South Africa’s townships as tourist attractions | tagesschau.de

Hundreds of thousands of tourists in South Africa don’t just visit Table Mountain and Kruger National Park: they also go to the slums. Very few people find this voyeuristic – especially not the township residents.

One of the highlights of the tour through Imizamo Yethu is the illegal garbage dump next to the tin shacks. Visitors to the slums become quiet and stand awkwardly next to the garbage. There is no garbage collection in the township of the municipality of Hout Bay, southwest of Cape Town – although there should be, because the tin shack settlement is not illegal. There is plastic garbage, rotting food scraps, human excrement. The shacks of the township residents are less than ten meters away. Small children also play here, and diseases spread.

The tour is a circuit for tourists – wealthy people who mostly come from Europe or North America, sometimes from Asian countries. People who have enough money to afford a flight to South Africa and go on holiday there. People who not only have day trips like the iconic Table Mountain or the enchanting wine country, who not only want to see wild animals in the parks, but also the Imizamo Yethu garbage dump.

Is that voyeurism? Staring at a bit of misery and then feeling a little guilty that you’re better off, but at the same time being happy that you don’t have that fate? Critics of these tours have coined the term “poverty pornography.”

“I have nothing to hide, that’s my life,” says township resident Andile Mbadeni, who is occasionally employed as a security guard by a security company. “If one of the tourists tells me how I can improve my life, then I’m happy to do so.”

“I thought I knew what poverty meant”

For most tourists who book a tour through the slums, the motivation is actually genuine interest: the desire not only to relax on vacation, but also to learn something about the lives of the people in the country. The poverty tour as an educational trip.

Tom Kotecki from Poland is one such tourist who wants to learn more about the culture and history of South Africa, just as he has done in other countries. He is shocked by the harsh reality in South African townships. “I thought I knew what poverty meant. But this is even worse,” he says. “How different life can be all over the world.”

His friend Ted Kaminski adds: “I think every form of tourism is voyeuristic. But I also believe that such tours are necessary. Someone like me – or everyone else in our group – would never have had the opportunity to see this otherwise. This way we get a little insight.” The four-hour tour costs around 40 euros.

Most of the tour guides live in the townships themselves. They know the areas where it could be dangerous and avoid going there. Drug gangs rule the townships of Cape Town.

Source of income for township residents

The tour guides don’t believe that you automatically become a voyeur if you book such a tour. Sakhe Goniwe, for example, who guides tourists through the misery in the township of Langa. “I take my guests to the corner where I live myself. To ‘the other Cape Town’,” he says. “This is where the people who work in the hotels and restaurants in the city center live.”

Nobody here believes that poverty tourism is voyeuristic. “We don’t want to treat these communities as if this were an experience in the Kruger National Park,” says his boss, tour operator Khonwe Tuswa. “That’s why we use local tour guides. Many people who live in these communities work in the tourism and hotel industry. The difference is that on our tours you don’t meet these people in a restaurant or a hotel in the center, but where they live.”

Tourism also brings money into the townships: not only the tour guides earn money, but also the souvenir sellers. Many of the products offered here have been produced in community-based projects. “Today we have vendors who hold cooking shows and cook traditional African dishes,” says Khonwe Tuswa. “We have families who host volunteers and exchange students in their homes. On Sundays we organize gospel tours.” In the townships of Cape Town alone, over 300,000 tourists take advantage of these offers every year.

You can see these and other reports in Weltspiegel – on Sunday, June 16th from 6:30 p.m. on Das Erste.