4. Cape Town Journey of Remembrance

After a mammoth journey, which included a (surprise) delayed First Great Western Train and an 11 hour flight, we made it to Cape Town. Stepping off the plane into typical British summer was a surprise, as I wasn't really expecting mist and rain. My first impressions of Cape Town were that it was not too dissimilar from home; a generic European looking place, with greenery and spatterings of Victorian and Georgian looking architecture and even palm trees, just like home; not too much of a shock.

After a hot shower and a quick change of clothes, we met with our guide for the day; a pleasant man with a face which had his life written on it. Our first stop was to be District 6, Cape Town. For those unfamiliar with what happened in District Six, you can read about it here.

It was emotive having a man who had lived through the history explain it to us; the forced removals of black people because they were not white, the total destruction of homes and the eventual return of the land to the people who lived there.

After District Six, we headed for Langa and on the way through, passed through a place named Pinelands.

Pinelands is an area of Cape Town filled with large and stunning houses; sadly it was built on a lie. Originally, Pinelands was intended to be a "garden village" for for the local communities to use, but ,after tonnes of sand was removed and fertile soil imported, Pinelands was turned into a Wisteria Lane of sorts, filled with prosperous white South Africans. The further through Pinelands you go, the closer you get to Langa and with that closeness comes a largely increased presence of razor wire and electric fences intended to keep the black majority and the coloured communities at bay. Even the infrastructure in the vicinity is designed to aid separation; large highways intersect the landscape, isolating the different communities from each other.


On arriving in Langa, we had it explained that once, these areas were run almost as prisons; I can say that as today I saw the guard house on the corner of Langa; a community originally for migrant workers. If you wanted to visit someone in Langa, you had to have a permit. If you wanted to work in the area, you had to have a permit. If you did not have a permit, you could be arrested and someone would have to buy you out. Women, whose partners went to the area to find work often tried to find them and by doing so, also got arrested. They got out when white South Africans went to the (what can I call them but prisons?) prisons and choose a domestic help; once they had completed their time in servitude, they were allowed home, often without finding said husband.

In Langa, we visited a set of dwellings; I call them dwellings rather than houses as they are seriously dilapidated. Originally, they were the dorms in which migrant workers slept, but now are filled with the unemployed and the skint. The first thing that hit me when we went was the smell of chicken cooking on a metal drum, the second, the unmistakable smell of urine. Next came the wave of horror, that I was even there, camera in hand, thinking about taking pictures of it. I took pictures so you can see what I mean and I can tell you I did not feel good about it. We were welcomed into a gentleman's home so that we could look around; I can only assume that as family of our guide, he understood that we needed to see what the legacy of apartheid is in reality; that poverty in this part of the world is suffered mostly by those who are not white. The juxta-position of the beauty of the Pinelands with the dorm buildings is unreal; I struggle to believe that the two can coexist in such close proximity.

Our guide took a few of us to a shebeen; a sort of township bar. All I need to say is look at the photos. I really want to go back one day and have a pint and share the reality, as I sense that these places help to create community, as inns once did in our culture.

After seeing the homes of these people, I imagined I could not feel much more today. After an 11 hour flight and such a culture shock, I thought I might have a bit of a clue about what had happened in South Africa; The Dutch and The British were cruel, over time caused people to fall into abject poverty through enforced racial segregation,broke yup marriages, stole land and generally ruled the roost in a Hitleresque fashion. Cue a visit to the site of the Trojan Horse Massacre. Heard of it? Nor had I.....

15th October 1985

"On this day, a railway delivery truck driven by security force members and South African Transport Services employees drove down Thornton Road. Hidden in wooden crates at the back of the vehicle were Security Force Members, South African Railway Police, South African Police and members of the South African Defence Force. A group of onlookers and protesters who were angry at the Laws of Apartheid prevalent at the time, had gathered at the corner of St. Simon's Road. As anticipated, someone in the crowd threw a stone towards the truck as it passed. The next moment the security force men arose from their hiding place and, without any warning, used automatic shotguns to fire shots into the crowd. People scattered. Michael Miranda, Shaun Magmoed and Jonathan Claasen were gunned down, and died as a result. A further thirteen adults and two children were also injured in the shooting. "

(See here).

The rest of the day was filled with similar tales of police and authority brutality. Rather than write, I will just show you the pictures of what we saw.......

When the day ended we thanked our guide for leading us through the Journey of Remembrance. He thanked us for giving him a day outside the townships. We should have thanked him for everything, as he was a young man once, who gave up dreams of an education and a career for dreams of freedom.