POLITICS

ANC remembers 50 years since destruction of District Six

Lessons from painful past remind us of responsibility to build non-racial SA country, says ruling party

ANC statement commemorating 50 years since race segregation laws heralded the destruction of District Six

11 February 2016

The African National Congress (ANC) joins South Africans, but the people of Cape Town in particular, in remembering 50 years since the start of the destruction of District Six.

The ANC further notes the bittersweet significance of the date of the 11th of February: a day when in 1990 the late Isithwalandwe/Seaparankoe, Father of our Nation and Icon of our Struggle, Comrade Nelson Mandela walked out of the gates of Victor Verster Prison a free man; but on the same date back in 1966, the architects of apartheid signed the death-knell of one of the few multiracial townships in apartheid South Africa.

Originally established in 1987 in terms of a colonial ordinance, District Six began as a community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants.

Given its close proximity to the city (and sources of employment), over the years it evolved into a township that was one of the few areas in apartheid South Africa where people of all races and cultures could live, meet, socialize and interact. This was a microcosm of a non-racial settlement on our shores.

This blot in our country's history is particularly poignant for the coloured community of Cape Town, who continue to live with the social and economic consequences of the forced removals of the 1960's. Many predominantly coloured suburbs in Cape Town struggle with social problems like gangsterism and drugs; that may be traced back to the collapsing of community structures through the forced removals.

District Six was declared a whites-only area by the National Party government in 1966 in terms of the Group Areas Act of 1950. Over the next decade more than 60 000 blacks and coloureds were forcibly removed from areas in and around Cape Town, including District Six - and 'resettled' in and around the Cape Flats.

The bulldozing of homes and the uprooting of communities to the barren Cape Flats led to a sense of alienation that continues to be felt within many of our communities in Cape Town today. The ANC notes the regrettable phenomenon  that 50 years since the racial rezoning of areas in Cape Town to enforce race and class segregation - a disturbing pattern of segregation continues to be enforced by the City of Cape Town through a network of municipal planning ordinances, by-laws and declarations that have the effect of forcing blacks and coloureds to the margins of the city.

An increase in forced removals in Cape Town, whereby dispossessed and homeless Capetonians are trucked off to so-called relocation camps as part of a bizarre urban planning experiment, is worrying.

As with the former residents of District Six who were forcibly removed, the urban poor bear the brunt of the current forced removals in Cape Town. The newly resettled areas face a number of social problems, including crime, chronic unemployment, substance abuse and violence against women and children.

Following the bulldozing of District Six, a few places of worship were left amidst the rubble: which some authors later described as "monuments to tragedy." The area was left undeveloped until the ANC government came to power in 1994.

Redressing the injustices of the past has been a cornerstone of ANC policy; it is the ANC that has not only supported the rebuilding of District Six, but has recognized the land claims of the former residents.

Championed by the ANC and supported by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust, the process of land restitution as well as access to housing justice has been underway since 1994. This process has also allowed families affected by forced removals from other areas to be accommodated on land earmarked for restitution in District Six.

As we mark this event we do so with sadness, but at the same time acknowledging that these and other lessons from our painful past continue to remind us of our collective responsibility to build a truly united and non-racial South Africa. 

Issued by Zizi Kodwa, National Spokesperson, ANC, 11 February 2016