DURBAN – The passing away of struggle legend Ahmed Kathrada has not only led to the earth shaking in the political realm.
It also triggered new energy in the world of local history when it was announced at his Durban memorial that the Sastri College Alumni Association would be involved in the running of Resistance Park in Umbilo Road.
“Uncle Kathy” visited the park last year, only to see it in a miserable condition, the result of vagrants, litter, the stench of human excrement and vandalism.
However, no one involved expects anything to happen in a hurry at the site where the first passive resistance campaign after Mahatma Gandhi left, took place in defiance of the Ghetto Act, in 1946.
“The Alumni Association co-hosted the Passive Resistance memorial last year and we realised it was neglected. We looked at what could be done and we realised that the (eThekwini) Municipality didn’t have the capacity and might need the assistance of a non-governmental organisation,” said Anand Jairath from the association.
“Things are in the pipeline.”
According to Garth Kloppenborg, the municipality’s parks and recreation manager, parts of the monument were incomplete because material such as sandstone and tiles had been difficult to source.
The scale of different parties’ involvement in the park had yet to be worked out, he said.
He also said the perception that the park was still being invaded by unsavoury elements was perhaps exaggerated.
“Companies around there offer casual work so there are actually often people waiting around, hoping to get work.”
Acting horticulturist for the area, Jenny Rampersad, added that vagrants in the park were usually co-operative when asked to pick up litter.
One odd obstacle was a roofless ruin, built as a toilet in the 1990s, that was a big attraction to vagrants but could not be demolished because the area had been declared a heritage site.
A source at Amafa Heritage KZN said eThekwini Municipality had only recently applied to be allowed to pull it down.
Municipal historian Steve Kotze said Remembrance Park was part of the inner city’s liberation heritage route, launched two years ago.
He said the idea was to have a map displayed at each of the 30 sites, showing where the others were so people could walk from one to the next.
The park, in Umbilo Road where it meets Magwaza Maphalala (Gale) Street, was where the leaders of the Natal Indian Congresses, Dr Monty Naicker and Dr Yusuf Dadoo, launched the Passive Resistance Campaign against the Ghetto Act of 1946, which restricted Indian ownership of property.
It was opened by Mandela in 2002, and one of the stones at the entrance to the memorial was laid by him in 2001 and another by former president Thabo Mbeki and the former prime minister of India, Manmoham Singh, in 2006.
This week, when The Independent on Saturday visited the park, a handful of people were hanging around, grass inside the memorial had been cut and the fence, which a couple of years ago had been reported damaged, was painted and in good condition.
Heather Rorick, who chairs the local Bulwer Community Safety Forum, said the volume of complaints about the park had died down considerably.
“I haven’t seen many lately. I think the SA Police Service and the Metro Police have come to the party. I hope they keep it up.”