The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

especially one who had been a long‐term tenant, needed to submit “a mini‐family history
essay” as part of the “comprehensive background statements” that had to be lodged with
a completed claim form. The Land Claims Commissioner recommended that aspects that
needed to be framed in the biography of forced removal were: “life before ‘forced
removal’”, “life at the time of the Group’s interference” and “life since forced
resettlement”. In addition to any documentary evidence that claimants might have, such
as rental receipts, municipal accounts, clinic cards or certificates of occupation, they were
also advised that the submission of “oral testimony” was also permissible. The Act made
it possible for claimants to submit oral evidence as well as evidence that a court might
regard as hearsay. The claimant’s narrated life history would therefore “place on public
record for the benefit of future generations what actually transpired when the Group
Areas Board intervened in the old way of life”. 172
In a number of cases, biography re‐emerged at later stages of the land claims process,
particularly at the stage of its culmination in the successful handover of houses. In District
Six, the handover of homes to the first two returnees Dan Ndzabela and Ebrahim Murat
occurred in a victorious civic ceremony, which saw the return in narrative terms as a
victory over adversity, and as an opportunity to rebuild community. The handover of
keys by former president Nelson Mandela in February 2004 occurred on a day that
constituted a grand biographic occasion. Ndzabela and Murat told an assembled audience
gathered in the ‘Homecoming Centre’ of their District Six pasts, their subsequent
township lives and their hopes for the future. These narratives were repeated in a
brochure produced by the District Six Museum. The struggle of Ndzabela and Murat to
return was presented as “both a personal and political journey marking the spirit and
dignity of the dispossessed, and their quest to be reunited with the land they lost”.
Mandela presented them with their keys in front of homes adorned with specially
172 ‘Ex‐tenants who were victims of removals under the Group Areas Act have land restitution rights
too!!’ (Office of the Regional Land Claims Commissioner, Western and Northern Cape, 4 June 1996).
252