12 March 2015

Questions and Answers to the Gauteng Provincial Department of Human Settlements

1. What is your understanding/interpretation/definition of security of tenure?

The history of colonialism and apartheid is a history of the dispossession of black people from land – rural and urban. It is a history of the containment of African people in the Bantustans and the exclusion of all black people from a full and equal place in the cities. We never thought that after apartheid impoverished black people would continue to face eviction, often violent, from private land owners and the state.

Before colonialism we never used papers and money for access to land. There is a long history of urban land occupations as a way for black people to access urban land and city life. This has continued after apartheid. We do not believe that we need papers and money to justify access to land. If unused land or buildings are occupied for social purposes, and not for private profit, then this must be recognised as land reform or urban reform from below. For us an important part of security of tenure would be the political recognition of the importance of land occupations, and the occupation of unused buildings, from the ruling party and the state.

However because we live in a world of money and papers political support for land occupations needs to be translated into legal support. Individual tenure is better than the risk of eviction but it always leads to the middle class using their access to money and credit to take over land occupied by poor people. Therefore we prefer collective tenure and the democratic self-management of land. Continue reading →