SOUTH AFRICA: In the first of a series of articles marking 10 years of freedom in South Africa, Declan Walsh reports from Cape Town on the reconstruction of the city's District Six.
It was one of apartheid's most notorious travesties, for its symbolism as much as its scale. A quarter century ago bulldozers levelled District Six, a vibrant Cape Town quarter whose multi-racial composition offended South Africa's white rulers. Houses were levelled, streets destroyed and an entire community ejected to squalid townships on the distant Cape Flats.
Today the bulldozers are back in District Six but this time they are building, not destroying. A decade after apartheid, a line of new houses is rising in an ambitious attempt to repair injustice and, just maybe, rekindle a broken community.
Last month Nelson Mandela handed the key of a new townhouse to 82-year-old Dan Ndzabela, who was evicted from Wicht Street in 1959 after it was declared "whites only".
"It is good to be going back," he said as plumbers installed pipes in the still-bare kitchen. "It allows me to forget the past, and think of the future."
District Six symbolised the vibrant diversity so hated by apartheid's racist rulers. Pinned between majestic Table Mountain and the bustling city port, its narrow cobblestone streets housed Africans, coloureds and thousands of immigrants.
Creed and colour existed side by side. Indian Muslims lived by Latvian Jews, churches stood near synagogues, prostitutes rubbed shoulders with priests.
It was the sort of heady fusion despised by apartheid ruler P.W. Botha, so in 1966 he listed District Six under the Group Areas Act and sent the bulldozers in.
Some 66,000 people were evicted over the following 15 years.
By the time the last family left in 1981, only memories remained.
"It was a heinous act of greed. Some call it cultural genocide," said Stanley Abrahams, a former resident sitting on a bench marked "Europeans Only" in the District Six commemorative museum.
A whites-only technical college was built on the site although international protests scuppered plans for a business park. About 40 hectares were undeveloped. Now, thanks to South Africa's land reform programme, the weed-strewn land has finally been handed back to its original residents.
A trust fund hopes to entice 1,600 families back to the land over the next three years. To kick-start the project 24 houses are being built, one of which was handed to Mr Ndzabela. In its heyday District Six was poor but buzzed with vitality, he said. "We were like one family".
The Xhosa man worked as a messenger in a garage - one of the best jobs he could get under strict race control laws.
Still, not all whites were the same, he said. A group of women, known as the Black Sash, protested against apartheid outside Cape Town cathedral. But the Afrikaner farmers from rural Stellenbosch were pure racists, he said. "They would call you a Khaffir."
One day Mr Ndzabela got a "love letter" - a bitterly ironic nickname for an eviction order - and was despatched to Guguletu, a windy township 25 kilometres away. His family swapped a brick house for a rickety shack. "The government of that time did not take us as human beings."
Since 1994 conditions have improved in parts of the Cape Flats. The ANC government has tarmacked roads and provided water and electricity. So Mr Ndzabela could have taken a cash payoff and stayed with his community. But he was adamant about returning. "I want my grandchildren to know how we suffered," he said.
Resurrecting District Six is an ambitious task, the organisers admit. Many former residents have chosen cash over land. Those who do return are forbidden from selling for 15 years, to prevent hawkish property developers swooping on some of Africa's priciest real estate.
"There's no way we can recreate the district," said Mr Abrahams. "But at least there's an opportunity for people to come back and reclaim their dignity."
For some it is already too late. Several former residents have died while waiting for the lengthy land claim to be processed.
Survivors like Abduraghman Cassiem, a frail 95-year-old, are already changing their minds.
"We've been here 24 years. How will I move all this furniture?" he said at his home in Mitchell's Plains. "If I move back there will be a lot of people who don't know me. I'm more or less sure I don't want to go."
Others are sending the younger generation in their place. Richard Abrahms (55), recently returned from England with his Irish wife, Helena, to claim a house for his family. His father, Vern, who used to front a brass band, is dead and his mother is too sick to return.
Mr Abrahms says he doesn't know if a sense of community can be recreated, "but at least it gives us a sense of belonging", he said.
As her husband struggles to find a job amid 40 per cent unemployment, Mrs Abrahms, originally from Co Galway, sells handmade greeting cards at local craft fairs.
When they move in, hopefully next month, she will push for a small community hall like ones dotted around Ireland.
"I think it would be fabulous for getting people together," she said. As soon as the builders are finished, Mr Ndzabela will be joining them.
The front windows of his new townhouse face onto the Atlantic, where Nelson Mandela was jailed on Robben Island. "When I look to the sea I think of Mandela. He was jailed there for our freedom," he said.
"From the back I can see Table Mountain. Then I know I am back in Cape Town, and I am happy."