One consequence of the DA being invited by a weakened ANC to join a government of national unity (GNU) — a fortunate outcome for an opposition party that has failed to grow its percentage of the national vote since peaking in the 2014 elections — is that the DA brand can no longer depend as heavily as it has on griping about state corruption, ineptitude and malfeasance.
Now, when South Africans complain about “the government”, they will be complaining about the DA as much as they are about the ANC.
This will also have an effect on the usual comparisons between the DA-run Western Cape and the other eight ANC-run provinces. The DA has traded on its track record of “good, clean and accountable governance” in the Western Cape, and rightly so. But, while the ANC has shown itself to be anti-poor in its neglect of the responsibilities of state, the DA has a different case to answer when it comes to the mistreatment of the most vulnerable members of society.
This is brought home in Miki Redelinghuys and Pearlie Joubert’s new documentary feature, Mother City, which premiered at the 2024 Encounters festival (taking place until the end of June). Shot over the course of six years, the film draws attention to the Cape Town housing crisis and the tireless work of activists seeking to create low-cost accommodation options in the inner city.
The DA is hardly mentioned in the documentary. Yet when lawyers and judges, politicians and protesters talk about “the city” and “provincial government”, it is the DA’s traditional stronghold to which they are referring. And Cape Town is ambiguous here: Mother City constantly reminds us of its physical beauty even as the film insists that it is the most egregious example of apartheid spatial planning being perpetuated in democratic SA.
Redelinghuys and Joubert begin their story with the sale of the old Tafelberg school site in Sea Point to private developers after it had previously been earmarked for social housing — a decision that spurred the establishment in 2016 of the organisation Reclaim the City (RTC). Working with advocacy group Ndifuna Ukwazi, which provides legal support, RTC has led the fight for well-located, affordable housing in Cape Town.
Their prominent campaigns include the occupation of the empty Woodstock Hospital and the Helen Bowden Nurses Home on prime Waterfront property. In Mother City, we see these spaces from the inside, meeting residents and learning about community structures. We also follow the RTC efforts to expose the sale of a vacant lot in the city centre to Growthpoint Properties for a sub-market figure — leading to a tense standoff with the heavily armed employees of a private security company.
The action of the film moves far and wide. Redelinghuys and Joubert take their cameras to Wolwerivier: a semi-permanent, semi-formal settlement about 30km outside town, where evictees and other people in need of housing have been relocated. Their living conditions are bleak and their daily commutes to work are debilitating.
Mother City is not, however, a reportage-style exposé on the suffering of the faceless many. Instead, the filmmakers ensure that viewers get to know some of the individuals involved. Most prominently profiled is Nkosikhona Swartbooi, a Khayelitsha resident who was one of the founding members of RTC. He is impassioned, principled, sanguine, charming; he is also, after years of battling racial and socioeconomic injustice, exhausted.
We see him as a doting father and a grieving grandson. We see him in the grim period of Covid-19 lockdowns, shouting in the face of overreaching and even thuggish authorities. Ultimately, we see him and his colleagues succeeding: they win the Tafelberg court case against the City of Cape Town, and even though the decision was later overturned on appeal, the conclusion of the narrative is cautiously upbeat.
This shift is accompanied by a change in provincial government and city attitudes — via a change, it is implied, in personnel. Former deputy mayor Ian Neilson is pitched as a callous antagonist; former mayor Dan Plato comes across as self-important rather than empathetic. Current mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis makes a welcome cameo appearance announcing new housing initiatives.
Is it too optimistic to hope that the arc is bending towards justice?
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