A visit to Blikkiesdorp

While the World Cup promises riches and ongoing social benefits to South Africa’s fledgling democracy, all it takes is a 30 minute drive from the centre of Cape Town to see how much work is left to be done.

After a day of glorious sunshine cold and gloomy weather set in across the city, in what would be a fitting backdrop for a visit to Blikkiesdorp.

A visit to Blikkiesdorp from Valerio Veo on Vimeo.

Blikkiesdorp – also known as Tin Can Camp – is the new home of some 3000 impoverished Cape Town residents moved out of World Cup areas by a government promising a better roof over their heads.

While Townships and shanty towns are still in abundance in the area, Blikkiesdorp has with it a feel of oppression as well as abject poverty.

For a quarter-of-a-mile surrounded by high steel fences, rows and rows of tiny one room tin shacks line up on the dirt, with only crudely sprayed on numbers telling them apart.

On this day in mid-winter, a biting wind rattled through the camp. Residents are wrapped up against the cold both inside and out of poorly built homes.

I met with Blikkiesdorp community representative Jane Roberts aka ‘Aunty Jane’, who politely asked me to wait so she could invite others from the community to hear our interview. That way, she said, they would be assured she was properly representing the views of her neighbours.

She and her grandson share one of the tiny shacks, with only a gas bottle stove, a TV with rabbit ears and a few personal belongings crammed inside.

There’s no sink, no toilet, and no heating. Despite this, she wears a bright red jumper with her hair all wrapped up and looks distinguished beyond her financial situation.

Aunty Jane says residents were lured here by the government with the promise of a proper home, but no most people are desperate to leave.

Tuberculosis and HIV are rife. Unemployment is high but there’s no transport nearby to help people get to and from a job. She says the police are rude and beat people at night regularly if they try to leave.

Jane says it’s like a concentration camp and she feels little has changed since Apartheid.

The World Cup is of no interest to her as it will only benefit FIFA and the rich, while the poor get poorer.

The story of Blikkiesdorp is not unique. The Western Cape anti-eviction campaign tells of thousands of forced evictions and the regular introduction of new by-laws that limit the rights of the poor.

Spokesman Ashraf Cassiem says bread and transport are getting more expensive, access to water increasingly requires pre-paid vouchers, and forced evictions will continue even after the World Cup.

“The money they used to build the one stadium in Green Point, could have resolved the housing issue in the Western Cape, in a good meaningful way”.

My driver Ahmed, a Cape Coloured who grew up in the notorious District Six, says in some ways this fledgling democracy is simply applying a ‘reverse Apartheid’.

“It used to be first the whites, then the coloured, then the blacks,” he tells me.

“Now it’s the blacks, then the whites, and last the Coloured”.

While most expect lasting benefits from this World Cup, there’s remains a great deal to be done to realise the South African dream of a true Rainbow Nation.