We Want What's Ours

Bernadette Atuahene's We Want What's Oursis a powerful discussion of the impacts - economic, physical, and emotional - that Apartheid-era property dispossessions have had on South Africa's non-white urban dwellers. During that era, government-supported projects proceeded in areas occupied by non-whites with only the most minimal regard for the belongings of the local occupants. Atuahene uses extensive interview material to illuminate the still-raw sensibilities raised by past instances of property loss, as well as the difficulties that post-Apartheid South Africa has had in attempting to provide reparation. Carol M. Rose, Lohse Professor of Water and Natural Resource Law, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law; Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor Emeritus, Yale Law School This book contains a detailed description of the steps taken in post-Apartheid South Africa to remedy past deprivations of land by racist colonial and Apartheid regimes. It emphasizes that much more than financial loss is involved. Land deprivation includes also the taking of the dignity of the former owners. If there are to be meaningful reparations, a programme designed to help restore that lost dignity is essential. The author has conducted impressive research and many moving interviews with victims of land deprivation. This book is essential reading for all interested in restorative justice. Richard Goldstone, former Justice of the South African Constitutional Court Professor Atuahene's book brings a fresh perspective to analysis of South Africa's land restitution programme. For her analytical framework, she focuses on the right of every person to human dignity. She examines how this was impacted by racial land dispossession under colonialism and apartheid. She then asks whether dignity has been restored through the remedies afforded under the Constitution. The focus of her research is also novel. She concentrates on urban rather than rural racial dispossession. In assessing the impact of the remedies afforded, she provides the results of her ground-breaking research on how claimants' have used and benefitted, in particular, from financial compensation awards. Alan Dodson, former Judge of the South African Land Claims Court