Today we visited the District 6 museum and were led
around by Joe Schaffers. Our visit was
far more insightful than touring alone because Joe once lived in the District and
provided a profound commentary on the exhibits and history of the area. For me the tour invited me to contemplate my
feelings of belonging and home and how the conditions of my environment have
affected me. Many of the inhabitants of
the area were forced to leave their home for townships such as Ocean View and
Khayelitsha. A homey and vibrant
community was shattered asunder by the government. Families and friendships were dismembered and
civil society links were corroded. Our
home is very important to us and is a salient facet in our makeup. It anchors us throughout our lives and gives
us a sense of meaning. I have fond
memories of my first home. It is where I
learnt to walk and talk and I remember playing football with my friends in the
local park. My home and the area were
safe and I had a lot of freedom. The
environment that I grew up in was organic in the sense that there were no
outside interventions. This is a stark
contrast to the District 6 community who routinely endured interference from
outside forces such as the police. This eventually
culminated in forced removals and the total destruction of the area. Their history and culture was uprooted and a
large part of what makes them was destroyed.
To be seated in an unknown area and be instructed that this is a new
home is to be hurled onto artificial bedrock.
There were no choices given; their future was supposed to germinate in
District 6 but instead it was to be developed on apartheid’s terms in the
townships. Their future was manufactured
to suit the government. I ruminated on
this theme and wondered how I would feel if at a young age I had been plucked
from my home and arbitrarily assigned a new area to live in to suit someone
else’s interests. I believe I would
never align myself to my new living and wouldn’t associate it as home. It is for a foreign convenience that I would
reside there. The new community has no
history or culture and if forever predicated on coercion, mendacity and
victimisation.
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| Joe Schaffers at the District 6 Museum |
Having said this my internship was based in
Khayelitsha (meaning ‘new home’) and I discerned a robust sense of
community. There were multifarious
problems involving education, security and sanitation but there were many
people mobilised to establish a solution and bring change and improvement. All considered I identified zeitgeist in the
history of South Africa removal and restriction. What has been done is terrible but we have to
work together to rectify the situation and in the meantime we will build a
community as strong as District 6 and be forever vigilant of the freedoms gained
from 1994. I would highly recommend a
visit to the District 6 museum, as it is an important lens to view South
African history and cogitate on how one’s sense of belonging has matured.
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