The destruction of Kennedy Road: A precursor to Marikana
Kenneth Good on how the temerity of the organised poor was met with a ferocious counter-attack from the state
It was widely believed that the end of apartheid would mean the end of shack or squatter settlements, developmentally, consultatively, not by destruction and coercion. The need was pressing as the country’s new constitution of 1996 recognised. Section 26 declared that ‘everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing’, that ‘the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures…to achieve the progressive realisation of this right’, and that ‘no one may be evicted from their home, or have their home demolished, without an order of court made after considering all relevant circumstance. No legislation may permit arbitrary evictions’. Continue reading