Ryland Fisher
Next year, on 11 February, it will be 55 years since District Six was declared a white group area and, soon afterwards, government officials accompanied by bulldozers and police, began the process of forcibly removing from the area more than 60 000 residents who were not classified white under apartheid.
Homes were demolished by bulldozers almost as soon as the inhabitants were placed on the back of trucks with their belongings and taken to destinations on the Cape Flats where they were housed in smaller, more cramped houses with few amenities and far away from their places of work. The resentment and anger were soon overcome by new feelings of fear as the residents realised that they would now have to deal with a whole new package of scourges, such as gangsterism and drugs, teenage pregnancies, gender-based violence and other evils which flourish in overcrowded, compact spaces.
Many of these new residents of places such as Hanover Park, Manenberg, Heideveld, Langa and Mitchells Plain survived mainly because they had hope that one day they would be able to return to District Six, the place they loved and called home.
I remember going to Gatesville in the early 1980s to visit Naz Ebrahim, one of the women who had resisted removal from District Six until the very end. She told me that she had to give away some of her furniture because it could not fit into her new house.
The government’s plans were to build houses for whites in the repossessed area which they renamed Zonnebloem, but these plans never materialised, in part because of strong community resistance to these plans, led by people such as Ebrahim.
So, over the years and still today, the memory of District Six is kept alive by the barren land that is standing out like a sore thumb close to the Cape Town city centre. By not building on the land, the apartheid government unintentionally helped to keep the area’s memory alive.
On the outskirts of District Six, closer to the city centre, another institution has been helping to keep the area’s memory and history alive since it opened its doors as our country entered its democracy. The District Six Museum has done this without any government support and has done well until being forced to close temporarily – like most of the economy – when the lockdown started in March 2020. Now there are fears that the museum might be forced to close permanently as it struggles to get back on its feet as the economy slowly reopens.
Before the lockdown, the museum was thriving, with thousands of people, local and international, taking advantage of this opportunity to learn about the history of the area. Since the reopening, the museum has struggled to reach anywhere near the pre-lockdown figures.
The museum has started a public campaign in which it is asking people to make donations of any size to help them keep their doors open. They suggest that donations start at R50, the normal prize of entry fee. Donations can be made by EFT to their Standard Bank account 0707 293686, branch code 020 909. The Swift code for foreign donations is SBZ AZA JJ.
My own association with District Six and the District Six Museum stretches over many decades. I was not born in District Six, but I spent a significant part of my youth in the area, visiting family and friends before they were all removed. It was strange, especially in the 1970s, to visit family or friends the one week only to discover the following week that they had been forcibly removed and their house razed to the ground.
I have fond memories of celebrating new year in District Six, waiting in Hanover Street for the klopse troepe, especially the Acha Americans to walk past. I remember, as a little boy, being chased down Hanover Street by the voorloeper of the Achas, dressed in a red devil’s outfit and carrying a fork made of wood. I also have fond memories of sleepovers at friends or family and appreciating being so close to the city centre and also Table Mountain which is a big feature of many of our lives in Cape Town.
In more recent years, my association with District Six has been in support of my parents-in-law who have been desperately trying to move back to the area. For more than 20 years, my father-in-law has been going to meeting after meeting to hear about the progress with regards to the development of the area. Now 85, he fears that he might not be alive by the time he is granted a house in the area where he grew up.
The District Six Museum, and in particular the District Six Homecoming Centre, where they have all their public meetings, have become a huge part of my life over the past few years. I probably visited the venue a couple of times a month before lockdown to attend one of their interesting programmes and I have been honoured to host a number of dialogues at the Homecoming Centre and relate my story to one of their monthly Supper Club meetings where, as usual, one could enjoy the most delicious samosas and koesisters, along with home cooking such as tomato bredie, breyani, curry and denningvleis.
In many ways, the battle to keep the Museum’s doors open, is personal. But it is much more than that.
In a country where we do not always appreciate our history and legacy, the work done by the District Museum takes one greater significance. It is important to keep alive the history of District Six, not only so that we can learn from it, but also to remind us of the stupidity and cruelty of apartheid. “Never and never again”, as Madiba used to say.
I support the campaign to keep the District Six Museum alive and I would encourage everyone I know to do the same. I would also like people in government to hang their heads in shame for not properly supporting such an important initiative. Use it as a learning experience and see how we can replicate this model so that we can keep alive the memory of other similar areas in the country.
(Written especially as a blog for this website on Thursday 10 September 2020)
