Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za
3-minute read | 27 November 2025

The construction site in Prestwich Street, where human remains were found. 📸Image: Sunday Independent

A powerful new documentary, UnRest, has reignited national debate over dignity, justice and the long-buried wounds of slavery in Cape Town. The film, led by Professor Siona O’Connell, examines the Prestwich Street burial ground and the centuries-long fight to treat enslaved and displaced people with the humanity they were denied in life.

Urgent calls for accountability and ethical remembrance follow distressing discoveries: human remains believed to be slaves brought from Indonesia, Sumatra, South India, Mozambique and Angola were unearthed during construction projects in Green Point. Many of these individuals, Professor O’Connell notes, “were hardly acknowledged not acknowledged at all as human beings,” their bodies discarded in mass pits without dignity.

The documentary traces how these remains were uncovered again in 2003 during excavation for the Rockwell Building, exposing not only bones but funerary objects carefully placed according to cultural ritual. “This wasn’t a haphazard piling together of bones,” she explains. “It was careful, measured and deliberate.”

Yet the 90-day protection period meant to safeguard the site was ignored. The remains were swiftly removed as development continued an act O’Connell describes as “brutal” and symbolic of wider systemic failures. What followed was “a painful and emotional journey across the city,” with the boxes of ancestors moved repeatedly, eventually ending up hidden in a school storeroom beside a coffee shop.

Beyond exposing past injustices, UnRest challenges institutions particularly universities to confront their own complicity. O’Connell argues that academia must shift from a posture of authority to genuine partnership with affected communities. “Universities are culpable,” she asserts. “They hold power over human remains and over people who do not sit within their walls.”

While community committees fought tirelessly for recognition, their voices were often overshadowed by bureaucracy and development interests. The film positions their struggle as a moral imperative: to restore dignity, to honour ancestors, and to assert custodianship over heritage that still shapes identity today.

As South Africa continues reckoning with its layered past, UnRest offers a stark reminder memory is not passive. It demands action, ethical responsibility and a collective commitment to human dignity.

Listen to the full interview on Sabahul Muslim with Moulana Junaid Kharsany and Prfessor Siona O’Connell.