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Culture: | Photoessa
unemployment nearly doubled between
1995 and 2005.It aected the white people terribly,
laments Abbott. There are no jobs or the
white people. The black people are cheap
labour.
Trade union Solidarity,which largely
looks ater the interests o white
Arikaners, estimates that at least 450 000
white South Aricans 10% o the white
population live below the poverty line.
With nowhere else to go and with the
perception that they are excluded rom
government housing schemes based on
their skin colour, many poor whites end
up in places like Coronation Park.
They [the government] wont give us
houses. We are not black. And that aects
the policy towards us, claims Abbott.
When we came here some our years
ago, it was terrible. Some people were
only in tents, some just under blankets on
the ground, some were pregnant women.
When we started here we asked or
donations and then got caravans and then
moved the people in there.
Kobus Oosthuizen, a Christian minister
25 th Big Iss 10 Sp 10 - 1 Oc 1
By Scott Smith
Lie is busy in the early morning
here in the small settlement oCoronation Park, in
Krugersdorp
on the outskirts o west
Johannesburg. Cats lick themselves in
the warm sun and everywhere can be
heard the sound o a sweeping broom
brushing up the resh allen leaves. There
is hammering in the distance or home
repairs and children start bouncing a
ball in the pot-holed street. But this is no
regular suburban scene. Technically, this
is an illegal settlement, or what is more
commonly called a squatter camp.Coronation Park is municipal
land; the
residents pay no rent and they eke out an
existence in this popular picnic spot under
the shading pine trees through sheer
determination to survive in a country they
eel has abandoned them. The residents
are white, poor and largely Arikaans.
During the apartheid era a scene like
this was unthinkable. Under apartheid
impoverished whites enjoyed subsidised
housing, sheltered employment, and
other general protections. But all o that is
now gone.
Irene Abbott, the sel-declared mother
o Coronation Park and maker o the rules
says: Once in lie, the black were black
and the white were white. Now they are
white and we are black.
The protection disappeared with
the 1994 democratic election and the
implementation o armative action
policies. Since then, the number o poor
whites has risen steadily and the Institute
or Security Studies reports that white
Unemployed, unhoused and unhappy
Whites toe thepoverty line
who helps where he can at another
white settlement called Sonskyn Hoekie,north o Pretoria, says
there are over 70
such settlements around Pretoria alone.
Some are on private land but or those
on municipal land, there is the constant
threat o removal.
In 2009, the Mogale city council called
or the squatters o Coronation Park to
relocate to a site near Munsieville, a black
township north west o Krugersdorp.
Residents reused to move and the
municipality led a court case which they
subsequently lost.With the current building o a
cement and stone church, it is clear the
residents o Coronation Park consider
this permanent. We are here to stay.
The municipality cannot touch us, says
Abbott condently.
We build things, she adds. One day
the peoples eyes are going to all out o
their heads. They wont believe what we
did with Coronation Park; they always
say there are druggies here. Everyone can
say what they want, but you cant judge a
book by its cover.
The camp is indeed well kept and
home improvements seem to be the main
activity. I consider this a permanent
place, says another man, who has been
in Coronation Park or over ve years and
was tending the small vegetable garden
outside his shack.
Currently there are some 230 people,
including 54 children in Coronation
Park. Given that there were 430 people a
couple years ago, it is clear not everyone
We are hereto stay. Themunicipalitycannot touch usIrene
Abbott
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27 th Big Iss 10 Sp 10 - 1 Oc 1
Culture | Photoessa
Duringtheapartheideraascenelikethiswasunthinkable
Bestfootforward:IreneAbbottsaysthereislittlehelpfortheresidentsofCoronationPark
considers it permanent. Some people nd
work and then they move out, but many
nd that things dont work out on the
outside and they come back, Abbott says.
But or some, South Arica has no more
to oer them. Martin Vos, in his late 50s,
used to work in the mines earning a good
salary, but ater he had a stroke and was
retrenched, he and his wie had to sell
everything. His well kept home, with a
neat garden and clean bath, is testament
to a ormer afuent lie. But as he looks
out on the camp with his arms olded over
his chest, he says rueully: It is quite hard
to move rom R20 000 a month to R2 a
month. It isnt really something you get
used to. You never get used to it, but you
adapt.
Vos sits outside his home, addressed
D1.H.Vos, delicately chipping slivers owood to prepare the re.
This time o year
the wood is wet, he says, and we need to
make smaller pieces to make the re take.
Such scenes are testament to just what it
takes to live here. There is no money or
re-lighters. All day is about making re
and preparing the wood, he says.
Electricity was turned o by the
municipality over a year ago and, although
the water is still running, most o those who
live here need to go to the main ablution
27 th Big Iss 10 Sp 10 - 1 Oc 1
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Cutoutforbetter
blocks to etch their water or to one o the
taps dotted around the site a remnant rom
when this was a popular camping site beore
the settlers o Coronation Park claimed the
land.
Abbott says, Every morning I get up at
4am and I make pap or the children. At 6am
the schoolchildren come and eat pap and the
rest is let or the little ones beore they go to
their school. In the aternoons I make lunch
or them. I there is enough I make ood or
the whole park sometimes three times a
week. We get the ood rom people outside.
Who rom the outside still gives them
donations is not explicitly said. There was a
time when white people used to help us and
I could cook every second day or the camp
but now nothing comes in. They give to the
blacks but not to the whitesThere is only
one person looking ater us now and that is
God.
South Aricas transition rom apartheidis an adaptation that many
o those living
in Coronation Park eel alienated and
betrayed by. A dog house in the centre o
the settlement with the words Jacob Zuma
painted on the side makes it clear what the
majority o residents think o the leadership
changes. But with some 2 000 much larger
and, arguably more impoverished, black
squatter camps dotted around the country
it is clear that poverty both in black and
white communities isnt something any
post-apartheid government has come to gripswith.
*For more of photojournalist Scott Smiths work,
visit: www.scottsmith.co.za
28 th Big Iss 10 Sp 10 1 Oc 10
