Memory and forgetting — the wind whispers a haunting refrain from Cape Town’s past

​​“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.” — Joan Didion

Hours before President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his State of the Nation Address (Sona) on 12 February, a fire was raging on Devil’s Peak; high temperatures, humidity and a raging southeaster do not help the Cape at this time of year.

Amid the excessive security that saw the South African National Defence Force and the police deployed in the oddest of places to smooth the President’s way into the CBD, the plumes of smoke on Philip Kgosana Drive felt a little apocalyptic while cars made their way through the haze.

With flames licking the roadside and helicopters overhead offloading water, a small scene unfolded as two firefighters walked across to each other, exchanging a quick “high five” before heading in separate directions to deal with the disaster.

A few thoughts whirred; despite the inconsiderate disruption of traffic and life which Sona causes, not only on the day it happens but days before, the excess it marks and the irksome deference to power it displays, real life was continuing.

The City of Cape Town firefighters were doing their job and getting on with what they are paid to do — protect us. There’s a lesson in that for our many unserious politicians who are so detached from the firefighters’ world, treating Sona as if it were a fashion parade. (Of course, in this they are egged on by the media, reporting from the “red carpet”. Which media house might be brave enough to ban references to the “red carpet”? Perhaps then we will all be spared the annual garish spectacle of sartorial inelegance.)

But this is also a digression — real life demands that we think more deeply about the context in which we do politics and that we truly see those who keep our country afloat despite it all.

The second whirring thought was about the southeaster wind, which was picking up as the fire raged. Capetonians know this wind far too well — it is the tablecloth over our mountain — the “Cape Doctor” that blows away pollution and haze and brings with it a dry heat.

But it is also a wind which feels “political” somehow, strange as that may sound.

Because a song whispers in the wind: “When the southeaster blows, in a street called Hanover … wherever we go, District Six. When the southeaster blows, we will remember … wherever we go, District Six.”

Forcible relocation

It was on 11 February 1966 that District Six was declared a “whites-only” area, and thousands of people in the district were left to watch their homes being bulldozed. The “coloured” families who were forcibly moved out of the centre of town would be relocated, courtesy of the apartheid government, to what became known as the Cape Flats, places such as Lavender Hill and Bonteheuwel. That single act changed Cape Town’s spatial landscape forever.

It also changed the fundamental fabric of our city. Today, District Six remains a powerful symbol of apartheid displacement, with St Mark’s church standing in the midst of a windswept space where restitution since 1998 has been slow. It also stands as a reminder of the failure of post-apartheid South Africa to deal meaningfully with the past and restore that which has been broken. The barren land tells a story of its own.

Cities are about the people in them and the stories they have to tell. No one told the stories of Cape Town better than those two collaborators and friends, David Kramer and the late Taliep Petersen.

Their collaboration began in 1986 when the ground-breaking District Six: The Musical first played at the Baxter Theatre. That musical went on to become a runaway success, and as petty apartheid started falling, audiences of all races flocked to listen, enjoy and learn. We all owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Kramer and Petersen for creating ways to deal with our collective brokenness through their art.

Petersen died tragically in 2006, his story enmeshed with that of the District and forced removals. It was therefore timely that in January the City of Cape Town awarded its highest civic honour, the Freedom of the City, to Kramer and Petersen (the latter, posthumously). In the citation, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis called them “custodians of the city’s soul”.

He went on to say, “Thanks to you … future generations will know not only what happened here, but how it felt. They will hear our accents, laugh at our jokes, feel our spirit, dance with the ghoema, and rise with the hope of a city that is culturally richer and more whole, because of you…

“Their collaborations did more than simply entertain. They bore witness. They ensured that forced removals were not reduced to footnotes, that vibrant communities were not remembered only in fragments, and that the cultural richness of Cape Town’s people was celebrated rather than marginalised. As we commemorate the 60th anniversary of District Six forced removals this year, we can be grateful that these two icons helped ensure that a place bulldozed from the map would never be erased from memory. Because our humanity endures, joy endures, Cape Town endures.”

This month, the 60th commemoration of those forced removals was also marked at Artscape theatre. Audiences still filled the theatre. Perhaps the story resonates even more these days? Our city’s context may have changed, but its stubborn racial barriers and the legacy of displacement live on in our skewed spatial development and the many ways in which black and coloured families still bear the burden of those forced removals. That burden is intergenerational, and its inequality is structural.

A fraught balance

Cape Town’s development trajectory is controversial, whether it concerns the lack of social housing, the ubiquitous golf estates, yet another place to have a fancy coffee or a fusion small-plate meal, or a new airport near Fisantekraal.

The balance between development, memory and debates about densification, sprawl and gentrification has been fraught. Millions of poor and marginalised people live on the outskirts of Cape Town, often without access to housing or basic amenities or the job opportunities the city may provide. Still others in the middle class feel squeezed by their hometown simply becoming too expensive.

MyCiTi routes are being navigated, and social housing has become the hot-button issue. These policy debates have often been angry, opening up deep wounds at the heart of our post-apartheid society in which so much remains unjust. In many senses we are not unique, as cities around the world grapple with these issues, but, sadly, our ever-increasing levels of inequality and poverty make these conversations and policy decisions more urgent and dealing with them far more difficult.

Of course, Cape Town’s history may be sui generis, but all South African cities face similar challenges of urbanisation, lagging infrastructure and dealing with the remnants of apartheid’s spatial development. Many of our cities and towns are falling apart due to corruption, waste and mismanagement. Johannesburg is a case in point.

Cities have the distinct ability to be agents of real social change. They are places in which to live, love, work, thrive and survive. Great cities accommodate diverse forms of expression through art, music, sport, food, literature and graffiti, to name but a few. They have a comfortable relationship with those who dissent and with a past that might be haunting. They are inherently at peace with themselves and resilient in the face of attack and attempts to divide. They stand for something.

Liveable cities have efficient public transport for the majority of their citizens, they are safe and have a proper housing mix. Liveable cities have a cultural life that is inclusive. And above all, liveable cities have high levels of trust between citizens.

Given South Africa’s past, the levels of trust between its citizens have always been low and, as Afrobarometer research has shown, is now lower still, given the rising levels of inequality, exacerbated by ever-increasing corruption that has broken down much of the social fabric and whatever fragile social cohesion we have had since 1994.

In 2020, the District Six Museum almost faced closure. It survives but needs help. Its “Seven for Seven” initiative aims to do just that. It is tragic that in a country with so much wealth, often displayed with vulgarity, that a museum about a story so intrinsic to Cape Town nearly shut its doors and struggles even today.

One might ask: would we feel truly human in a city without a museum speaking of its not-too-distant past and working with its memory to “rebuild a city which belongs to all of us”?

Milan Kundera said, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” We do need to hold the memory against forgetting and value the spaces which allow us to do so for the current generation and for generations to come. And we need to claim our cities so that all who live in them can not only survive but thrive and be fully human. DM

“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest…”