KGAUGELO MASWENENG | Faku was right: 'Where there is fire, there is politics'

In her 2018 book Living Politics in South Africa's Urban Shacklands, Kerry Ryan Chance quoted an activist, Faku from Abahlali baseMjondolo, saying “where there is fire, there is politics”.

The author was attending a mass meeting with activists from the socialist shack dwellers movement to mourn five people killed in a fire that left many shack dwellers at point zero.

When part of parliament in Cape Town was reduced to ashes on January 2 last year, we could not have predicted that we would end the year with gruesome images of people in Boksburg running in the streets in agony, with their skin burnt and screaming for help.

Fire has etched itself in South African political life since as far back as one can remember. When Robert Sobukwe and others protested against the “dompas” on March 21 1960, fires were burning around Sharpeville as the masses defiantly rose up against oppression by burning their dompasses in solidarity.

It became a symbol of defiance and hope for a better future. They were defying an unjust system that had been terrorising the people.

Politics is inextricably linked to fire as both a killer and a chemical agent for change. 

On December 24 last year, at 6.15am, a truck driver en route from Richards Bay to Botswana became stuck under a bridge in Boksburg causing damage to the tanker, which released liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Within 30 minutes, the truck exploded. Preliminary and internal investigations by the tanker's owner Innovative Staffing Solutions concluded the driver was not negligent and did everything in his power to caution the bystanders, motorists and his workplace of the imminent danger.

He had allegedly made a wrong turn.

More than 30 people suffered a gruesome death due to the “mistake”.

Too many questions remain unanswered as to how so many lives were lost when there are rules and regulations controlling the movement of hazardous goods.

The driver, arrested and released without being charged, is yet to face the full wrath of the law.

Prosecutor Rose Malatji said: “As the National Prosecuting Authority we do not have the docket. The suspect is not here and will not be brought to court because he has been released by police. The decision was taken by the provincial police after looking at the docket sent to them after his arrest.”

Was this some kind of a facilitated release or based purely on the test of evidence and what is just?

Who must we blame for the lives lost and how will the families get closure when we are not sure if the suspect will face the law or evade justice?

If the driver is not at fault, are they insinuating that curiosity got the better of the many victims who died? What about the staff members of the Tambo Memorial Hospital?

The government cutting corners, politicians constantly demonstrating a lack of political will and poor service delivery are the combustibles that have indirectly resulted in the deaths of the Boksburg people.

In 2020 I covered a story in the Free State where white farmers and black township dwellers collided over a fire that was accidentally started during a service delivery protest. The fires erupted — accidentally, by all accounts — as a result of protests in the Malebogo township over the lack of water provision.

Though the racial tension was undeniable, they had one thing in common: both groups felt the government was failing them by neglecting and ignoring their issues. The white farmers were vulnerable to crime and had to take up the burden of employing the locals.

As a result, more than 30,000ha of land was ravaged, with losses amounting to millions of rand, including the deaths of hundreds of sought-after cattle (Waygu, Bonsmara and Brahman studs) and other livestock.

Aristotle, a student of Plato, famously referred to politics as the “master science”, asserting that political activity is the vehicle through which a just society can be built and the greater good achieved. But with the kind of political terrorism unleashed on South Africans, we are far from achieving this objective.

On New Year's Day, a fire ripped through the Phola Park informal settlement in Philippi, Cape Town. Over 300 structures burnt down. Close to 1,000 people were left displaced and a woman died.

If we could not avoid a fire in a structure meant to be an apparatus of governance such as parliament, what chance did the people of Philippi have?

It also reveals the inequalities in our society. The people of Knynsa did not have to fight that huge fire years ago alone but the private sector and government put their weight behind them. How many companies have actively supported the people of Philippi?

The fires are a sign of the incompetence of the government and a form of political terrorism. They are a symbol of the fires burning all around society as a result of a lack of service delivery.

It goes back to the era of Nelson Mandela and Sobukwe — except this time it’s the government of the people, by the people, against the people.

If a government is inept in delivering services to its people, the fire which breaks down society will continue to burn, rather than reform our lives.

As South Africa edges closer to 30 years of freedom next year, the fires we must witness are the passion to serve, prioritising the poor and infirm. South Africa needs the fire of hope burning across the land that all the damage unleashed by years of oppression will be reversed.

We need to see the fire that brings back the land to the dispossessed that Sobukwe and others protested about.

Faku was right in saying where there is fire, there is politics.

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