Cape Town’s District Six was badly damaged many years ago, why it is still so important today – Martin Prout

source: University of Cape Town

“The symbolism of District 6 is absolutely powerful”

February 11, 2021 | story Carla Bernardo. photo Love Maduna.

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February 11, 2021 marks the 55th anniversary of District Six being declared a whites-only area under apartheid’s Apartheid Areas Act. Once a vibrant melting pot, Cape Town’s city centre lay desolate under apartheid.

In memory of those forcibly expelled from the region, UCT News spoke with Emeritus Professor Crain Soudien, Humanities Research Council and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he currently serves as College of Education.

His works include The Struggle for District Six: Then and Nowwho co-authored the article with University of Cape Town Associate Professor Shamil Jeppie and the Hands Off District Six committee, Cape Radicals: The Society for the Study of Intellectual and Political Thought in the New Era, 1930s-1960samong which are famous former residents such as Cissie Gool and Abdullah Abdurahman.

Professor Sudden also has a deep historical connection to District 6. He was a teacher at Harold Cressy High School from 1980 to 1987, and in 1998 he became a “Cressy” parent.

Sudeen recalls that in the “dying days of District Six,” the Blumhof Apartments were still inhabited by District Six residents, many of whose children went to Harold Cressey School. Some of the houses still stand, and Sudeen, as a teacher, ran a photography association and would take students to document the demolition process.

He also made a significant contribution to the political and civic activities in the area. Together with Dr Elaine Clarke and Dr Anwah Nagia, he established a number of organisations on the site of Ward Six and co-founded the Salt River, Woodstock, Walmer Estate Residents Association, which had Ward Six as its constituency.

Their positive actions include frequent Home visits (Home Visits) Worked on Pontuck, Chapel and Francis Streets, fighting landlords who had evicted families who had lived there for generations. This led to important battles and sometimes victories, such as Francis Street residents being able to remain in their homes.

They also successfully fought the City Council, which wanted to demolish the Trafalgar Swimming Pool (which gave rise to the Trafalgar Swimming Club), and they fought to save the Silvertree Creche building and preserve Zonnebloem College. They prevailed against the national government, which wanted to house so-called House Cabinet Ministers (“coloured ministers”) in the district’s ministerial residences, and won the battle against private developers coming in to redevelop the area. Their activism also led to the creation of the District Six Museum Foundation, which Soudien co-founded with Clarke and Nagia in 1991.

Karla Bernardo (CB): What contributions has the Region Six community made to South Africa?

Crain Soudien (CS): District Six is ​​the centre of Cape Town’s and South Africa’s cultural, sporting, educational, political and social history. Some of the country’s oldest sports clubs have their origins here: tennis, football and rugby clubs (as well as) young men’s clubs were all founded in District Six. The first public tennis courts for coloured people were also established here.

Politically, the area is hugely influential. All of the city’s major political resistance groups can trace their roots to District Six, starting with the African People’s Organisation (1901), led by legendary Capetonian Abdullah Abdurahman; the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (1915), led by Clements Kadalie; and then the Movement for Non-European Unity (1944), led by prominent Capetonian intellectuals Goolam Gool, Isaac Tabata and Ben Kies. Equally unusual is that the South West Africa People’s Organisation had its roots in District Six before it was formally established in Windhoek in 1960. Its founder, Toivo ya Toivo, had worked in Cape Town in the 1950s.

District Six gave birth to cultural societies such as the Eoan Group, which performed the first South African production of La Traviata in the 1930s. Trafalgar High School and Harold Cressy High School are now somewhat eclipsed, but legendary. In its heyday, Harold Cressy High School was one of the strongest schools in the country. Despite its material disadvantages, its teachers were intellectuals who had been trained in the informal studios of District Six. Due to apartheid, they lost the opportunity to share their talents with Greater Cape Town and South Africa. They were not recognized by the University of Cape Town, but instead established their own progressive education movement outside the University of Cape Town in the form of the New Age Fellowship, which was established in Stakesby-Lewis Hall in 1939.

CB: Why did the apartheid government target District Six?

CS: Evictions are not just happening in District 6, the whole country is facing them. Every town has its own tragic story of evictions. District 6 stands out because it is a prime location in the city centre and has an iconic place in South African history as a refuge and community for many South Africans from different backgrounds.

Many immigrants initially came to the city, seeking help and support. These included people like Clements Kadalie from Nyasaland; many white working-class British families; many families from all over the world – the Caribbean, the Philippines, the Asian subcontinent, the Ottoman Empire; and desperate people escaping the Holocaust in places like Lithuania. District Six was a real melting pot. In the 1920s and 1930s, it was home to people from all over the world.

Its history challenges the official narrative refined by colonial and apartheid governments that people are “naturally” different and separate, can be divided into “races” and want to live separate lives. Many of us would argue that it is this that was ultimately most offensive to the apartheid government.

CB: So why don’t they develop this area?

CS: The reason why this place was not built was because the area was called “Salt Land”. It was made into a moral symbol of injustice, even vitality The brutality of the apartheid government at the height of its power could simply come in and rebuild the area. The symbolism of District Six is ​​absolutely powerful. Its power lies in the challenge it poses to formal authority. That challenge remains to this day. No one can come in and simply develop the area. The people of Cape Town have an indescribable hold on the area. It is an unwritten but almost biblical authority – the authority of the people.

CB: Where were those so-called ethnic groups relocated to?

CS: The deportations were part of the spatial planning process of apartheid that began in the 1960s. But before that, colonial authorities had already begun removing Africans, blaming them for the Black Death of 1901, and moving them to Breakwater Prison (which, interestingly enough, is now the campus of the University of Cape Town Business School), Ndabeni, and then Langa in 1927. But those classified as Africans continued to live in District Six, and many, like the people of District Six, integrated into this wonderful community and became District Sixers until the Racial Areas Act and the Population Registration Act of the 1950s forced them to be classified by race.

How people in District Six were divided and divided is a very important story that has yet to be told in its fullness and complexity. It is horrible that people had to – and admittedly some wanted to – accept racial identities that meant little to them and which then meant little to them. The “coloured” identity, for example, stems from experiences of segregation and racialisation. It existed, it emerged in the late 19th century, but over the course of about 50 years it deepened and became a reality. The towns established on the Cape, such as Manenberg, Bontehoul, Heideveld, etc., gradually developed different racial identities due to legal impositions.

CB: On a broader level, what are the impacts of these demolitions?

CS: The impact of evictions has not been adequately described and accounted for. Dumping people in extremely under-resourced areas, far from job opportunities and workplaces, has produced the South African township experience across the country. This experience has contributed in large part to many of the profound social challenges we must face today, the most distressing of which are crime and anti-social behaviour.

People were forced to make a living for themselves in creative and innovative ways. Many of these ways continue to sustain people and have positive impacts, such as the continuation and replication of District 6’s original support structures, religious organizations, cultural clubs, sports organizations, etc. However, many of District 6’s original practices, such as gang culture, have become dark and impenetrable alternative power networks that thrive on people’s material poverty.

CB: How do you think demolitions affect former residents, their families, and even their descendants?

CS: Yes, trauma does get passed down from generation to generation in ways that are yet to be understood. This is evident in the persistent suspicion of institutions of authority such as the police, the courts, and even schools. Social mobility is extremely difficult in such communities. This is not only because of the lack of role models for people who have escaped the cycle of disadvantage that is reproduced in the town, but also because of the cultivation of an alternative normative order driven by short-term gratification.

Living in the moment is a difficult mentality to combat. It undermines people’s ability to exercise self-control and care for others. It is, in the final analysis, another ugly and predatory form of capitalism. There are no strong and active social traditions to help people see their lives in a broader and longer-term perspective. Religious organizations are important as a counterweight to this culture of the moment, unless, of course, they themselves become venues for instant gratification.

CB: Finally, is District Six still relevant in South Africa? What else can we learn from its past, present and future?

CS: People like me who are involved in the District Six narrative are not happy about the specialisation of District Six’s story. We do not want to see District Six’s story prioritised over the experiences of any other community in South Africa. The full picture of what happened during the forced relocations needs to be told and seen by all South Africans. The trauma suffered by communities never heard of in small towns like the Karoo or Eden in rural Limpopo needs to be known by all.

This is essential to understanding what it means to be a nation. We need to accept and embrace all the pain of our people. We need to know how they survived, and more specifically, how they were able to maintain their dignity and give their children a sense of what they seemed to have no chance of. We know a lot about District Six, but now we need to know what’s happening in every other village, town, and city as well.