When the state collaborated with the wealthy against indigenous workers, we used to have a name for it. That collaboration was the essence of apartheid. A people who had lived for centuries in an area were forced out, their way of living and their community were uprooted, and the state was proud of what was happening. And this happened across our country.
Today, two separate communities, and their separate but similar struggles, put this collaboration in my mind. The first is the Protea Village community, whom I represented during part of their long struggle to reclaim their ancestral homes. The second is the Bo-Kaap community.
Both were slaves in the Cape of Good Hope. Both became part of our national heritage. Both have had to resist the dark forces of colonialism, apartheid, greed and rampant capitalism.
The Protea Village community will - more than half a century later than is right - be re-established, thanks to our democratic dispensation. The Bo-Kaap community remain threatened with cultural genocide despite it.
Protea Village lay in the area of Bishop’s Court and Kirstenbosch. The community built the Church of the Good Shepherd; many of them lie in its graveyard. In the 1950s the village was declared a white group area and they were forced out.
The Constitution and Restitution of Land Act made it possible for some survivors and descendants of the community to apply for restitution of their land in 1995.
But thanks to some affluent residents of Bishop’s Court who didn’t want those sort of people as neighbours, they only received their land last year, after 22 needless years of struggle. By the time the community triumphed, very few original residents were still alive.
The Bo-Kaap community, conversely, were never removed by law. Even now, it is argued, they are not being removed. But higher property prices, resulting in higher rates, are forcing them out. It is a cruel irony for this community that, unlike so many others, their right to remain in their homes was protected by apartheid (the Bo-Kaap was designated a Malay area under the Group Areas Act).
More recently, an influx of developers and the well-heeled has “art-washed” the area. Some of the area has been rezoned as commercial space. As a result, financial forces are pushing lifelong residents out of the city.
This occurs at the exact same time as national policy is to develop affordable housing to move those previously forced out of the city back in. Yet the state, perversely, stands on the side of the bulldozers and the cranes against the residents. Police use stun grenades to subdue community protest.
There is a distinction to be drawn between the Group Areas Act and the forces of unchecked capitalism. Of course there is. But in this case the results are the same.
A people who have lived as a community for hundreds of years are being forced out against their will. The forces of capital will always claim that they are a natural process, like a lightning strike or a melting icecap. The architects of apartheid also argued that what they were doing was simply upholding the laws of nature. The powerful always claim that their power is the natural way of things.
It is easier to fight when the agents of evil can be identified, when you can point to those responsible and say “You did this”. It is harder when the enemy - capital - is amorphous. Still, the question is really quite simple. Is our society designed to look after people and the communities in which they live, and in which they have always lived, or does it exist to serve those who can afford to buy?
And should the state be on the side of those with money, or on the side of those who need its help and protection? To me the answer is obvious.
Donen SC is an advocate at the Cape Bar and a listed counsel of the International Criminal Court