Solidarity fer later

I'm reminded by Hogarth, writing in today's South African Sunday Times that in the 1970s, when the CIA wanted to spread propaganda, they'd plant a story in the foreign press. The U.S. media would then pick it up, et voila! News. It worked well with the (as far as we know, utterly baseless) story that Cuban soldiers were raping women in Angola, which was picked up by the Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post.

So here's something to file under 'second time as farce'. The British press, including The Grauniad, is up in arms. So is the Middle and Far Eastern media. There's a bit of a storm about the contents of a leaked memo in which Tony Blair talks Bush out of bombing Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar. Google news collects the coverage. But here's a thing. There's not a sniff of this story in the U.S. media.

Far from being appalled that their colleagues would be executed by their commander in chief, the U.S. news seems almost patriotically mute. Nothing in the New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times. MSNBC carries a Financial Times version of the story, and CNN.com nods towards it too. And there's an "Unconfirmed Sources (Satire)" link that, in broadening the story to the bombing of NPR, CBS and CNN, is neither as dark nor as comic as the triangulations of the Ministry of Defence and Pentagon.

But for Al-Jazeera's journalists, solidarity from their U.S. colleagues looks like it'll have to wait.

Which reminds me. If you've not yet seen Control Room, do. Buy the DVD for the out-takes. They're harrowing, and many of them really ought to have made it into the final cut.

Go home and make new lies

Here’s some follow up to last week’s Fucker Stole My Camera post. It’s a sorry story, involving a lot of very frustrating telephone calls. Lucky for you, dear reader, I made notes on every one, and wrote a transcript of a long exchange at a police station. I was wondering how to present this, but the direct transcripts themselves do ample justice to this tale of constabulary absurdism.

It began on Thursday, after I’d got the camera back, with a call to the Independent Complaints Directorate, the place that I’d been pointed to as a reasonable place to lodge a protest at having it swiped by the police in the first place. System Cele, the young woman who had been roughed up and her teeth knocked out (before she was interrogated, it turns out, not afterwards as reported last week) was ready to lodge a protest too. So, we were ready to go.

Me: Hello? Independent Complaints Directorate?
ICD: Yes.
Me: I’d like to make a complaint about an assault and a theft.
ICD: Where are you?
Me: Durban.
ICD: Can you phone the Durban ICD. Thank you. [Click]

Me: Hello? Independent Complaints Directorate?
ICD: Yes?
Me: What’s the number for the ICD in Durban?
ICD: 031 310 1300. [Click]

Me: Hello? Is that the Independent Complaints Directorate in Durban?
ICD-Durban: Yeees. Shut up! I’m on the phone. Sorry, yes.
Me: Ah yes, I was hoping to be able to report a case of theft and assault by the police. You see what happened is...
ICD-Durban: Sorry, you can’t report it here.
Me: This is the Independent Complaints Directorate, isn’t it?
ICD-Durban: Yes, Shut UP, can’t you see I’m on the phone?
ME: So I’d like to report a complaint.
ICD-Durban: No, you see, you have to report it to a police station.
Me: I have a complaint against the police, and I have to report it at a police station?
ICD-Durban: Yes.
Me: But isn’t that something of a conflict of interest?
ICD-Durban: Well, you don’t have to report it at the same police station. It can be any police station. We just need a case number.
Me: You can’t investigate unless I have a case number?
ICD-Durban: No.
Me: And the only way to get a case number is to go to the people who I’m laying the complaint against.
ICD-Durban: Yes.
Me: [Click]

So, System Cele and I bravely head off into the night, and turn up at Umbilo Road police station, me with pictures of Glen Nayager,

System with a picture of the guy who knocked her teeth out.

We agree that I’ll go first, so that System can see what the process is all about. We're both a little nervous about it, but System has much more at stake than I. So. Me first.

Me: Hello there. I’d like to report a theft and an assault
Sergeant Zondi: Fill these out. [Foolishly, I supply name, address and passport details.] Now, what happened? [opens up case file]
Me: Well, I had my camera taken, against my will, by a man with a gun.
S.Z.: When did this happen?
Me: Monday.
S.Z.: Why didn’t you report it sooner?
Me: Because I was waiting to get it back.
S.Z.: What do you mean?
Me: It was in police custody. The man who took it was Glen Nayager.
S.Z.: So he took your camera?
Me: Yes.
S.Z.: [Puts pen down.] There’s no case here.
Me: What I would like to do is report this and get a case number. If you don’t want to do this, tell me, and I’ll make note of this, Sergeant Zondi [pull self up to full height while sat on bench, and puff chest out.]
S.Z: Wait here. [picks up papers and walks, harried, into an office]

Enter Captain Rhynes, a thirtysomething station captain who looks strikingly, and I mean almost exactly, like a schoolfriend from England who is now working in Bagdad for the Iraqi government’s WTO accession. Both of them are as sharp as knives, and it seems Captain Rhynes shares with my WTO friend a certain dissatisfaction with her working environment. It turns out Rhynes is leaving the force in two weeks time to become a life skills instructor at a private girls school. Annyway, the conversation, somewhat edited, ran like this:

Captain Rhynes: Hello there, I’m Captain Rhynes, now how can I help?
[the situation is explained].
Captain Rhynes again: Now this doesn’t look like a case of theft to me.
Me: Why not?
Captain Rhynes: Because there wasn’t the intent to deprive anyone of their property.
Me: But, um, he forced me to give him the camera.
CR: Yes but he’s a police officer. He has a duty to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Now I don’t know what you were doing with the camera, but theft involves the intent to permanently deprive someone of their property.
Me: But he didn’t ask for my name or address. How could he get it back to me? It certainly felt like he was taking it for keeps, and there wasn't a reason to think otherwise. Why else would he have taken it?
CR: But he gave you his name and address?
Me: He said “Nayager”. I had to ask other people who he was and where to find him. And the only reason people knew is because he’s got a reputation.
CR: Well, I don’t know who he is, and if he’s done something wrong, you can report it to the ICD.
Me: But the ICD want a case number or they can’t investigate.
CR: I’m sure you’ve done your homework, but why don’t you do your homework, and then go to the ICD. They’re on the sixth floor of Durban Central police station.
Me: Okay. And they’ll process the enquiry without a case number?
CR: But this wasn’t a case of theft. When you went to the evidence room to get it back, what did it say on the SAP 13 form? What reason did they give you for taking the camera?
Me: None at all. That’s the reason I want to file a complaint with the ICD.
CR: Well why not get the SAP 13 form and see what it says?
Me: Because I’m not the ICD. I can’t just go into a police station where I’ve laid a complaint and ask them to hand over the documents.
CR: Well there are sometimes reasons why police people want to stop the media from taking pictures. Remember when Princess Diana died? Well, the police needed to stop photographers from entering the scene. It was gruesome, remember. Now I don’t know what you were doing..
Me: I was standing at the side of the road taking a picture of Superintendent Nayager arresting someone.
CR: That may be the case, but you know, we don’t know who’s who in the zoo.. You should go to the ICD.

The conversation continues, with more circular logic than a Marx brothers skit. At some point, I give up, and ask another question, on System’s behalf. How easy would it be to file an assault charge? Impossible, it turns out, because if the police are trying to keep the peace, they’re well within their rights to knock you over the back of the head as you’re running away from them, even if you’ve done nothing wrong and they’ve no reason to suspect you have.

We leave the police station annoyed and humiliated. And although we’ve written to the ICD and the Public Protector, we’re almost certain nothing will come of it. The ICD will automatically put this in its low priority folder because, in the words of a prominent South African counsel, “it doesn’t involve death, maiming, or someone senior from the ANC.” And the Public Protector, Lawrence Mushwana, will surely not trouble himself with this trifling issue because he’s busy covering the government’s arse over the recent Oilgate scandal, among many other incidents in which government officials’ behaviour has been so egregious, it has required an independent body to condone it.

But we felt we needed to do it, even if our little acts of protest are policed, channelled, received, scrunched up into little balls and used as kindling. I’m certainly not holding out any hope that Nayager will feel any compunction to behave any better in future protests. He threatened another journalist, Carvin Goldstone, at the same protest, into not printing photographs of the protest “or he’d come get him”. Incidentally, Carvin was able to get a case number for being talked to roughly by Nayager, while System couldn't get one for losing her teeth, and I couldn't get one even with demonstrable proof that he'd taken the bloody camera. Props to Carvin and The Mercury for standing by him. But you've got to wonder about how arbitrary this all is, and how much more frequent are abuses of power. At another protest last week in Petermaritzburg, an activist was cornered by the police, prevented from taking photos, and made to delete the pictures off the camera in front of the officer caught on (digital) film.

An article today by Richard Pithouse in the Mercury will certainly raise the stakes far more than a direct complaint will. And the increasing international attention that the Abahlali basemjondolo (shackdwellers) movement is generating might give the municipal authorities – the Mayor and City Manager in particular - sleepless nights. One can only hope the insomnia is contagious.

The freedom of expression issue, and the crackdown on dissent, these are tremendously important battles. But this isn’t the first time System has been through the government humiliation machine. She’s used to it not from the behaviours and actions that we dignify with the name 'activism', but from those which are routinely dismissed as 'everyday life'. The pathologies that are revealed by protest and dissent are endemic. Disrespect for the poor is a standard feature of the government bureaucracy. For instance; System has four children. She receives child support for three. “Nobody believes I have four children. Two live with me, two with their father. But when I go to the office to tell them to increase the benefit, they tell me “Go home and make new lies.” I have the birth certificates to prove they’re my children, but the government won’t believe me. I don’t know what to do.”

Freedom of expression is desperately important. But people express themselves everyday. The problem is making the government listen.

Glen and me

Got the camera back today, at attempt #5. It's hard to imagine a den of officiousdom than Sydenham police station. Lots of tubby men with moustaches sitting at desks, backed up with their little police martial arts statuettes and models of armoured personnel carriers. (Actually, it was worse under apartheid. One of the Cape Town police stations had in it the sign "If we wanted your opinion, we'd have beaten it out of you.")

The photos are online here. I'm quite pleased with the last of them. It's the one that got the camera swiped in the first place.

Fucker stole my camera and shot my mates

It was an ordinary mugging. The bastard had a gun, a swagger, a gang and didn’t seem to want to me to take his photo when he was roughing someone up. So he came up to me and told me to hand over the camera. Timid as I am, and not wanting much further trouble, I handed it over. There were witnesses.

“What’s your name?”

“Nayager”, he said, pointing to his badge.

Superintendent Glen Nayager, it turns out. This is he.

This is mugshot from the Sydenham Community Police Forum. Not without irony, he’s the one in charge of Crime Prevention. Turns out, talking to those more familiar with the Durban scene, that he’s a man with a history. He faces several pending charges, but has enough protection from his patrons to carry on with that particular blend of thuggery, racism, and vendetta, known in Durban as ‘community policing’.

It’s a shame he stole my camera. I had plenty of shots on it of today’s protest in Foreman Road. Pictures, for example, of the police charging on unarmed protesters. Pictures like this one:


Todd McPherson, one of our fellow travelling photographers, managed to shoot this feller.


Yes, that’s a pistol. Witnesses say he shot off a few rounds into the backs of retreating protesters. Luckily, he managed not to hit anyone. His brethren were armed with rubber bullets, and they also sprayed the crowd, though with more enthusiasm than competence, it would seem. Finally, they managed to rugby tackle someone in the bushes, and shot him point blank. There’s a fairly grim picture, not yet on Indymedia (though watch this space), of a man shot in the head with a rubber bullet. To ensure optimum fish-in-barrel shooting conditions, the police sealed off the Foreman Road informal settlement, preventing anyone from entering, and firing at anyone trying to leave.

Richard Pithouse caught a rubber bullet in the foot. This was before he’d had a chat with a white policeman, name Swart (trans. Black), who said, pointing around at the informal settlement “There’s no democracy here.” The implication was clear. Just as Foreman was shielded from the main road – it’s in a ravine, far from sight – so the actions of the police were invisible. Then the police came after Cde Pithouse. “I want to arrest the white guy,” said Mr. Swart. Richard managed to dodge them, and get out.

But I digress. I was saying that I managed to take a good few photos. One was of the toilet bloc in Foreman Road. If memory serves there were four toilets there. Foreman Road is bigger than Kennedy Road and, as one newspaper reported, Kennedy Road has six toilets for six thousand people. The ratio is surely worse in Foreman. But Foreman doesn’t have the good fortune to be visible to passing traffic.

Which reminds me. A little while ago, Cde Pithouse sent news about the e.coli count in water around informal settlements. Just so you know, any e.coli is a bad thing. Anything above zero is considered hazardous, and the relaxed South African guidelines suggest that “even the recreation potential is negatively affected by the presence of E.coli as counts in excess of 400 counts per 100 ml”. The figure was 1 080 000 around the Palmeit river, which the Kennedy Road settlement borders. In the uMlazi river, the count is 10 000 000 and exceeding 100 000, 60% of the time because of broken sewers in uMlazi Township.

This hasn’t, however, prevented the Metro Water Authority from receiving an award for its work on water in Umlazi. Check this citation, from the UN’s Urban Infrastructure and Services Practices database

In Umlazi (population 262,000) for example, blockages have been reduced from approximately 1300 per month to 300 - 400 per month, after a period of about one and a half to two years. Sewage blockages throughout the Metro area have resulted in savings equivalent to US$ 200,000. The education campaign has reached 141,646 learners and 212,104 adults. The entire education programme has been introduced in 226 schools and many clinics. In addition, within the period of one year, 550 street theatre performances were held in the Durban metropolitan area, reaching approximately a further 35,600 adults and 40,000 school children.

Aww, bless. No toilets for the settlements, sewers that are falling apart, but street theatre can still win you prizes from the United Nations.

Unclear what the prize will be for today’s street theatre, but I’ll be damned if the police don’t pay a very high price. I want payback, not least because Nayager’s tactic worked. He scared me. After he took my camera away, I was so fucking gobsmacked, that I just stood there. Stood there when System Cele, a 19 year old woman, who had come to the protest with her infant, was marched to the police van. I managed a hoarse “Hey, System”. And then the police threw her in the back of the van. When they got her to the police station, they interrogated her, asked her to confess that S’bu Zikode – the leader of the Abahlali base Mjondolo, the informal settlement dweller’s association - forced her to march. She said “there are people marching all over the world. Can S'bu be making them all do it?”. They smashed her face into the ground, and broke her teeth.

In fact, S’bu had been advocating that people not march, because he knew that the march had been banned (illegally, more here) by the council. But people wanted to march, and that was that. And slowly, it's turning out to be payback time, not merely for me, but for Durban's poorest people. This week, the council, and Mayor Mlaba in particular, are going to fry.

Okay, it's late and I'm beginning to fade. I realise that I’ve mainly told the stories of middle-class activists here, because those are the ones I’ve heard so far. But theirs won’t be the last stories, nor the most important. More soon.

Dionysus Stoned

I've been meaning to update the blogroll and overall layout of this page for a very long time. It's going to have to wait just that little bit longer, unfortunately, but in the meantime, have a butchers at Dionysus Stoned's fine blog. Ignore the fact that, for no good reason, many of the posts claim to be vacant. DS is on a photo-posting binge at the moment, and he has found some hum dingers.

Didn't you get the Memo?

The ANC is getting creative with democracy again. The Durban Municipality has developed a new tactic to prevent dissent, in this case, a protest against the ANC's imposition of councillors. Those wanting to march against this rather unaccountable (in every sense) process, were refused a permit to march because "there's no one to receive the memorandum". Well, alright, the march is still going ahead, with a rally at a different venue, but this is a tactic to watch out for in the near future. And it's also a tactic that's bound to backfire. If groups aren't allowed to deliver memoranda, they'll end up delivering something far less pleasant. More here.