Aunty Betty Visser turned 100 today. I salute Aunty Betty, who, in the dark days of Apartheid, stood firm and defeated those who wanted to take away her land.
South Africa has a history of white people taking prime land away from people of colour. Early history is about this being done at the barrel-end of a gun. Later this was enacted by law before being enforced by the gun. The Apartheid Authorities designed a system to gain control of prime land by declaring land "white". This would mean that the land owners of colour could only sell their land to white people.
Aunty Betty had legal papers served on her, informing her that she, as a person of colour, now lived in land that was designated "white". She was therefore obliged to sell her land to a white person. There and then she resolved never to submit to this law. And she never did. She outlived this evil law - and saw it scrapped from the statute book.
She owns her home - and is free to sell/donate/bequeath it to whoever she pleases.
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1 comment:
We recently returned from a holiday in Namibia, where one of my wife's relatives fought such a battle in the courts for more than 15 years, and won twice. First she fought in the courts of the the German colonial government, which wanted to give her land to the South West Africa Company. Then shen the SA government took over in 1915 the company tried again, and she won again.
It had a sad ending, though. She lost it when she stood surety for her no-good son in law.
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