.
Others, less openly vile but still determined to use the dead to make their point, reminded us that former mayor Herman Mashaba had tried to tackle the scourge of hijacked buildings, and how he’d been called nasty names when he tried, and how we all needed to apologise to him now. There’s nothing like standing on the bodies of more than 70 dead people to praise your political crush.
Mashaba was there in person, of course, telling the media about how he used to go on raids himself, sometimes exhorting scared police to follow him in. But, he recalled, his efforts had always been thwarted by a third force which, if our politicians are to be believed, is trying to destroy the rule of law in this country: NGOs!
Clayson Monyela, our ironically-named “head of public diplomacy”, agreed entirely, tweeting: “Do NGOs who keep stopping the @CityofJoburgZA from taking back hijacked buildings understand how dangerous the living conditions in these buildings are?”
The building that burned down was owned by the city. Those dangerous living conditions Monyela complained about? 100% the result of the city not enforcing its own bylaws, and 100% the city’s responsibility.
To be fair, Johannesburg speaker Colleen Makhubele did try her best to blame the victims, telling the press that while Joburg was trying to be a world-class African city, “we don’t have world-class African citizens”, and that these non-world-class citizens still haven’t learned “what is safe, what is not safe”.
A moment later, however, she had also lunged for the NGO talking point, lamenting that litigation was preventing the city from acting “decisively”, and the rest was forgotten.
Two things, however, shouldn’t be forgotten.
The first is that the building that burned down was owned by the city. Those dangerous living conditions Monyela complained about? 100% the result of the city not enforcing its own bylaws, and 100% the city’s responsibility.
The second is that the only thing NGOs are doing is trying to make sure the state implements its own laws.
One of those laws is that nobody may be evicted into homelessness. Anyone who is removed from a hijacked building needs to be put somewhere else. If they are in the country illegally, they need to be given an opportunity to remain here legally, or else be deported.
If they are citizens, then they need to be housed somewhere else.
The former requires a functioning immigration system. The latter requires a functioning social housing system. And both require a functioning government.
All of which is why this tragedy will change nothing. The state and the utterly dysfunctional government of Johannesburg have condemned the NGOs. Tomorrow they will offer gentler words to the victims’ families. The day after, they’ll swear that this horror will never be repeated.
And on Monday, it’ll all be over.
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