Durban’s sweeping World Cup renovations are transforming the city center, but 500 vendors at a century-old market are fighting off attempts to raze their stalls to build a shopping mall.
The traders at the Early Morning Market won their first round, with a court order stalling the demolition pending a court hearing in September last year, in a conflict that illustrates the tensions between tradition and modernity in a country sharply divided between haves and have-nots.
“No way, we are not going to move. We are going to fight this here,” vegetable vendor Mony Govender said, as she helped an old woman balance a 10kg sack of cabbages on her head.
PHOTO: AFP
“We sell things for 2 rands [US$0.25], 5 rands, we make a living for everybody, even beggars,” she said.
“Such prices are not possible in a mall,” she added, moving to balance peppers on a scale.
Since February last year, the city of Durban has tried to evict the merchants from the Early Morning Market to make way for a glitzy shopping mall in the heart of the city.
The court won the vendors a reprieve through the World Cup, which runs from Friday to July 11.
The market draws in crowds of people from the surrounding mini-bus taxi ranks, a key transit point to get around the city, allowing commuters to buy their groceries before catching their ride.
On an incomplete section of bridge, traditional healers hawk snake skins, giraffe bones, springbok skulls and rare roots as remedies for all manner of ailments.
Several pedestrians die there every year, hit by cars.
“This area is very accident-prone. We have to do something about it,” said Philip Sithole, head of the 400 million rand redevelopment project, which will include upgraded taxi ranks.
“There’s historical places everywhere in South Africa. That does not mean that you can’t develop those places,” he said.
Durban prides itself on the modern image fostered by its new World Cup stadium, with its landmark arch over the pitch, as well as a sleek new airport and improved highways.
The image of an open market with squawking chickens and dried animals clashed with the city’s new idea of itself.
It’s a conflict that emerges across South Africa as secure and often luxurious shopping malls spring up, even though many people can’t afford to shop in them. About 43 percent of the population lives on less than US$2 a day.
“I am sure there are about eight malls around us. Why build another mall? Why create another capitalist?” said Vinesh Singh, spokesman for the vendors’ association at the market.
“If you close the market, who’s going to employ us? We don’t know about computers. We have people employed, that is all they know,” he said.
“Who’s going to employ them?” he said as his workers filled sacks of onions.
Romila Chetty, who sells candies, had hoped to organize festivities to celebrate the market’s 100th anniversary on May 19.
“We’re going to have Indian and Zulu dances. Academics will speak. We’re going to feed everyone who wants to come,” she said.
But her two requests to the city for permission to hold the festival have so far gone unanswered.
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