<
https://theconversation.com/johannesburg-fire-disaster-why-eradicating-hijacked-buildings-is-not-the-answer-212732>
"The fire that killed at least 76 people in a five storey building in
Johannesburg on 31 August is not an isolated incident, and has elicited the
usual unhelpful response from some city officials and politicians.
They have placed the blame on the informal occupation of abandoned buildings, a
phenomenon known as “hijacking”. They have also blamed immigrant populations
who, they say, are the primary residents of such buildings. To solve the
problem, they argue, hijacked buildings should be expropriated and redeveloped
by the private sector.
A politician in the city council has also called for “mass deportations” of
“illegal foreigners”.
Based on my work as a researcher on how cities are built and transform at the
Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), I argue that all of this is a
distraction from the urgent work of reducing risks in the living environments
of the poor, and reducing the risk of fire more generally. The observatory, a
partnership between the Gauteng provincial government, the universities of the
Witwatersrand and Johannesburg, and the South African Local Government
Association, builds the data and analysis to help inform development in the
Gauteng City-Region.
The rhetoric by politicians and city officials treats the latest tragedy as a
freakish problem of hijacked buildings occupied by migrant populations. Yet as
human geographer Nigel Clark sadly notes, it is important to acknowledge the
way in which catastrophes are a normal part of life – particularly for
vulnerable groups – rather than exceptional or unusual events.
In Johannesburg, fires are not limited to “hijacked” buildings. They have also
occurred in legally occupied buildings. Furthermore, fires are not a specific
risk to inner city populations. They are a regular occurrence in shack
settlements across the city. The use of this tragedy by some politicians to
argue in favour of removing hijacked buildings is part of a longstanding
pattern of blaming the poor for the conditions and justifying further suffering
that they wish to heap on them."
In Australia we call it “squatting” rather than “hijacking”.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
