Put your shoes into my shoes

Put your shoes into my shoes and wear me like a human being would wear another human being.

I say to anybody, try for one night and sleep outside without a blanket, try for one night, you lawful people, to sleep outside without a blanket, try for one night and take your wife with you and your kids, and sleep outside without a blanket, without eating, and you’ll feel exactly what it feels like to be in my shoes….

I was confused, scared, and disabled to maintain my family, in which, the only choice of decision that came to mind was to take the law into my own hands as the law has deprived me of my rights. In which it wasn’t a simple step to take because I knew that there were consequences behind it that would jeopardize my family and, most importantly, my kids, the tomorrows future. Because of blatant promises of houses that were promised to us 15 years ago from when Mandela had taken the chair of the apartheid system in order to de-racialise it.

In which, the promises made are not are not fulfilled due to the economy and the corruption of the higher guys in the higher positions that are still provoking, undermining, and threatening to the underprivilaged people such as I. In which, it makes it impossible as a poor person to walk into a bank and ask to be finalised for a home loan due to the finances that we receive are to low a wage to maintain the banks’ profits.

As a result, there we find ourselves in a situation of where we have to forcefully take on grounds that are not ours. Because if you look at other options to try to rent a house in which the rental in Cape Town is very high (nothing less than 1,600 rand in a backyard of where you do not have your own freedom and your children do not have a playing space for freedom due to the owners only require for your children to be in a specific area of within that backyard house of where they are not allowed to break or damage any property or else you will be held responsible for the cost of damages that your kids may have damaged).

Now, why I am on the way of Symphony Way is because even when I know that I have taken up space that belongs to the government, I know that the government owes me a home because he promised me that.

And not only that, but for the mere fact that I am free. I am free because I have choice, because I have opportunity, and mostly because I am suppressed in my position as a poor person.

The beauty of this place is when you see wrong being done you can go up to your fellow neighbour, in which your neighbour is your friend, your colleague, your supervisor, and your neighbour is also the law because we all fight for what is right. This is the feeling of being free. Ultimately you are free here on Symphony Way.

Try this and put a dog in a corner or an alley of where it does not have a way out but through you will be its only way of escape. I can bet you, that that dog will challenge you in its fearfulness that will become courage, and through faith, I assure you, it will pass you or else, most probably kill you.

Now why I say this? It is that you cannot, as a rich man, withhold me from my rights of having a home since seeing that you have promised it. Because then, if you hold back, then think of that dog and place me in that dogs position and I am human. I will by no doubt lash back and lash back hard because you are cornering not only me but the thing I love the most, my kids. Thats the best way to victimise a man and treat him like a dog in which I don’t think that you want to be that person standing in his way.

The road that we live on, on Symphony Way. I finally came to terms of understanding pure nature. Reason being: snakes walk into my house and walk out of my house, freely. Scorpions, the same. And even more, the other animals that I have not seen yet with my naked eye, also have the freedom of my home that I now live. And the only way of survival is to understand nature. Now, its a life threatening and dangerous position for the rich man to live amongst such venomous and poisonous animals. But yet, my kids, and my fellow brothers and sisters and families of Symphony Way are living it to a reality. But yet still, we are underminded, interrogated, and frustrated by the outsider called the rich man that the law abiding citizens such as the SAP/SAPS that want to evict us from our freedom to put us into misery or something even worse than my freedom, like a shack in Blikkiesdorp.

Now who gives them the right to take our freedom of choice and happiness away from us instead of giving us houses and lock us up like dogs in a place we are not familiar with. Are they not asking for us to lash out in every way possible? To make them feel the same pain and anguish that we now are going through. Nevertheless, we are also law abiding citizens. But there’s one thing I can say, that we, fight for what is right and not otherwise. That is why, we are here on Symphony Way, with choice. Because of what was promised to us years ago we are still waiting. Its insensible to take us from one shack and put us into another shack instead of a house.

Now, for the person that is wealthy, I’d say, that you are very high and mighty but you are very small-minded. As a result, I am not the fool you think I am to undermine me and make me want to live in a zinc shack. I am happy where I am and the only place I will move to from here on will be in the promised home that I deserve for my family and for the future that was promised to us as a new South Africa.

Viva South Africa! Viva! Make my dream become a reality and make me feel part of the new South Africa, the new millennium that we all speak of.

I am not a foreigner, nor an illegal alien, so I dont expect to be treated like one, that has no root and has no home (not that anyone should be treated that way that in turn makes you feel like a slave to someone else’s country). And yet, I am a human being and each human being should be treated like a human being and not a slave.

Now for you rich people, lounging with the cat (the government) upon your lap, stretching out your slippers to the fire, and giving a sleepy yawn, and stating: Oh Bother! Why are they living that way? If for a moment, you put yourself into my shoes and for a moment of time come out of your warm position and visit me or even spend a day when it is raining in my hokkie, then you will feel the emotional distress of whereby I think that even you (the same person that I pay for through VAT) are likely to cry bitter tears because of the pain that you see of someone that doesn’t want to be in this position but has no money to afford a better position. Someone that has a dream but because of suppression from the rich man makes it impossible for them to pull through that dream.

I think its because of shear selfishness. What I learned in the old days, that if you have plentiful, then you should give to the poor and you will be blessed in many ways. That it will overflow in many ways. That is why this world is so corrupt. Because the rich man has become so stingy and still wants to suppress the poor making it impossible for the poor man to survive on the little he has and that is why we are still here in waiting to fulfill that dream.

The rich man must let go of his wealth so that the week may become strong and a better nation for tomorrows future. Its called sharing. The simplest word you can find in the simplitic way of announcing. Sharing as a whole, bring a nation together as one. ‘Ubuntu’: Umuntu ngu buntu wa bantu. Because a person is a person by people. And we will all live in harmony because we are also human beings with understanding, initiatives, feelings, and dreams.

We have learned to know that patience is virtue and virtue is patient. In which we have patiently waited long enough. And in the struggle we have learned a lot by sharing with the families of Symphony Way. And uniting us together as one. One nation, one home, one vote. That has pulled us on this road so far and so long.

Luck tapped upon a cottage door. A gentle quiet tap. And Laziness who lounged within, the cat upon his lap Stretched out his slippers to the fire, And gave a sleepy yawn. O Bother! he says, let him knock again! But luck was gone.

Luck tapped more faintly still Upon another door, Where Industries was hard at work Mending his cottage floor. The door was open wide, at once. Come in, the worker cried. And luck was taken by the hand And gladly pulled inside.

He still is there, this wondrous guest, Whose out his magic hand, Fortune flows fast you know, But Laziness can never understand How Industries found such a friend.

Luck never came my way, he sized. But quite forgetting the knock upon his door that day.

This has been a feeling. When I feel. That I feel. I am going to feel a feeling that I’ve never felt before – by taking what is rightfully mine.

If only they will know now that our patience has run out. We can also divert and take what rightfully belongs to us. Our freedom of right to live in better homes because the rich man refuses to give. So the only best solution to solve this problem is to take back. Until the rich man can give, then the poor man can stop taking. But if he does not give, we won’t stop taking until they feel our pain.

Its the same thing as example: we manufacture and make the bread. But if you are not going to allow us to have a piece of that bread that we make, automatically, we are going to be hungry and eventually we gonna look at bread so much, in our hunger, that we end up taking it. And we dont just take the least, we take the most because we have a family to feed as well.

So give me what I want, then you won’t have to suffer the pain of knowing what I will do, when I do it, that I do best – taking what rightfully belongs to me. I learned it from you, the rich man. Where you have taken mine, and you have not brought it back. Limitedlessly, as Symphony Way, we have built up the courage, the strength, and the power, to take back what rightfully belongs to us.

This has really been the pain that has been bottled up and needs to be exposed. Its so traumatic, words are not enough to express it. Its a sad South Africa.

Sharing is necessary. It is because we have watched ourselves being robbed broad daylight in front of our eyes, that we have had enough.

Conway (in action with) Payn (on Symphony Way)

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* Written by the Symphony Way pavement dwellers, 'No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way' is published by Pambazuka Press.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.