Cape Town Heritage - Transformation of Space in Time

Disfigured Rhodes Statue

As the hype settles with the Rhodes Must Fall Movement after one of their instigating figures, Chumani Maxwele, won the court case against University of Cape Town, momentum grows with Open Stellenbosch; these movements are challenging the monumentality of the reigning status quo at its base structural level. Meanwhile, CPUT formerly known as Cape Technikon once again contemplates a name change.

Cape Town is faced with an intelligentsia revolution intellectualising and challenging the core of its colonial monuments and architecture, which alienates so many people from our collective history.

The removal of Cecil John Rhodes from UCT symbolises the removal of a legacy and a paradigm shift into a new era of consciousness for the university’s black consciousness student movement.

The more recent vandalising of Rhodes Memorial where the statues nose was grinded with an angle grinder, serves to visualize the underlying anger and the direct attack on colonial aesthetics and that which it implies.

UCT & Stellenbosch students in protest

Stellenbosch University followed in UCT’s footsteps with the removal of a plaque honouring Hendrik Verwoerd, a former South African Prime Minister known as the “architect of apartheid”. Open Stellenbosch are also verbalizing and challenging the alienation experienced with an only Afrikaans language curriculum. To the black students it hails of a likelihood to Soweto 76 experience, only they are at Stellenbosch via choice whilst 76 students were forced an Afrikaans curriculum in all public schools.

The circumstances are different, yet the history of sanitised white Afrikaans represents a painful legacy of oppression. As opposed to Afrikaaps, the Creole more relaxed version of the language spoken by the Malays and Khoe-Khoe, with its Germainic root.

Open Stellenbosch are tenaciously carving their space in the once elitist white Afrikaans university and giving the black voice a platform.

Whilst these amazing intellectual revolutionary surges are taking place in our city, CPUT students are like grazing cattle following the head flock at the institution.

CPUT is historically linked to the forced removals from District Six and is built on land from which families were forcibly removed.

It was intended to provide a space of technical education for the “poor whites” that could not get into a university. CPUT was central for the vision of Afrikaner nationalism creating a skilled labour force, which could build roads etc and provide an employment solution for the “poor whites”.

It seems like now; the institution is strategically positioned to execute the vision of the current city administration. Using design students, to beautify, gentrify and liberalize our city. The current student population of this institution are predominantly black, however, they seem to have blinkers to a broader socio-political context within which the institution exists, with very little awareness around the historical forced removals from District Six.

CPUT, in fact built student housing on a previous District Six heritage site, and used loopholes with National and Provincial heritage organisations, they were granted permission from Heritage Western

Cape to build a student residents on the site of the “Cairns of Hanover Street”, for which there was

another vision by the District Six Museum.

Aspeling Street Mosque previously directly opposite St. Marks Church

The student resident was also built in one of the only spaces in Cape Town, where a Mosque and Church co-existed peacefully opposite each other, one of the only reminders of the cosmopolitan community spirit of the Old District Six. This synergy no longer exists.

The land in District Six is highly contested and it is meant to be under national administration, however, there are sometimes cracks in the system, which allows developers to intercede with the permission of local administration. A few months later CPUT then strategically decide to rename the Cape Town campus to District Six campus, to capitalise on the weight of the District Six brand.

What is really troublesome is the apathy and ignorance of their students, who are in no way challenging the institutions ruthless approach to heritage and restitution. Fresh young minds are being moulded to the city’s designs.

Indigenous language lesson at the Castle of Goodhope.

However, a consciousness of a different kind seeks to redress the past via the indigenous Khoe-San movements. A knowledge system not confined to books, or institutional legacy.

The Castle of Good Hope is transformed into a space of cultural learning with weekly Khoekhoegowab language classes, indigenous bow playing and herbal medicine remedies. The previous colonial slave dungeon is now transformed into a space to foster indigenous knowledge production, with the Aba Te group leading this process.

Another interesting dynamic growing in the cityscape is the Tita-ge indigenous market, which takes place at the Old Slave Church, creating the opportunity for indigenous medicines to be sold as well as a platform for artists.

These tiny ripples with necessary support could become waves and contribute to a more inclusive Afro-centric city, which is part of our collective heritage.

Church Square where slaves were sold.

Herbal medicine stand at the Tita-Ge indigenous market.

Statue of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, the centrepiece of Church Square.