This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the Constitution as well as the beginning of the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In social and cultural terms that is a generation. And while the past is another country, the tentacles of slavery, colonialism and apartheid still lurk in the structures of our society: ubiquitous and unrelenting in their reach.

We have much to celebrate. Perhaps too often we forget the precipice we were on. In the late 1900’s we were unsure of what the future held. The guardrails of the Cold War had been removed and Fukyama had announced the end of history. There was loud cheering for the victory of democracy and capitalism.

Yet the intervening years have shown that the promise and optimism of the earlier time have faded into a dream that some might argue has turned into a nightmare. The TRC, heralded around the world, ended with many loose ends waiting to be picked up, but which remain subject to the vagaries of political will.

Perhaps reconciliation was more difficult than we thought it would be: requiring will, sacrifice and effort which we as a country found too difficult. Short-term gain, opportunism and corruption have side-tracked us on our journey to reconciliation and ultimately to freedom.

Sustainable, just peace demands that all efforts for reconciliation are driven from the ground: from the victims themselves, and not a set of laws and policies designed by elites and imposed from above. To this end, South Africa has a rich source of information about what reconciliation means to those who were (and are) most affected.

For reconciliation to be deep, meaningful and sustained, reparations is a central component of the process. But it was recognised early on that reparations were about more than monetary payouts. Reparations included acknowledgement and truth-telling, the restoration of dignity, medical and psychosocial support, education and social services, social security and pensions, community rehabilitation programmes, institutional reform and housing.

The latter was identified as a key form of reparations as a basic need, a way to restore dignity and stability and a way to reverse some of the worst ravages of apartheid. Earlier this year, government gazzetted the regulations around provision of housing to some of the victims. The regulations define a narrow category of people who are entitled to compensation: victims identified by the TRC AND who had “a housing related incident or who were assessed by the TRC and recommended for housing assistance will benefit from the reparation” (Section 3 (c)).

The Department will compile the beneficiary list and approve requests made by applicants. This means that the universe of people who can apply for assistance are limited to those who appeared before the TRC and were named victims; and who were recorded as having lost their abode; and who appear on the Department’s list. The regulations also limit the time-frame in which victims or their families have to apply for this relief.

While all developments aimed at advancing reparations are to be welcomed, a number of critical and unresolved questions remain—questions that go to the legitimacy and effectiveness of the process.

First, there is a lack of clarity around how these regulations were developed. What processes informed their drafting? Were victims of apartheid-era violations meaningfully consulted, or were these regulations formulated primarily within government structures? If reconciliation is to be

rooted in the lived experiences of those most affected, then their participation in shaping such policies is not optional—it is essential.

Second, the process of identifying beneficiaries as contemplated in the regulations, raises serious concerns. What criteria will be used in practice, and how transparent will these processes be? While the regulations rely on those previously identified by the TRC, this approach risks excluding many who suffered harm but were never able to access the Commission and who do not form part of its records. This issue has been repeatedly raised by civil society in relation to the closed list used by government in relation to reparations pay-outs.

The concern is that there are many more victims of apartheid than the TRC was able to reach. As with the pay-outs, this process runs the risk of reaching only a small fraction of people who were (and still are) affected. If this process is to have credibility and legitimacy, victims, community organisations, and civil society groups will need to have a role in verifying or contributing to this process, ensuring that it reflects the broader reality of harm experienced under apartheid.

Finally, there is the question of funding, particularly the management and disbursement of resources from the President’s Fund. How exactly will funds be allocated, and according to what priorities? What safeguards will be put in place to ensure transparency, accountability, and fairness in distribution? Given South Africa’s history of governance challenges, it is reasonable—and necessary—to ask how the State will ensure that these funds reach intended beneficiaries efficiently and without corruption or delay.

Taken together, these uncertainties point to a deeper issue: without clear, participatory, and transparent processes, even well-intentioned reparations risks falling short of their transformative potential.

When the President launched the regulations in KZN, it was reiterated that these are symbolic in nature, recognizing the harm that was done. Given the limited nature of reparations to this point, it is important for us to go further than mere symbols. For meaningful change to be made, meaningful reparations need to be given. A generation into democracy, where the majority of people who were victims of apartheid are the same people who are in poverty, symbolism is not enough. It is not an accident that those without houses, employment, decent education and all the other ills are where they are. By keeping reparations at a symbolic and limited level, we are not going to be able to fundamentally challenge the inequality which persists to this day.

One of the critiques of the TRC has been the way in which it focused on individual incidents and acts of violence, thereby isolating the harm rather than seeing the institutional and structural nature of the system. Apartheid systematically and intentionally dehumanized and degraded black people. The only way to address the iniquities of the past is to do so in a targeted, structural and intentional manner.

Reparations cannot be seen outside of the restorative process and the reconciliation project. It is an integral part of it. Reparations need to contribute to opening access to ownership, wealth redistribution and land reform. They need to be seen in conjunction with other reparative measures to address harm; and this includes psychosocial support and dealing with trauma.

Central to undoing apartheid which controlled land, space and ownership, is to ensure that those whose housing was forcibly removed or destroyed are fairly compensated. Just as central is for the victims to have meaningful redress.

Without this, in the next generation, we will be having the same conversation.