Edwin Cameron Jay Naidoo Pregs Govender 9

Edwin Cameron, Jay Naidoo & Pregs Govender

Democracy Movement

Zahira Asmal and Guy Trangoš in conversation with Edwin Cameron, Jay Naidoo and Pregs Govender about South ’s democracy movement. The conversation took place in the judge’s lounge at the Constitutional Court in Braamfontein, , on 26 May 2015. ZA: The Constitutional Court is PG: Like Jay, I was also born in Durban. a special place to meet for this The !rst time I came to Johannesburg discussion, as it is here that our was to manage the Women’s National democracy is often put to the test. Coalition. I loved it because you could I would like to kick off this actually get things done here that you discussion with information on couldn’t get done in other parts of the your earlier movements in country. I love the energy of the city; Johannesburg. Where do you almost everybody is a migrant here. come from, why did you move to A powerful experience is noticing Johannesburg and what are your the ways in which people from different earliest memories of the city? places claim the city as their own.

EC: I was born in , grew up ZA: In reflecting on the movement across the whole country, and I worked of people into and out of the my !rst job in Johannesburg when I city, do you think that municipal !nished university. I’ve always found it governments can learn from such an exciting, dangerous, unsettling, Johannesburg, use it as a case intriguing and enriching city. study or benchmark for other cities or smaller places? JN: I was born in Greenwood Park in Durban and, when I was four years old, JN: Yes, the South African economy we were kicked out of our house because is built on movements of people into of the Group Areas Act. So spatial the city to work. These movements are planning had a big in!uence on my life. extremely important for a city. People I suppose the dream of every young kid bring interesting things to cities, which was getting to Johannesburg – the City adds to the liveliness and diversity of Gold. I mean it had this great magnetic of cities. And when people return to attraction to us. I only really moved here their places of origin, they take with when I became the General Secretary of them tremendous resources and use COSATU in 1995. I’ve been here ever these to organise their communities or since. I love this city, I love the energy, negotiate with councillors and local I love the… authorities. There is a powerful skills transfer between a city like Johannesburg EC: Danger! (Laughter) and rural areas. It’s rejuvenating, entrepreneurial, and driven by JN: Yes, the frontier city. It’s pioneering activism and social movements. something truly remarkable, and not just in . Managing diversity ZA: Do you feel that Johannesburg is one of the greatest challenges in the facilitates social activist movements world today, so I’m excited to be here in and allows for people to rally Johannesburg, and consider myself behind a cause quickly? a Joburger.

88 PG: It is easy to facilitate movements with electricity and water theft in great in Johannesburg, especially as it is a degrees. There is an inequality in our media hub and to get the media to justice system. I think the reality that attend events or gatherings can be easily people who were wealthy pre-1994 are organised. This is not the case in rural today much wealthier has forced us to areas. Johannesburg is also home to the look at how wealth is being created. big institutions, which helps in rallying Democracy is about challenging deeply people and causes. rooted inequalities.

ZA: Social movements facilitate GT: The City of Johannesburg’s democracy. What does democracy Operation Clean Sweep in mean to you? October 2013 comes to mind. The city forcibly removed street traders EC: For me as a judge it means a irrespective of whether they were whole complex of institutions that are trading legally or illegally. This was striving to create social justice, challenged in the courts and the and equality. It doesn’t just mean Constitutional Court ordered that the voice of elected representatives; street traders be allowed back to it also means the voice of activists work. The friction between formal and social organisations, civil society, and informal, and what’s often representatives of parliament, the perceived as legal and illegal is judiciary and government. It is often played out in the city. What embodied in our Constitution and are your thoughts? the structures of representation and accountability that exist through it. EC: Johannesburg is almost 130 years old. What I celebrate is that it is a city JN: Democracy for me has to guarantee of outcasts. Johannesburg is a city human well-being in its purest form, of migrants; it’s a city of people who assuming dignity and social justice as have come here to be heard, who come so enshrined in our Constitution. If here to live by scratching together the a democracy cannot deliver on those basic essentials of human existence things, then we cannot claim to be a like those street traders. I celebrate democracy. that. This court wouldn’t have existed in Bloemfontein, or Cape Town, or PG: I completely agree with Jay, but Pretoria. It’s here on Braamfontein Hill, one thing I would stress is where from inside the court we can accountability. For example, there watch the footsteps of the people of is little corporate accountability in Braamfontein and Hillbrow passing us. society. On the one hand children are Many of these people are dispossessed in jails for stealing bread, and on the of their home countries elsewhere in other hand big corporations get away Africa, dispossessed from other regions

89 in South Africa, and the street traders’ are cut back. They’re all the services that case made a very particular impact on I take for granted. When Sandton had this court. The traders said that they water cut for a short while, there was had the permission of the city, either uproar. The Commission formally through licences or informally, deals daily with communities that don’t to be where they were and they were have water for months and even years. rounded up and cleared out. It had a catastrophic impact on their lives. At JN: We need to go back to cities as a !rst their application was dismissed new form of centres of economic and on the technical ground that it wasn’t political power. We haven’t created new urgent. And I think this court, to use an cities in South Africa – in fact, we have un-judicial word, was frankly appalled replicated cities. We have at the dismissal by the High Court of the failed as policymakers, as architects and street traders’ urgent interdict. as city planners. We need new thinking I wish to link that to the origins of and bold actions. I think it’s wonderful the city. I want to link it to the messiness that we are starting to reclaim the inner and the unsatisfactory muddle of the city and to ensure that there is proper lives we make in Johannesburg. housing, but I think we can go much We don’t have clean streets in further than just the housing driven by Johannesburg, but I think we have the housing sector, which really wants a more digni!ed and a more human to make a return on investment. What city because we are muddling through about the State? We have this great with human rights, and there is a cost opportunity as we begin to rebuild to that – our streets aren’t clean. We the cities. We are going to go through have to acknowledge the costs in crime, a series of rebirths and some of them sanitation and dirt, but we are trying will be violent, but that’s the messiness to achieve something more important that we are talking about. Consider through the process, through dignity, xenophobia in Johannesburg – what is through equality and through rights. this city if we are all migrants?

ZA: Thank you, Edwin, that is a very EC: Ironically, at the time of Joburg’s strong point. How do you create a founding, the biggest constitutional issue more dignified city? in the Boer Republic was the uitlander and it appears we still have the same PG: It raises the question of the issue and there is still the same threat way our cities have been built, like of impending violence against them. the comfortable suburb that I live in – Parkwood. The Johannesburg JN: We need courageous leadership who Municipality provides services here, can navigate the risks that are involved regular refuse removal, cleaning the and make the bold decisions that may be streets, making sure that the branches ahead of their time.

90 EC: And see the opportunities. reconstruction and development. We were also bankrupt in 1994. Ninety- JN: And see the opportunities to create three cents in every rand was committed a new identity. expenditure, we had seven cents of each rand to make the country work. We ZA: This matter of identity and needed a political will and we needed sense of place and belonging is to have integrated planning, and that’s directly linked to civic engagement where we failed. We still haven’t come to and participation in creating the point of understanding what makes and shaping the cities we live cities work. Then there is the money. in. Jay, in the lead up to the 1994 The money decides what you can and elections, did architects, engineers, cannot do; no city in the world has all designers, community leaders step the money it needs to do everything it up and speak with the leadership wants to. of the African National Congress (ANC)? Did people offer expertise GT: Disparities in service and assistance then that could provision remain serious have helped the future democratic obstacles for our cities to government make the shift in order overcome. This is inherently to create more inclusive, more spatial, of course, and speaks integrated cities? to dignity. Those communities forced by apartheid to live on the JN: We had done our research. We had urban and economic edge remain visited cities in Brazil to study their distinctly disadvantaged compared transportation and housing models. In to those who have always lived the !rst six months we had travelled to close to economic opportunity. Curitiba, one of the most advanced cities The City of Johannesburg is in integrated public transport, we had attempting to change the spatial been to São Paulo, Nairobi and to other form of Johannesburg through cities in the world to learn to build a their Corridors of Freedom project, new spatial planning that was required which aims to create higher in our democracy. We knew where to go density mixed-use and mixed- and what to look for and we had people income space in the city so that lining up to share information with us. more people can benefit from The problem was that we !tted into a living close to opportunity. system and it trapped us. The system What do you think of this? operated in vertical silos – transport, housing, education. In 1994, we tried to EC: I recently moved from Brixton, set up an of!ce with an inherited system a former white working class suburb that did not operate across departments that rapidly became integrated with functionally so that was a challenge for many poor people in slum housing

91 and overcrowded student housing. PG: I’ve always worked in institutions It’s on one of the Corridors and seems that are deeply patriarchal – whether like a very promising project to me. it’s a student movement, a union Interestingly, I’ve now moved to a movement or our parliament, and even middle class "atland called Killarney, the human rights arena. Both personally which is very integrated with about and physically, the challenge exists in 20 per cent Jewish residents, probably organising to change it, or to shift it. 40 per cent Muslim people of South Often you have to accept certain things Asian descent, and a number of black and !ght against others. For example, and white people on my particular I love walking but I also have a choice to block. I work right next to Hillbrow, jump into a car and drive away if which is still as cosmopolitan as it I feel unsafe in parts of the city. used to be. So I think Corridors A woman who doesn’t have any of of Freedom holds huge potential. these resources is completely vulnerable. Innovative planning will allow people In some instances, things are getting to make their livelihoods in the city better. We have more women in and give them access that they didn’t parliament, government and some have before. business sectors, but other areas have become far worse. For example, the PG: It’s about transforming the way casualisation of labour is deeply things work. There is deep disrespect in feminised, in that most casual labour the governmental system for people who consists of young women and girls. are poor, and when people come into the system it can easily stop listening. ZA: We have seen great strides Jay, you mentioned the Group Areas made in regards to LGBTI (, Act forcing you out of Greenwood Park , Bisexual, and as a child, but we all share a common Intersex) rights in South Africa. movement in terms of class. So people Edwin, you were at the first pride in in government swallow their own class Johannesburg in October 1990… migration and become indifferent and insulated from real challenges. How EC: Well, as we’ve been chatting do you prevent this, so that it’s not the about, Johannesburg is a city of system that transforms us, but us who movement. People move from a status transform the system? of outcast and mis!t into some sort of citizenhood. I don’t mean documented ZA: Good question, Pregs. citizenhood, but civic citizenhood in a Transformation is central. You way that transcends documentation. are a feminist and women’s rights Of course, Johannesburg has always activist; what about women in been a congregating place for LGBTI the city? people. The !rst pride was glorious. It was glorious because we struggled

92 to get permission, struggled to get a that accountability works both ways. venue, struggled to get participants. We A government is corrupted by those with eventually got permission from the city the resources to corrupt. They both have under threat of an interdict. We then to be held to account. got police protection on that Saturday morning to block off the streets, and JN: I think this democracy doesn’t even we marched from Braamfontein to belong to our generation. It belongs to Hillbrow. It was the !rst Gay Pride our future generations. They will see the March in Africa, and Johannesburg is effect of our actions. still the site where this court has made its most important rulings legalising consensual adult same-sex conduct, legalising partnership and marriage, creating citizenhood in that broad sense for LGBTI people.

ZA: What do you think has been South Africa’s greatest achievement since 1994?

EC: We only started on the road to dignity, social justice and equality 21 years ago. I feel terri!c, humble, but terri!c to be a part of that project as a judge in this court.

JN: We’re now an adult democracy and should start behaving like one. An important achievement is that we can sit here in this Constitutional Court and speak about the rights of our people. But while we recognise what we’ve achieved, imagine how much further down the road we could have been if we had the type of leadership that’s accountable and transparent. Not just government, but civil society, labour, intellectual communities…

PG: I want to endorse what Edwin and Jay have said, and simply add

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