Gold trove
Ruth Hopkins
The very first people I meet in South Africa are Zimbabweans. A Zimbabwean driver with the striking name Bismarck picks me up from the airport and together we lug my overweight suitcase into his Toyota. In the early morning, we drive through the sleepy city of millions, that started to expand explosively when gold was found under Witswatersrand in 1886. No wonder this city is called city of gold, Egoli, in Zulu.
When I casually ask Bismarck about his kids, he goes off on a rant. ‘You have to beat kids sometimes,’ he says. ‘They have a big mouth and they have to know their place. Beating them is not a crime, it’s parenting.’ Right.
It might be a blessing in disguise for Bismarck’s offspring that he only sees them during his annual visit to his family. This has been the case since he left his village for Johannesburg 25 years ago, to earn an income.
Antonetta also sees her oldest son just once a year when she returns to Zimbabwe. Twice a week she cleans the house I rent. Humming quietly, she creates order in the chaos my suitcases produce, neat stacks disappear in cupboards and closets. Her youngest son lives with her in a room with eight other people in the centre of Johannesburg. De landlord refuses, despite persistent rain fall and temperatures that plummet below freezing point during the night, to provide his tenants with a gas or electric heater.
Johannesburg, the economic power house of Southern Africa, is a magnet that pulls enterprising dreamers, adventurers and desperados. A classic migration story is unfolding; while gold diggers flocked to the city in the past, nowadays it’s the Mozambican, Zimbabwean and Congolese migrants that still seek the proverbial gold trove.
With crippling unemployment statistics, particularly among the working class, the hardworking – and mostly cheaper – labour migrants are not welcomed. In 2008 a ticking time bomb exploded when foreigners were lynched in townships. Last month xenophobia reared its ugly head again: in Cape Town so-called vigilante groups told Somali shopkeepers they had 24 hours to move out. One of the shopkeepers was stabbed to death.
Even though the gold supplies are steadily dwindling, the ‘city of gold’ still provides allure, excitement, hope and promise for people in search of a better life. But sometimes desperation and tragedy awaits them.
Iraqi Kurdistan Sombre scenarios if compromise fails to materialise – Het Parool
Het Parool, Friday April 22, 2011, Foreign News 11
Iraqi Kurdistan Sombre scenarios if compromise fails to materialise
Photo caption: Police officers in Sulaimaniya, in Iraqi Kurdistan, throw stones and attack demonstrators
ISLAMISTS BEHIND KURDISH PROTEST
Islamists seem to have seized the protests against corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan to establish an Islamic state
Ruth Hopkins
The government in Northern Iraq banned the on-going protests in Sulaimaniya, the second biggest town in Kurdish Northern Iraq. The hundreds of people, who take to the streets, are demanding an end to corruption, early elections and replacement of the security and police forces in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Monday eighty people were wounded when security forces intervened. In preceding weeks, eight people were killed.
Formally the protests have no leaders, they are allegedly organised by and for the people, following the civil movements in Egypt and Tunisia. But critics point at the more prominent role of the Islamists behind the scenes. In a curious marriage of convenience with the progressive movement for change Gorran (Change), they would seize the unrest to establish an Islamic state in the formally secular Iraqi Kurdistan that attained autonomy in 1991.
A young man rolls thin strips of plastic out over the central Sarray square in Sulaimaniya, baptised the square of Change by the protesters. Hundreds of men kneel on the plastic and start to pray. After the prayer an Imam preaches from an improvised stage. “He is talking about freedom, the voice of the people and something about the prophet. I don’t really want to know,” Khaled Sulaiman turn his back to the clergyman.
Sulaiman, editor of the weekly Heftane, wrote critical articles about the role of the two main Islamic parties in Kurdistan, Komal and Yakgrtu, who, according to him, have organised the protests. With an ironic undertone, Sulaiman claimed the secular Gorran had entered into a missyar – a brief marriage of pleasure in Islam – with the Islamic movement. Because of this criticism he should better not make his way into the crowd, he says.
Aram Saeed, also a journalist, and a supporter of Gorran, works his way through the mass of people. “What we want is freedom,” he yells. “We also want the police and the army to renew. They are the iron hand of the corrupt politicians.”
The Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were the victors of the 2009 elections. Together with several smaller parties they form the regional government.
Gorran and the two Islamic parties remained a minority. Even though the election commission stated that the elections were by and large fair, Gorran and the Islamic parties claimed they were invalid, due to fraud.
Asos Hardi, founder of Awena, one of the few independent newspapers does not fear an Islamic Kurdistan. “This is the will of the people,” he says, pointing at the praying crowd on the square. “No one is talking about God, ideology or Sharia. We want justice and freedom.”
But the Islamic groups most definitely do foresee a more Islamic Kurdistan. “Religion benefits everyone,” says Soran Omar, spokesperson of the Islamic parties, just after his lengthy speech for the enthusiastic crowd. “It is precisely dictatorships that produce violent movements such as Al Qaida. If there is true democracy in Kurdistan, then a peaceful form of Islam will continue to exist.”
There are signs that the Islamists are gaining ground. The demonstrating women and men were separated a few weeks ago.
Said Shams, lecturer Kurdish history at the University of Kurdistan in Erbil, anticipates two scenarios if consensus does not arrive between the government and the opposition. “Two separate administrative regions can come into existence, Sulaimaniya under Gorran and the Islamic parties and the other towns under KDP and PUK. This is not desirable at all. In the worst case, a civil war breaks out.”
Hardi reinforces that conclusion; he is convinced it will lead to violence if the demands of the protesters are not met.