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By Alex Zanotelli
One of the most important phenomena in the third millennium is undoubtedly that of urbanization, and this emerges from the UNO Habitat -Nairobi report "The Challenge of the Slums", of October 6 2003. Habitat predict that in 2050 of a world population of eight billion, as many as six billion will live in urban agglomerations. By 2015, 23 megalopolises alone will account for 374 million people. But the most disturbing feature of this urbanization phenomenon is the abnormal growth in the number of slum-dwellers, i.e. people who live in bidonvilles, slums, barrios, favelas, shanties etc. In 2001, 924 million people were living in slums, but the Habitat Report says that by 2030 the figure will double to reach two billion. By 2050, the UNO states that there could be three and a half billion slum-dwellers. According to the report, at present 71% of the urban population of Africa live in shantytowns. "We should be ashamed to have these slums in our cities" says the director of Habitat, Anna Tibaijuka from Tanzania. "One of the objectives of the UNO Millennium Summit," Tibaijuka adds, "is to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers by 2020". Unfortunately, we are used to hearing such rarely-kept promises about a situation which gets worse and worse, year after year. Nairobi, the superb capital of Kenya, is one of the most glaring examples. This city, in the very heart of Africa, was built by British colonialists in 1898, and is today one of the most beautiful cities in that continent, with splendid skyscrapers, buildings, and residential areas. Today Nairobi has a population of four million inhabitants (with 17 million forecast by 2025), but three million of them are forced to live in the slums which occupy a mere 5.5% of the total area of the megalopolis. This 5.5% of the land on which the slum-dwellers are forced to live does not belong to them but to the government, which, whenever and however it wishes, can send in the bulldozers to raze the slums and move the poor further out (scores of demolitions took place in the 1990s). What is even more disturbing is that 80% of slum-dwellers do not even own the shanty they live in but have to pay rent. The slum-owners are relatively well-off and make a good living from the rents they collect (which are high compared to the tenants' resources). There are close on 200 slums in Nairobi; some large, like Kibera (with its 700 thousand inhabitants), others relatively small (a few thousand people). Nearly all of them are below the sewage line. In Nairobi you have to go and look for the slums; for the most part they are hidden from the chaste eyes of the tourists below in the valley. Korogocho is one of them, with approximately 120,000 inhabitants forced to live in just over one square kilometre. The shanties are 3x4 metres (about 3 yards by 4 yards) and on average 5-6 people live there. The sewers are open. The only service provided by the Nairobi Council is the supply of drinking water. But the water is often sold off at higher prices by the slum-dwellers themselves. If you work it out, in the end the slum-dwellers pay much more for their water than the rich who use it to fill the swimming pools of their splendid villas (in the space of a few kilometres in Nairobi you go from heaven to hell!). The hygiene situation is even more difficult. In Korogocho it is calculated that there is one toilet for every 30-40 families. Statistically speaking, in the Huruma slum 1000 people share a single toilet. All this leads to fearful violence, with women in particular, as the weakest element in society, paying the highest price: women's bodies become a battlefield where all the violence in the system is unleashed. The health situation is also serious, especially as regards AIDS. I lived in a shanty for twelve years in Korogocho and can tell you first hand the unbelievable health and housing situations the slum-dwellers of Nairobi are compelled to live in. In Europe we treat our cattle better than slum-dwellers in Africa! It is incredible that a billion human beings are forced to live on less than a dollar a day, while every cow in Europe has two dollars a day, every cow in the USA five dollars and every cow in Japan seven dollars a day! The phenomenon of "the slumification of Africa " goes hand in hand with that of the pauperization of the people. The slums of the world have today become the new frontiers of poverty, misery and oppression. This is the fruit of the great injustice which lies at the very core of the System. In this world, the select few have everything they want and it is the millions of starving poor who pay for it all. The slums are a glaring example of the bad world order, or rather disorder. The Church, or the churches have yet to take this new frontier of poverty seriously. Too few people are engaged in the struggle for improving the situation. But hope lies with them, with the slum-dwellers themselves, if they unite and decide to build better places to live in. This is the great political action: slum-dwellers must become aware of their situation, take control of it and join together to achieve their fundamental rights. Nothing will ever come from on high. The only way ahead is for the people to organize and demand their rights. It's a matter of justice.
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