Street vendors’ protest sparking a revolution

Posted on January 27, 2012  /  Comments Off

By Stanley Kwenda

There are some unlikely comparisons between the work lives of Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller who sparked the Arab revolution, and Francis Tachirev, a fruit seller in Zimbabwe.

The protests that started it all began after Bouazizi burnt himself after the police confiscated his fruit-vending cart. Nationwide protests after Bouaziz’s death led to Tunisia’s former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fleeing the country and giving up power. Bouaziz’s dramatic death changed the world, starting what is now referred to as the Arab Spring.

Like Bouazizi did, Tichareva earns a modest living pushing his fruit cart along Harare’s central business district, selling his wares. And like Bouazizi too, Tichareva lives in fear of the local police confiscating his goods, especially now that the Zimbabwean Police and the Harare City Council have launched a campaign to drive illegal vendors out of the city.

The police and council officials move around the city in trucks arresting vendors who sell goods without a licence and confiscating their merchandise. The raids are often violent as the vendors have now organised themselves and are fighting back. On 11 January the Harare city centre came to a standstill as the police and vendors fought, with vendors throwing stones at the police.

University of Zimbabwe political lecturer Eldred Masunungure, who studies political and social trends, said that although it is unheard of in Zimbabwe to fight with the police, the fact that civilians are starting to do so is a sign of the times.

Many of the vendors, like Tichareva, cannot afford to pay 125 dollars a month in licence fees for a legal permit to sell fruit in the city. Tichareva said that he only makes, at most, 90 dollars a month.

And like Bouazizi, he is fed up with the police. Bouazizi’s story is one that has not escaped the notice of this street vendor in this Southern African nation.

“I read about Bouazizi, but I will not kill myself. If the police attack me, I will fight back,” said Tichareva, adding, “We work hard but they stretch us too much – what do they want us to do?”

Many other vendors share Tichareva’s sentiments. Several women and men continue to swarm the walkways in central Harare selling all types of merchandise in defiance of the police clampdown.

The police have, however, vowed to step up the arrests until the city is organised. Harare councillor and chairman of the Elected Councillors Association of Zimbabwe, Warship Dumba, said the arrests are necessary to maintain order in the city.

“They must operate from designated areas,” said Dumba of the vendors.

Dumba’s comments come at a time when 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s people of a working age are unemployed, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Most of the vendors used to work in industries that have since closed due to the country’s long-running economic crisis.

But Dumba still maintains that street vendors need licences to operate in the city.

“We can’t let people cause total confusion in the city centre just because there is too much unemployment in the country. We cannot allow people to just sell their things anywhere. We are worried about health and hygiene issues.”

Bouazizi may be long gone but his fight to earn a decent living remains a common one for the poor and marginalised in Africa. © Inter Press Service / www.streetnewsservice.org