Background
I?m not a banana
In the nineties, rival South African taxi companies waged a violent guerrilla war and that conflict could flare up again, says anthropologist Erik Bähre. “You have to hold your ground or you’ll be crushed.”
Frank Provoost
Wednesday 6 June 2012

“They said they would to throw a tyre over me and set fire to me.” Erik Bähre (1969) can smile about it, which, in his view, is the best way to cope with this kind of threat. “If you make a joke of it, it will all blow over.” The most dangerous men in his experience, accumulated from years of fieldwork in the violent suburbs of Cape Town, will not try to intimidate you directly. “They have subtler methods.”

This Leiden anthropologist focuses his studies on South Africa, where he previously exposed mafia practices in development projects. At a Leiden symposium last week, he held a talk about his latest study: the bloody taxi war that raged for decades in Cape Town.

Two rival organisations made each other’s lives, and sometimes their passengers’ lives, a living hell, and though the past decade has been relatively quiet, trouble is brewing below the surface, according Bähre, who talked to drivers, cab owners and other people who are involved in the business. And now, with a large-scale reorganisation in the transport sector imminent, they are afraid that the conflict will erupt again. “And with good reason.”

A brief history will explain: in the late eighties, more and more migrants from the Bantustans, homelands set aside for blacks, moved to the city. The black population who – in the final years of apartheid – had a right to live in the city controlled the taxi trade. “But migrants arriving illegally in the townships thought: “Why should they earn money off us? We’ll organise our transport ourselves.” And small entrepreneurs set up their own taxi associations.”

Threats between two rival associations soon escalated into in a war with bombs being thrown at each other’s pitches.

“One man recalled how his brother chased down a minivan taxi, forced it to stop and set fire to it, with all the passengers trapped inside; everyone inside the vehicle died. The man added that he had done time for the crimes committed by his brother, who was dead himself by this time. Only the thing is: the neighbours told me that he had never had a brother, so I suspect that he was talking about himself.

“In the end, the migrants built a camp in an inhospitable area and waged a guerrilla war from the bush for two years, going out at night, to murder the rival’s drivers. There are even tales of cannibalism: a driver was dragged back to the camp and allegedly murdered, barbecued and eaten – several people told me that. It’s impossible to say whether that really happened, but it could have. That was the mood, and emotions were running high.”

When the troubles culminated in 1994, a meeting that had been announced as peace talks ended in slaughter. The migrants were invited to come to a football stadium in Khayelitsha township, but as people left the stadium, someone opened fire, killing eleven and wounding 23.

Surprisingly, Bähre could hardly find anything about the Khayelitsha Stadium Massacre. “It was kept right out of politics, which in turn reinforced the migrants’ accusations against the ANC. ‘We thought as much’, they thought, ‘You only support the established black population.’”

In the end, peace was more or less brokered in 2000. “Some sort of stability was created: a road was chosen as a border and they reached an agreement: you take one side of the road and we’ll operate on the other.” This relative calm allowed those he questioned to talk more easily, explains the scientist. “People already dared to tell me more about it, but not everything. Everyone knows exactly who fought for which side, and the war never really ended altogether. Anyone from the one association should not move to an area controlled by the other: that would be asking for trouble.”

Moreover, the first cracks are appearing in the fragile treaty. “The government, which sees the minivan taxis as unorganised rabble and regards the associations as criminal organisations, wants to improve the regulation of public transport. Cabs are not allowed to drive the long distances between the townships and the city anymore; the large buses should take care of that, on the bus lanes that were built especially for the World Championships. The bus lanes are to be distributed in bidding stages, but the owners of the minibuses don’t have the cash or the knowledge to bid and they’re afraid they will lose all but the short rides in the townships.”

Bähre continues: “This is creating a lot of tension: already, one driver has been murdered and buses have been pelted with stones. It’s good that the government wants to get rid of the criminal aspects, but their ideas are based on neo-liberal ideology: everyone can bid and the best party will win. However, the associations, mainly small business with only one or two cabs sometimes, can’t cut it and they’re worried that a few large businesses will control the bidding and take over all the trade.”

And that is not the only irritation: “The safety regulations have become much more stringent. If you have your old bus demolished, you’ll get a grant and a loan to buy a new one, but to sum up: “‘You can choose any colour, as long as it’s black.’”

 In other words: “The new requirements are so strict and specific that only three models comply, and two of those, including a Mercedes, don’t count because they’re too expensive. This means everyone has to buy a Toyota Quantum, causing cab owners to grumble about corruption: did the car manufacturer have a hand in making the regulations? And the supervision is allegedly corrupt too: people are being stopped for trivial things.”

And so things are tense. “Drivers feel trapped: expenses are rising while they are losing most lucrative routes. Of course people are going to grumble and threaten. That’s why they should worry about things escalating.”

According to the anthropologist, the drivers need a reputation for violence in their tough world. “When I was introduced, the drivers wouldn’t discuss the weather, they would just let me know how violent they were.  You have to hold your ground or you’ll be crushed.”

Although he experienced one or two threats, he also heard a couple of lovely metaphors. “One driver told me: ‘I’m not a banana.’”

Excuse me? Bähre explains: “A banana doesn’t have a stone, so you can squeeze it. He would rather be a mango.”

Squashed behind a drunk driver

Approximately 65 per cent of South Africa’s commuters depend on minivan taxis, usually carrying twelve passengers, sometimes more. “Often, everyone is squashed together”, Erik Bähre is speaking from experience.

But that is not the only hardship: the drivers – not all of them sober - negotiate their way through the busy traffic by honking their horns loudly while playing very noisy kwaito (the local house-like hip-hop) and ignoring as many traffic rules as possible.

The macho posturing is all part of it, claims Bähre. “All the drivers have a don’t fuck with me attitude to show everyone who’s boss. You think I drive too fast? I’ll speed up a bit. Is the music too loud? I’ll turn up the volume.”

Nevertheless, there is some order in this apparent chaos, says Bähre. Even though there aren’t any official stops with signs, everyone knows where the shuttles stop. “It looks as if everyone just does what he wants, but if you watch closely, you’ll see that, in an informal way, it is actually very regulated.”