i attended the Restitution Conference yesterday at the Castle in Cape Town, cos slavery. [And am going back later today for part II]

Which in some ways just feels like a thing i did. Oh i went to this thing and stuff happened and people spoke and it was good.

Excepting that it wasn’t just a thing. It was the first ever Restitution Conference in South Africa. And that something like 21 years after our first free and fair elections. Clearly not something that has been on the priority list.

And yet we were sitting there listening to Mrs Nomonde Calata [the widow of Fort Calata and the first women to testify at the TRC] and her son Lukhanyo, Mr Leon Wessels [the former Human Rights Commissioner] and his daughter Erika, as well as one of South Africa’s most popular women, Advocate Thuli Madonsela and her daughter Wenzile. And a moment of, “Oh wait, maybe this is actually a big deal.”

THE RESTITUTION CONUNDRUM

Restitution must be one of the trickiest concepts we need to deal with as a country. People flock towards Reconciliation – “Hey, let’s all just be friends.” But Restitution demands that something change, and most South Africans are not too eager for that. Maybe let’s rephrase that: Most South Africans who that change might present a cost to are not too eager for that.

In fact, during the question and statement time after the first session we had – a book launch of Sharlene Swartz’s ‘Another Country: Everyday Social Restitution’ – an elder white male stood up and suggested that Reconciliation has to come before Restitution and the Bobblehead pairing of Brett and Val Anderson seemed at imminent risk of having their heads fall off their necks completely.

Or to put it another way: NO! NO! NO!

That’s one of the big problems in South Africa, in that that is the way we have tried to address this.

i stole your bike. 

“Hey, i stole your bike and I just wanted to say I’m really sorry and I’d really dig for us to be friends again.”

“Um, about my bike.”

And before your lips rush to form around the words, “But I didn’t steal any bikes” or your fingers make for those particular keyboard keys, just stop.

Bikes were stolen. And by bikes I mean lives and land and money and opportunities and let’s add the greater things to that in terms of dignity and self-worth and humanity.

It’s important to realise that Restitution is not about “giving back the bike” – we cannot, we cannot replace what was taken… Lukhanyo Calata spoke about an immense hatred he had, particularly for white Afrikaans males and how by going to school with white people and building relationships with them he realised that maybe not all white people were the same as those who were responsible for killing his father. He moved from a place of wanting to kill as many white people as possible to avenge his dad’s death to not being able to condone violence as a means of reaching the necessary ends.

We can’t give Lukhanyo his father back.

Thuli Madonsela spoke about how her father was a common worker and her mom was a domestic worker. She came from a poor background. Then she spoke about how she managed to study and find work and that she now has a house she owns and a car and and and… and then followed with a statement along the lines of:

“The new world has made it up to me, that’s if we think that restitution is only financial.”

But then she asked about the spiritual aspect and how her faith had been challenged or compromised. She asked about the aspects of being dehumanised. And more.

Restitution is vital for South Africa to head towards the hope of one day maybe being the Rainbow Nation we were told we were but discover day by day that we are so far from being. Every Penny Sparrow who emerges, every fresh story of a black family denied a booking at a restaurant “because it is full” only to have their white friends phone and immediately get a booking, every social media spat that descends into name calling tears away a strip of colour from the rainbow until all we are left with is black and white or maybe a number that is probably not 50 of shades of the grey.

But restitution can not be like for like. And so the question to grapple with, once we have everyone on board with the realisation that this has to happen, is what does it look like.

And it cannot wait for reconciliation. Justice taking place and restitution happening will surely automatically lead to reconciliation. Creating a firm and trustworthy foundation for it. As Wenzile Madonsela said, the one thing that is largely missing is trust. When we can start to build that between people of differences, then anything becomes possible.

i’m hoping that’s what day 2 of this Conference is going to hold…

What are your thoughts on Restitution? Getting hold of Sharlen’s book, ‘Another Country: Everyday Social Restitution’ might be a great place to start…