Bulelwa Mabasa tells the story of how her love for land reform and justice is tied to her family and upbringing.
Rooted in the need for the restoration of human rights and equality since the abolishment of apartheid in the country, the conversation about land has to be one of the most divisive topics in South Africa today.
South Africa is still reeling from the effects of an institutionalised system that segregated citizens based on race. But segregation was just a minor portion of the abuse and dehumanisation of black people during that time in South Africa’s history. White people enjoyed privileges at the hands of the National Party, yet the effects of its vile racist system still live on in the country, more than 20 years later.
Since the first democratic elections in 1994, there has been a large focus on trying to create a system of governance that’s not only built on the principles of democracy but that strives for equality as well. In an attempt to level out the economic gap between races, the new dispensation aimed to create opportunities for people considered as previously disadvantaged.
These economic solutions came in the form of tenders and black economic empowerment policies. In more recent years we’ve started hearing conversations about expropriation of land without compensation that has been part of the ANC’s policy since its national conference in 2012.
Bulelwa Mabasa’s memoir My Land Obsession details the story of her life and how her love for land reform was planted as a seed in her childhood. This book tells the many tales of her life that have shaped and paved the way for her to become not only an author on the subject, but an attorney advising on the presidential board looking into land reform.
In this book, Mabasa beautifully narrates how the concept of home was so intrinsic to her memories of her childhood. Her childhood home was filled with family, love, laughter and music, but it was where she began to develop an understanding of aparheid.
The first striking aspect of this book is its cover. Basic but powerful in its symbolism for a book about land. One would expect a cover with an image of farmland or a landscape, however Mabasa chose to show her childhood home. The irony of the matchbox house in Meadowlands as the cover is not lost on me; the home she grew up in — that under the apartheid regime was meant to oppress and exclude her — became the space that laid the foundation for her career as an attorney who specialises in land reform.
Mabasa grew up in Soweto at the peak of the apartheid regime and her grandparents were affected by the the Group Areas Act of 1950 that left them dispossessed. Mabasa’s book humanised the effects that this had on the lives of black people, being forcibly removed from the land their ancestors had occupied and passed down to them and then still needing to pay the government to live on land they’d been moved to because the law stated they couldn’t own land.
The moment that stood out for me was how she relayed the story her grandfather told her about their removal from their home into an area next to a cemetery called Jambulani, which would later become called Meadowlands. Mabasa shares how her grandfather and grandmother, with no warning, had to take her late father and aunt and leave the home they’d built as the Casspirs began the demolition process of their home.
Taking into account the effects that this forcible removal had on her grandparents, I couldn’t help but be critical of how conversations around restitution and justice in South Africa are looked at. For those of us “born free”, we grew up learning about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and what was always striking about it was this notion that in order to receive amnesty one only had to be truthful, no remorse was required. Yet the victims’ families were supposed to receive justice through hearing the details of the horrific manner in which their loved ones were killed.
That for me is why Mabasa’s grandparents’ story is the very example of the long-standing effects of apartheid. It also shows the importance of seeing that land restitution and redistribution does take place, not only as a form of justice but also to correct some of the wrongs that non-white people suffered at the hands of the National Party government.
Apart from the Christian upbringing that she so vibrantly details in her book, a turning point for Mabasa — that inspired her choice to study law at the University of the Witwatersrand — was the unfair treatment she encountered in a predominately white school. Following her tertiary education where she focused on land reform and land justice, she began her career in the early 2000s as a lawyer, before working as a director and the head of the land reform practice at Werksmans Attorneys.
The book also makes mention of, and unpacks, some of the notable cases she worked on within land justice and reform. Another pivotal moment in her career was when she was invited to contribute to the national policy on land reform.
Mabasa recalls the inhumane and degrading experiences her “Tata” faced while working as a mineworker, such as the bodily checks the mineworkers had to undergo while naked to prove they had not stolen any gold. Yet despite this kind of treatment, he was still able to help found the Mzimvubu School, as well as play an active role as a community leader.
Black people like Mabasa’s “Tata”, as she refers to her father in the book, have played pivotal roles in uplifting their communities, regardless of the inhumane treatment they suffered at the hands of a regime that intended to destroy every shed of their dignity.
When Mabasa speaks of the unfair treatment that she experienced while attending a predominantly white school, it reminded me of an instance in my own upbringing where one would be rejected by schools based on the reasoning that we lived out of the area.
What Mabasa manages to do so well throughout her memoir is unpack and illustrate the history around land reform and the need for land justice. Through her own vulnerability with her grandparents experience of apartheid, to encountering unfair treatment at school based on the colour of her skin, My Land Obsession tells the tale of why land is so personal and is a call for social justice.
My Land Obsession is published by Pan MacMillan and is available at selected book stores. The price ranges from R230 to R352.