Here we are in 2018, celebrating 24 years of our democracy, trying to rid ourselves of the apartheid legacies. These are evident in our country, through land ownership that is still in the hands of the minority, apartheid-era street names and other social ills.
One would ask why it is taking so long to deal with these apartheid legacies. Perhaps the answers to these questions can be found within the policies you are pointing at, including the Constitution.
Interestingly, these are the same policies right wing groups like AfriForum are using to contest street name changes and the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s attempt to have the display of the apartheid-era South African flag criminalised. They praise apartheid as a good system and commit other despicable acts aimed at derailing transformation.
Let’s sample the Mala Mala land claim, the largest and the oldest private Big Five game reserve in South Africa. It covers around 130km² or 15 000 hectares. The Tsonga people, who occupied the land before the establishment of the reserve, were forcibly removed from this land during the early 1900s and were dumped in what is now Bushbuckridge.
The Nwandlamhlarhi community successfully claimed the Mala Mala game reserve and the land was restored to them in 2015, at a cost of about R1 billion, a third of the national budget at the time, paid to one white family. How long can we sustain paying such exorbitant prices?
Let’s look at the Tshwane street renaming project. The ANC started it in 2012 in a drive to take down 25 apartheid-era street names and replace them with the names of those who fought for the liberation of the country.
As soon as it started, the project hit a snag with the opposition, including the so-called rational thinkers – the DA and the usual suspects AfriForum – wanting to retain the names of people like Hendrik Verwoerd. As usual, AfriForum approached the high court for a restraining order against transforming these streets by using every law available to them.
Every day when I go to work, the streets I use include Hendrik Verwoerd and John Vorster. Keeping the spirit of Verwoerd alive is an insult to black people, if one considers that he was the chief architect of the apartheid system, particularly the creation of homelands.
Sanity only prevailed four years after legal wrangling started, which cost millions of rands in taxpayers’ money as the city tried its best to justify the decision. Shortly before the local elections in July 2016, the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the City of Tshwane, allowing it to go ahead and remove the 25 street names and replace them.
As a people and sufferers of colonialism, we cannot continue to harbour, nurse and cherish apartheid legacies like the ownership of land – which is currently in the hands of a few – apartheid-era street names and other social ills that are being perpetuated by those who are hellbent on controlling our future.
A change of strategy is needed and the time is now. Otherwise, we will remain conquered.