Marianne Merten
‘I want to come back [to District Six]. God spare me,” says 85-year-old Fatima Benting. But she and 1700 other families will have to wait a few more months before their new homes are ready.
The dream of one of the key movers behind the return to District Six, Anwah Nagia, is that the first home should be ready on February 11 2001 35 years to the day the then minister of community development, PW Botha, declared the area a slum to be razed to the ground by bulldozers to make way for a white area.
Nagia, chair of the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust, said the formal handing-over of the land on November 26 was just the start of rebuilding about 3000 housed in the area.
The aim is to involve former residents in the design of the new houses and the neighbourhood layout and to generate jobs for local people with the help of several black town planning and architectural firms.
“People must be returned with dignity,” he said. “We do not believe in low-cost housing. We don’t want to forget the past, but create a unique hybrid of the past and contemporary period.”
The homecoming ceremony, as it was called, marked the end of seven years of frequently difficult negotiations to reclaim the open veld at the foot of Table Mountain.
For more than 30 years the barren stretch was a visible reminder of the forced removal of 60 000 people. From 1966 about 2870 families were dumped in cheap houses on the desolate Cape Flats, far away from jobs, shops and schools. Many residents resisted removals, even as the bulldozers moved in. The last fami-ly Armien and Latiefah Hendricks and their children was moved in mid-1982 to Belhar.
During the 1980s successful hands-off and disinvestment campaigns stopped any develop-ment on the soil of the former vibrant racial, cultural and religious melting pot of Kana-ladorp, as District Six was also known.
Unlike Sophiatown, on which the apartheid government built the white suburb of Triomf (Triumph), dreams of a white high-density residential area bordering the central city bowl failed to materialise. Only the Cape Technikon emerged after education officials acquired half of old District Six for R1. Another 10% of the land is still owned by companies that bought sections as late as 1998.
Over the next six weeks the trust will reconfirm with the 1700 beneficiary families whether they want to return or accept financial compensation of R17 500. Those returning will receive an additional discretionary grant for the construction of new homes. During the same period several meetings are scheduled with former residents to discuss the four or five different development models. Other discussions include a possible five-year ban on reselling the homes as part of the title deeds.
Also ahead lie red tape battles such as rezoning or the formal proclamation of what the apartheid government called Zonnenbloem as District Six and raising funds for the new development.
Emotions over District Six still run high. A recent appeal by the South African Heritage Resources Agency, the former National Monuments Council, to preserve several historic relics like two Victorian wells in any redevelopment has been met with discontent: “Where were they when they razed the history?” asked a former resident of District Six.
Hourie Essop, whose father owned the first panel-beating shop in District Six, can still point out where her house stood along a cobble stone road and where she went to school.
“I want to come back here [even though] life may not be the same again. We grew up under Table Mountain. If I am an old woman I want to look on the mountain again,” she said.
Ismail Buffkins warmly greeted old neighbours and friends he admitted he had not seen for several decades. “It is wonderful to see people I last saw years back. It’s sad the old people are not here. Many of the old people died of heartbreak.” He still remembers how he went to the Moravian Church at Christmas “singing the loudest to get a piece of cake” even though he is Muslim.
Although about 80% of the beneficiary families have opted to return, Mogamat Pietersen and GJ Samsodien are two former residents who will not. Neither knew of the land claim process and the December 1998 deadline for applications.
The elderly men have lived in Valhalla Park on the Cape Flats for more than 20 years, but still vividly remember where their homes 51 Chapel Street and 5 Gowry Street stood.
“A lot of people did not come forward. They didn’t believe it could happen. They have been disappointed so many times,” Nagia said. But unless Parliament passes a new law to extend the claim deadline, there is little that can be done.
Yet politicians seem to have forgotten the long wrangling over the land claim. With just more than a week to go until the municipal poll on December 5, the homecoming ceremony was too good an electioneering opportunity to pass up. All around the area there were posters stating: “The DP and NNP stole your homes. The ANC gives District Six back”, and promises of delivery dominated official speeches.
There is a heavy burden on District Six to fulfil former residents’ expectations. At the same time pressure has been brought to bear that the new District Six becomes a model for the new South Africa. “We will have to continue to work together that this place … must recreate its joy and its laughter and once more become a place of non-racialism,” said President Thabo Mbeki. “District Six must once again show us the way.”