A letter from the co-ordinating committee of Reclaim the City and all residents at Cissie Gool House to the Mayor of Cape Town:
“Dear Mayor Dan Plato,
On Tuesday 6 August 2019 at 2pm you will meet with the rest of the City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee to discuss the future of occupied Cissie Gool House in Woodstock and make a decision whether you will evict us. We want to explain why that would be a terrible decision.
You will remember that we first occupied public buildings in early 2017 when former Premier Helen Zille refused to stop the sale of the Tafelberg site, one of the last parcels of state land in Sea Point. You were in her cabinet at the time.
Since then many promises have been made to redistribute well-located state land for affordable housing. Most have been broken or delayed. It’s still true to say that no new affordable public housing has been built in the inner city and surrounds or any well-located area since the end of apartheid.
As a result, we are now hundreds living at Cissie Gool House and thousands in our occupations across the inner city and surrounds.
We are ordinary families forced to take extraordinary steps to avoid being evicted and displaced by a property system and economic model that does not work for us. We are those who can no longer pay exorbitant rents and rates. We are those who have witnessed our streets and heritage slowly ruptured by racially segregated and exclusive housing projects for the wealthy. We are those who are tired of living in shacks with temporary poor quality services and no land security. We are those who can no longer make the dangerous and delayed journeys by public transport to find work or keep our jobs.
An attempted eviction of residents at Cissie Gool House will be the biggest in the inner city since the destruction of District Six. So let us be clear. Like the generation who came before us we will be forced to resist. We have nowhere else to go.
We know the law well because we defend our members from eviction every day. The courts are aware that you have failed in your mandate to deliver affordable housing in well-located areas. Now you have cancelled the few commitments you did make. The courts know you do not have any alternative accommodation available for even one evictee let alone all of us who would be made homeless. The courts know you have resorted to offering four pieces of zinc and some wooden poles to erect a shack in a backyard because your unjust relocation camps are full. We will never go there.
The law requires meaningful engagement before a decision to evict is made. We want to engage with you because we want to realise something much greater than just a roof over our heads: We have a vision of an inclusive, just and equal city for all poor and working-class people. We have a vision for what dignified affordable housing could be and we have started to build that right here and now.
In this old broken hospital, we have built a community that we are proud of with the little resources we have. We are newborn babies, we are students, we are elderly and we are disabled people. We are a community that celebrates birthdays, marriages and deaths across race and religion. A community where we feed those who are hungry from our gardens.
We have written to you but you’ve refused to meet. Even the slum lords have the decency to look their tenants in the eye before they evict them.
So, we are asking you again to come and visit us at the occupation before you decide to evict. Come listen to why we are living here, learn about what we have achieved so far, and think about what might be possible if you work together with residents.
Do the right thing this time. Show your commitment to advancing spatial justice by saving Cissie Gool House.
Regards,
The co-ordinating committee of Reclaim the City and all residents at Cissie Gool House.”
—
PSALM 82
O Merciful and Just Watcher,
You take your place in the divine council;
in the realm of conscience, You make yourself known.
You give due warning to those in power: “How long will you rule with injustice
and oppress the poor?
Act with integrity toward the weak
and the unfortunate;
maintain the rights of the afflicted
and the destitute.
Assist the needy
and reverence all people’s freedom; deliver them from the hand of the oppressor.”
Arise! Awaken to the new dawn!
Come into the Light;
shed darkness like skin on the snake!
For the foundations of the cosmos are shaking with injustice.
I say, “Within you dwells the Beloved,
the Breath of your breath;
Open your heart in the Silence and
know the One in the many.”
Arise! Join in the new creation!
Let harmony reign among all the nations
Nan C. Merrill ~ Psalms for Praying
—
“To Love. To be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or complicate
what is simple.
To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch.
To try and understand.
To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
– Arundhati Roy, The End of Imagination