A 26-year struggle for electricity has erupted in the Doornkop shack settlement on the western outskirts of Soweto over the past two weeks, resulting in skirmishes between residents and the police. Residents got up in the early hours to shut down the R558 – a major economic thoroughfare servicing the nearby Harmony Doornkop gold mine and Protea Glen Mall – before being met with rubber bullets and tear gas from South African Police Service and Johannesburg Metro Police Department officers.
Founded in 1993, when tenants unable to afford rent in nearby Doornkop Extension 4 built new homes on an empty piece of land, the Doornkop shack settlement is home to mostly Sowetans but also migrants from the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana. It has been without electricity for all of its 26 years of existence.
With children forced to stay home during lockdown and the elderly particularly vulnerable to Covid-19, the pandemic has had an undue impact on the domestic care economy. As a result, women have come to the fore in Doornkop’s struggle for electricity. Gwele and Pogiso were among them. When asked why these road closures would be different from any of the other attempts made by the community in its decades-long struggle for electricity, Constance said that “this time many can die. It’s fine, we are ready to sacrifice.”
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