Street traders involved in a high court case with members of two Durban mosques claim the worshippers themselves are often guilty of impairing the dignity of the places of worship
Paul Kirk
Worshippers at the largest mosque in the southern hemisphere have been accused of using prayer meetings as convenient opportunities to settle old scores and fight with rivals.
The accusation, emanating last week from a group of street traders, was made in a Durban High Court case where traders and worshippers are fighting for control of the pavements outside the Grey and West street mosques.
In February the court granted a temporary order stating that unless the street traders who sell their goods outside the two mosques show good cause why an order should not be granted, they would be banned from operating within 20m of any of the entrances to either mosque.
The order was granted after a worshipper at the Grey Street mosque, Mohamed Seedat, convinced the court that the members of congregation were being deprived of their right to a dignified and exalted atmosphere while worshipping by hawkers who had set up shop outside the entrance to the mosque.
Seedat claimed that he and fellow worshippers had to fight their way into the mosque past throngs of street traders and pedestrians who were impairing the dignity of his place of worship.
The hawkers in their opposing affidavits claim that the worshippers themselves do not behave in a manner that is in any way dignified.
In her affidavit the second respondent in the matter, street trader and mother of eight Dudu Nhlanzi, states under oath: “It is not uncommon for fights, arguments and scuffles to occur within the precincts of especially the Grey Street mosque. I believe that there are a number of factions in the congregation who use the opportunity of the prayer meetings to settle old scores.”
The affidavit was handed into court last week as 26 hawkers got together and, with the help of the Legal Resources Centre and former Durban city councillor Chris Edmunds, opposed the motion.
Court papers lodged by the hawkers show that the 26 street traders affected by the 20m ban collectively support 215 dependants on an average income of between R100 and R150 a week.
The 26 applicants paint a picture of what it is like to be a street trader. Nhlanzi states: “When we set out to earn a living, we made an election: the choice being crime or street trading. It is obvious which we chose. We possess a minimal standard of education; no marketable skills to speak of and no financial resources.
“However, even if we had a decent education, having regard to the critical unemployment situation in the republic, our prospects of obtaining jobs is remote. We do not relish street trading. It is hell and we hate it. We engage in it only because it keeps us from falling too far below the breadline.”
Nhlanzi claims that if she is banned from selling her goods on the pavement she – and her colleagues – will not be able to support their children or put food on the table. A ban on trading outside the mosque will, the traders claim, be a violation of their constitutional right to life and to earn a livelihood.
In Durban, street traders are strictly controlled by the Durban City Council and all 26 concerned traders conduct business on sites granted them by the council. If they are removed from their sites near the mosques it will be a matter of some time before they can obtain another spot to trade from as every site in Durban is spoken for.
In their fight to keep trading the group have enlisted the aid of a strange ally – the Durban Local History Museum.
The earliest photographs in the museum of the Grey Street Mosque show the area outside was bustling with rickshaws and street traders almost 100 years ago.
Nhlanzi uses this photograph to make a claim that the mosque has never enjoyed a dignified or decorous atmosphere.
The photograph also shows a mosque that is very different from that of today. The present-day mosque is surrounded by shops and flats that were built in the 1920s and let out by the trustees of the mosque.
According to the affidavit of the traders these buildings that surround the old mosque isolate worshippers from any noise made by hawkers.
The traders claim that any inconvenience experienced by worshippers is experienced only as they leave prayer sessions and that any inconvenience they encounter is merely the unavoidable hustle and bustle of city life.
Nhlanzi ends off on an emotive note when arguing for her right to earn a livelihood: “Demanding decorum, propriety, solemnity, and an exalted and dignified atmosphere while proceeding to and from prayer is not something which enters our minds as we fight to keep the wolves from the door. We pray on the streets, in the midst of the throngs, for God to deliver us and our little ones from penury.”