But I'd like to add that I feel nothing for the owners of the homes that were razed to the ground by the fires. In my view, there was just too much air time given to this story. All they lost are pictures and insured appliances.
There were hotels around St. Francis offering the so called victims of fire accommodation.
In a shack fire in Diepsloot or Khayelitsha it is the churches and schools that will offer soup and shelter. In these fires most of the black population, will have lost Identity Documents they use to get access to the social grants. All their livelihoods are contained in shack. And those stories dwindle so fast in the media. Simply because the shack fires happen too often. Sometimes shack fires are just not headline stories at all if there is no one dead.
Do you want me to talk about the plight of the farm workers? Should I remind you of the more than 34 lives it took before mine workers could earn a reasonable wage? Constant reminder that life black life is cheap. The gap between whites and black is just wide and getting wider.
In 2012 we have a government that demolishes homes because they are built on illegal lad!? Really? Does it not take you back to forced removals of the apartheid government? The Gauteng Department of Housing defended the demolitions and said they were in line with the law. So we have a government that would rather be on the right side of the law that to make the welfare and interests of its citizens a priority. I am quite certain Nomvula Mokonyane could have found a way to bargain with the people pf Lenasia. The Gauteng Premier suffered at the hands of the apartheid government, but she ignores the cries and screams of the women and children of Lenasia.
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