Getting heritage sites out of private hands

RECENTLY the government, supporting and modifying a proposal from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), succeeded in securing the two-thirds majority needed to pave the way for an amendment to the constitution that would enable the state to expropriate land without compensation.

Amending section 25 of the constitution, which deals with property rights, is now in the hands of parliament’s constitutional review committee.

The land question in South Africa remains a thorny issue as black people were subjected to increasing dispossession from colonial through to apartheid times.

A landmark in that process is the Natives Land Act of 1913, written about movingly by Sol Plaatje in his Native Life in South Africa.

Further dispossession came through forced removals by the apartheid regime.

A case in point is the demolition of Sophiatown in 1955, which brutally wrenched urban blacks from their homes.

For black South Africans, colonial and apartheid times were an era of subjugation and dispossession. For the colonialists and the beneficiaries of apartheid, it was a time of political power used in the service of economic advancement.

In post-apartheid South Africa, the government’s efforts to return land to the dispossessed through the “willing buyer, willing seller” arrangement hit an iceberg.

In many instances, landowners, mainly white and mostly farmers, demanded exorbitant figures for land. The result has been frustration for the government, unable to resettle black people at an acceptable pace or at least compensate them adequately.

According to the government, to date only about 10% of commercial land has been restored to the dispossessed since 1994. Thus the state has a mountain to climb with regard to land redistribution.

Its current stance on land expropriation without compensation should come as no surprise.

As a heritage practitioner, this new development has made me think.

In many ways, the heritage sector is faced with similar problems related to land distribution. Some individuals and companies are sitting on valuable heritage assets. Some do not even know the historic value of these possessions until it is pointed out to them.

Upon realising the financial value of their properties, owners of these heritage sites often start thinking in monetary terms. The prospect of selling to the government, with its apparently unlimited resources, beckons.

A case in point is the Waaihoek Methodist Church in Bloemfontein, where the ANC was formed in 1912.

From 2003, the property was used as a panel-beating business, far removed from its previous atmosphere.

Unbeknown to Kevin Jacobs, the owner of this dilapidated place, his was a valuable possession.

Once this came to his attention, he realised he was sitting on a pot of gold.

And so the negotiations began between him and the Free State government, the latter under tremendous pressure to get the historic church ready in time for the ANC centenary celebrations in 2012.

Jacobs saw an opportunity to bargain, and did. He demanded R15-million and was eventually paid R10-million for the building.

The seller must have been well satisfied. But for the government the “willing buyer, willing seller” formula meant another episode of having to dig deep into its dwindling coffers to secure an important and historic building.

The Sanlam Building in Strand Street in Port Elizabeth, the security branch offices during apartheid times, is another notable example.

Activists were often detained, tortured and sometimes killed at the hands of the police in that notorious building.

Lungile Tabalaza and George Botha are examples of struggle activists who drew their last breath in what is now the Sanlam Building.

Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko was detained in this building in 1977 and horribly tortured. Another activist, Siphiwo Mthimkhulu, was tortured and poisoned in the building. He was later assassinated in Cradock in 1982.

In post-apartheid South Africa there is a great need to reconnect the history of the Sanlam Building to the present through the creation of a memorial site.

The sixth floor of the building is of particular interest. This is where the torture of activists took place. Room 601 in particular was where Biko was tortured.

Through the Steve Biko Foundation, the Biko family has been in the forefront of trying to ensure that this site is preserved for the purposes of renewal and spiritual healing. However, the issue of ownership once more came into play.

The Sanlam Building was privately owned by Irish property developer Ken Denton. It would be many years before the building could be restored as a memorial site.

The building was eventually bought by Qhama Social Housing Institute, a private non-profit company, working with the government and specialising in urban renewal and mixed development housing.

In 2016, R86-million was invested into the project with the intention of converting the building into a housing unit for families of former detainees under the auspices of the Steve Biko Munford project.

The sixth floor of the building is to be preserved as a memorial site and room 601 as a prayer room.

Sites such as the Sanlam Building, as with some of the land taken during apartheid and colonial times, have significance surpassing material value.

For instance, relatives of the landless are often buried on land of which they or their ancestors have been dispossessed.

Solemn rituals and other cultural activities are often performed at the gravesides.

In African society, such rituals can be a cornerstone to life, adding significance to existence. This becomes impossible where land has been dispossessed.

Similarly, in the case of the Sanlam Building, rituals may have to be performed by families whose loved ones died in the building, to spiritually reconnect with their late relatives for purposes of healing and spiritual revival.

Some may want to visit the place to pray and ask the Lord to receive the spirit of their loved one.

Some families may want to visit such spaces with the intention of repatriating the spirits of their loved ones to a final resting place, such as Isivivane at Freedom Park.

Preserving such heritage sites is significant for present and future generations to learn about our country’s history of racial oppression.

That said, let me return to the controversial issue of these sites sometimes being in private hands, making them very difficult to secure for the sake of preservation.

Should such sites not be expropriated without compensation, as will now be the case with land?

A statement of this nature does, of course, require heritage practitioners, the government, policy makers and the public to engage.

Closely related is the subject of ownership of the names of struggle heroes, including their final resting places.

In April 2016, the EFF hoped to evoke Solomon Mahlangu’s name at a rally scheduled to take place in Mamelodi.

But the Mahlangu family would have none of it. Solomon, they argued, belonged and belongs to the ANC.

The matter landed up in court. Another case is that of former president Nelson Mandela’s final resting place in Qunu. Recently, an ANC delegation, led by its new president Cyril Ramaphosa, was refused access to Mandela’s place of interment.

The Mandela family members wanted to perform some rituals before allowing the public to visit the site, they asserted.

This begs the question: how far does our freedom as members of the public extend with regard to names and sites pertaining to struggle heroes?

Or to put it differently, where do we draw the line between family and the public on such issues?

An indaba aimed at engaging on the nuances around the issues discussed in this article may be necessary, particularly on that of expropriation without compensation of memorial sites.