In the Southern Shadow of a Solipsistic City
On April 27th, 1994, the apartheid regime over South Africa officially fell. This took years to protest, international sanctions, and pain to accomplish. Mandela swiftly took the reigns as the country’s first democratically elected president.
The air of change produced a major fruit for the previously marginalized communities via the 1996 constitution. Black communities were previously pushed to the South of Johannesburg’s central business district, and into lands with scarce water, gold mine industry disruption, and a long and difficult commute to working in the racially bound city. These areas, known as townships, were established under the Group Areas Act under apartheid and they physically forced out non-white citizens to areas of exclusion to be ignored. The destructive state did not even provide adequate housing, and many were forced to build new informal settlements in their new townships, such as Soweto, Alexander, and many more.
Under the new reparative constitution, however, it was stated that everyone, who qualified economically, would be provided access to affordable housing. Reinforcement came through the form of the 1997 National Housing Act, which was a subsidy scheme created to give subsidized housing to those who earned less than R3000 per month (less than 300 US dollars). At the time, this was around eighty percent of the population. The scope of the housing problem in post-apartheid South Africa was unprecedented, and with the economy growing at a glacial pace of one percent per year, a solution seemed just out of reach.
The government, however, continued to pump out their colloquially named RDPs (Reconstruction and Development Program homes) to ensure that individuals and families forced into informal settlements under apartheid rule could have access to basic human rights. The problem born from this positive program, was the fact that the RDPs were built in the same distant, fringe communities that black South Africans were pushed into previously, propagating the segregation and unhealthy environment.
This is the present state of housing today. In many townships south of Johannesburg, such as Riverlea in the Soweto region, they have access to housing as the government promised, but the living conditions are made inhospitable by the environmental atrocities created during the apartheid in the mining industry.
As you stand in the shadow of Johannesburg, with the telecom tower and FNB stadium dispassionately standing watch over the forgotten and ignored communities to the south, the contrast in environment becomes crystal clear. The southern regions are plagued with abandoned mine dumps that the mining companies simply left in fear after the oppressive government fell. These mine dumps are roughly 500 feet tall and can stretch miles across the earth. The soil comprising these man-made artifacts have been extracted from deep in the earth, and contain harmful substances including uranium, lead, copper, and sulfur. These chemicals are left open to be transported via wind or water, where they can even take the violent forms of cyanide and arsenic, to affect communities in their proximity.
We spoke with several members of the Riverlea community and discovered adverse health outcomes resultant of the mine dumps. One resident, known to most as Mama Rose, shared her story about life on a respirator and the toxic dusts that constantly invade her home. Her respirator is a constant need, and she can only sustain herself without it for around nine to ten hours. Her son is also now on a respirator, but she has been using it for ten years. She shared that numerous members of the community, including children, have asthma, cystic fibrosis, and even tuberculosis as a result of the dust. She shared that “in winter, the swells [of dust] are so much that I could sweep all day and it wouldn’t make a dent [in the buildup of toxic dust].”
It is internationally agreed that it is the responsibility of the mine owners to secure these mine dumps from harming the environment. It has, however, been difficult to track down ownership of the mines, and there is even some skepticism in the communities that the standstill in progress may be political.
Thankfully, hope is not lost! Organizations such as the Benchmarks Foundation have been working to identify ownership of each dump. One such dump, which we were able to visit with Chris Molebatsi, a representative of the Benchmarks Foundation, is George Harrison Park. We took pH readings from a creek running along the side of the dump, which was bright blue in appearance, and discovered it to be 5.8. The safe range for water, with respect to humans, is 6.5-7.2. This creek runs directly into the Riverlea community basin.
In addition, George Harrison Park was previously a mining site and remains an open crater in the ground, which some artisan miners (local civilians who attempt to mine clandestinely and independently, to earn money) have taken to exploring.
Chris is working to identify the identity of the owners of the mine so that communities in its dump’s proximity, such as Riverlea, are no longer harmed. It would also be beneficial if the mine owners could close the remaining site, so that artisan miners no longer risked their lives to attempt to glean some remnants from the gold rush era.
Ultimately, these areas of new RDP housing developments are severely unsuitable for any kind of human dwelling. Hopefully, once the mine owners are determined, the environment can be improved and hundreds of thousands of residents like Mama Rose will finally be provided humane housing in the wake of such a violent era. I am anxious to follow the progress of the Benchmarks Foundation and the sweeping southern townships.
Best,
Mackenna
