Citizen and Pariah , livre ebook

Citizen and Pariah
Citizen and Pariah
Somali Traders and the Regulation of Difference in South Africa
Vanya Gastrow
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright Vanya Gastrow 2022
Published edition Wits University Press 2022
Images Vanya Gastrow
Cover image: Photograph by Salym Fayad. Part of Metropolitan Nomads: A Journey Through Joburg s Little Mogadishu , a collaborative project between researcher Nereida Ripero-Mu iz and photographer Salym Fayad, supported by the African Centre for Migration Society (ACMS) at Wits University.
First published 2022
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12022037397
978-1-77614-739-7 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-740-3 (Hardback)
978-1-77614-741-0 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-742-7 (EPUB)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Project manager: Catherine Damerell
Copy editor: Alison Lowry
Proofreader: Lisa Compton
Indexer: Sanet le Roux
Cover design: Hothouse
Typeset in 11.5 point Crimson
For Camaren, David and Myer
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I: Arrival and Reception
1 Introduction: Law, Justice and the Pariah
2 Getting Started: A Tale of Three Cities
3 The Unwelcome Guest: Flight and Arrival in South Africa
4 Crime and the Fluid Migrant
5 A Window on Statistics Opens Up
6 Fortress South Africa: Informal Justice and Control
7 Elusive Justice and Xenophobic Crime
8 An Ordinary Crime: The Politics of Denial
Part II: Regulation and Containment
9 The Masiphumelele Shop Threat, 2006
10 In the Shadow of Masiphumelele
11 The Shifting Problem and Changing Narratives
12 Infestation and Backlash: The Soweto Cleansing of 2018
13 When Reasoning Rings Hollow
14 The Problem as Legitimacy
15 Regulating Trade: Informality and Segregation by Agreement
16 When Agreements Fall Apart
17 Legal Imaginaries: Trading without a Licence
18 Turning to Formality, 2012
19 Formalising Exclusion as the African Way
Part III: The Politics of Pariahdom
20 Pariahdom and Bare Life
21 Pariah Justice
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
Figure 2.1: Durban Road in Bellville with hatchback cars and bakkies lining the street (2018). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 2.2: Mohamed drinking tea at the Blue Caf in Bellville (2010). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 2.3: RDP houses in Khayelitsha (2012). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 4.1: A Somali-owned spaza shop in Velddrif, West Coast (2012). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 6.1: A field in Khayelitsha identified by police as having been the site of a recent killing by necklacing (2012). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 7.1: A Somali-owned spaza shop in Kraaifontein (2011). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 14.1: Community meeting at Lookout Hill, Khayelitsha, attended by the then incumbent minister of police Nathi Mthethwa, and the then incumbent Western Cape commissioner of police Arno Lamoer (2012). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 15.1: A Burundian-owned spaza shop in Kraaifontein (2011). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Figure 17.1: A portion of a fine citing the Local Authorities Act . The recipient s identifying information has been blacked out by the author (2012). Photograph by Vanya Gastrow.
Preface
T his book is the product of a significant number of fortunate coincidences. My first interest in the Somali community in South Africa arose in 2009, when I was carrying out my articles of clerkship at a law firm in Cape Town. One morning, while I was seated in my office cubicle, a senior colleague placed a copy of the Cape Times on my desk. In a rushed voice she instructed me to set aside my work, and rather spend my day helping her write a response to an article. I looked closer and read the article below the headline Somalis Refuse to Sign One-sided Deal for Spaza Owners . 1 It was about an informal trade agreement governing Somali-run shops in Gugulethu township. My colleague was alarmed at the anti-competitive nature of the agreement s terms, and the failure of the Competition Commission to take any action over the arrangement. I took up her request and worked on an opinion piece analysing the agreement from a legal perspective, which was published in the Cape Times that month. 2 However, the matter continued to linger in my mind, as I struggled to understand why authorities had responded that way.
The following year I by chance came across an advertisement for a research position at the African Centre for Migration Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand to study crime affecting foreign shopkeepers in the Western Cape and their ability to access formal and informal justice mechanisms. I applied and was selected for the project. The data I collected during the course of the project informed my PhD dissertation and, later, this book.
My fortune in the field of migration studies continued. In September 2010 I met Mohamed Aden Osman (known more commonly by the name Xadiis ) of the Somali Association of South Africa. He accompanied me to interviews, acted as an interpreter where needed, and alerted me to news, meetings and other key events involving the Somali community. Over the years he shared many of his life experiences with me, some of which are featured in the book.
These events - completely unplanned - led me to specialise in the field of immigrant entrepreneurship in South Africa, a topic that has preoccupied me ever since.
The ACMS study entailed conducting 194 qualitative interviews between September 2010 and August 2013, with findings published in three separate reports. 3 The field sites chosen were Philippi, Khayelitsha and Kraaifontein. Parties interviewed included 73 Somali retailers and 65 South African township residents, as well as police, prosecutors, community leaders, legal aid attorneys and local councillors.
The vast majority of Somali retailers I interviewed were men, most of them between 20 and 35 years of age. Few Somali women operate spaza shops in Cape Town s townships due to the high rate of crime that affects these businesses. Instead, they tend to work in more formal central business districts, and operate enterprises such as street stalls, small shops and Somali restaurants. While many male shopkeepers were single, all the women I encountered in the spaza market were married and worked in partnership with their husbands.
After completing the project I embarked on a PhD in migration studies and worked as a researcher on several other migration studies projects in South Africa. 4 During the course of these subsequent studies (between 2014 and 2018), I conducted approximately 40 further interviews with parties including immigrant retailers, municipal law enforcement officials, city planners, provincial government officials, informal business associations and migrant community leaders.
My recording methods varied. When conducting my initial research for the ACMS, I recorded most interviews using written notes, and a large number via a voice recorder. Early on in my research I was reluctant to use a voice recorder, as I felt the device was intimidating and would put interviewees on edge, but as my research progressed, I gained more confidence and increasingly relied on voice recordings. Some of the informal conversations with Mohamed featured in this book are based on my recollections of events, not on notes I wrote or voice recordings. Where this is the case, I asked Mohamed to check the relevant sections and confirm that I had remembered those conversations accurately.
The book draws on the above qualitative studies in its exploration of the experiences of Somali retailers in South Africa. The names of the research participants who appear in the book have all been changed, as almost all the interviews I conducted over my career were under the condition that participants identities would remain anonymous. One exception to this is Mohamed, who gave informed consent to his name being used in the book.
The book is a narrative account of South African law and society. It investigates violent crime affecting Somali shopkeepers, their ability to access informal and formal justice mechanisms, and efforts to regulate their economic activities. The events as described shed light on how Somali and other foreign retailers are perceived and treated as social and political pariahs, and comment on the state of democracy, rights and citizenship in South Africa today.
Acknowledgements
T his book was written between 2018 and 2020 while I was carrying out a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Cape Town s public law department. For two years I enjoyed the privilege of being awarded the space and time to write a book on a matter of key interest to me under the insightful supervision of Dee Smythe. It was a rewarding experience and I am incredibly grateful to Dee for her helpful reviews of chapter drafts, her patience and her constant support and encouragement. My fellowship was generously funded by UCT s University Research Council (URC) as well as the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) Chair of Security and Justice. The Centre for Law and Society at UCT and its funders contributed towards the publishing costs of the book.
The research for the book relied on the critical help and work of Mohamed Aden Osman ( Xadiis ), who opened the doors of his life to me and introduced me to his vast network of Somali friends and colleagues in Bellville, Cape Town and Mitchell s Plain. He accompanied me to most of my interviews, assisted when I had follow-up queries or just random questions, and has been highly