Go tell it on the mountain

Bulldozers and lorries continue clearing operations in District Six as St Mark's Church stands forlornly in the background. The government plans to build a multi-million rand technikon for whites on the site, but the Anglican church, which owns the building, refuses to budge.

Bulldozers and lorries continue clearing operations in District Six as St Mark's Church stands forlornly in the background. The government plans to build a multi-million rand technikon for whites on the site, but the Anglican church, which owns the building, refuses to budge.

Published Feb 6, 2016

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Forced removals severed psychologically healthy connections with nature, writes Farieda Khan.

Forced removals, forcible relocation, dispossession – call it what you will, South Africa’s history has been besmirched by traumatic events from its beginning as a Dutch revictualling station in 1652.

As early as April 1660, the land between the sea and the foot of Table Mountain was the scene of armed conflict between the settlers and the indigenous people of the Table Bay area, which resulted in their dispossession. Jan van Riebeeck, the then-commander of the Dutch outpost at the Cape, recorded in his journal: “They strongly insisted that we had been appropriating more and more of their land, which had been theirs for all these centuries.”

Centuries later, part of that same “appropriated” land witnessed yet more forced removals in 1901, when Africans living in District Six were singled out. Using the issue of sanitation in the wake of a bubonic plague outbreak as a pretext, African people were evicted and resettled in Uitvlugt (later renamed Ndabeni) on the Cape Flats.

Three centuries after Van Riebeeck’s revealing entry, the land at the foot of Table Mountain was again the scene of forced removals, triggered by the declaration of District Six as an exclusively white residential area on February 11,1966.

District Six was no stranger to the emotional and psychological impact inflicted on people torn from their homes, neighbourhoods and friends and dispersed to distant Cape Flats townships wholly unequipped to receive them.

Read:  District Six stands as a monument to tragedy

Research has shown the economic consequences for the tens of thousands evicted during the 1970s were severe: people were forced to start anew in hastily constructed housing without the basic services they had previously had access to in District Six and surrounding areas, while already impoverished families now had to pay for, or pay extra for, transport to work. The social consequences were equally severe for, while most families were poor and lived in small, crowded houses, the district nevertheless made accessible a vibrant cultural life with numerous public facilities, sports clubs and organisations offering a range of services and leisure pursuits. All this added to the rich social fabric that made up this community. Now, they were expected to start a new life amid strangers in areas largely devoid of the diverse urban amenities which were previously available within walking distance.

Not much, however, has been written about the psychological impact upon people ripped from their position at the foot of Table Mountain, thus severing the close connection many residents had enjoyed with the natural environment on their doorstep. Confined to narrow streets with few, if any, play parks, generations of youngsters had grown up using Table Mountain as their back garden and recreation area. Here they were free to climb trees, walk its trails and splash in fresh streams, while searching for pine cones with ripe kernels and patches of reddish brown sourfigs to eat on the spot.

Some used the mountain as a means of escaping the quarrels and household strife which inevitably accompanied life lived cheek by jowl with extended family members and lodgers – for there, amid the tranquillity of the natural environment, they would find the peace and wide open spaces they sought. Couples seeking some privacy from impertinent younger siblings would also find it in the numerous nooks and crannies of the mountain.

For many, their experiences during childhood picnics and walks on the lower slopes led to longer hikes to the summit during adolescence, and served as a catalyst to the development of an abiding love for the mountain. This was certainly the experience of many District Six residents who were interviewed in 1999-2000 by Linda Fortune, then director of the District Six Museum. In their interviews, several former residents, such as Stan Abrahams, Ian Combrink, Faldelah de Vries and Pam Jordan, recalled their weekend hikes and sleepovers in caves, their deep spiritual connection to the mountain, and their love for its fauna and flora.

There were several organisations based in District Six which offered youngsters experience of mountain hikes, such as the Marion Institute, the Scouts and the Silvertree Club. Scout groups such as the Marion Pathfinder Scouts and the First Cape Town Scouts often took troops on overnight camping trips on Table Mountain and the Glen in Kloof Nek, while boys who joined the Silvertree Club came under the mentorship of David McAdam of St Marks Church, a keen mountaineer who was also the warden of the Silvertree Club. It was McAdam who introduced many young District Six boys to the joys of mountaineering, while the more skilful among them, such as George Gangat, were taught face climbing when they were older.

Read: Memory is a refuge until we rebuild

There was an organisation in the district which was entirely dedicated to mountaineering – the Cape Province Mountain Club. The CPMC, established in December 1931, held its meetings at St Marks for many years. The reason for its establishment was that, due to the social reality of racial segregation even during the pre-apartheid era, the Mountain Club of South Africa was, despite the absence of a constitutional bar, open only to white climbers. Hence the decision by founder members such as “Binder” Petersen (chairman), Carl Fisher and Cecil Townshend to establish a separate organisation.

Although the club had no access to state funding and largely had to depend on its own meagre resources and members to acquire rock climbing experience and accumulate the necessary equipment, it has survived to celebrate its 85th birthday this year. It has not been an easy road, but the club can look back with pride at its considerable achievement in providing a home for keen mountaineers, among them Ronald February, Sydney Alexander and Dick and Shirley Knipe, as well as in nurturing successive generations of budding mountaineers.

The forced removal of District Six residents meant an abrupt severing of the bond many had forged with the Table Mountain chain. From a reassuring, constant looming presence in the background of life in District Six, the mountain retreated to a distant view, on the periphery of their lives.

Physically separated by distance and alienated by the deep sense of loss they felt when they were evicted, many former residents have told of the severance of their close connection to the mountain. This was also the experience of many former residents of other communities living adjacent to the Table Mountain chain who were evicted as a result of the Group Areas Act, such as Protea Village below Kirstenbosch, Simon’s Town and Redhill. Like District Six evictees, many of the former residents of these communities have confirmed, even when their relationship with the mountain was re-established in later years, the depth of that early connection could never be recaptured.

The destructive legacy of forced removals in Cape Town has not only had a negative impact on the psyche of the many Capetonians affected, but also on the environmental attitudes of their children and grandchildren. Marooned in distant Cape Flats townships, many have never had the opportunity to experience the freedom of mountain walking and climbing, and to build a positive relationship with the natural environment. It is these young people from historically disadvantaged areas which both the CPMC and the MCSA are aiming at with their programmes which have enabled thousands of youngsters to go on outings to the mountain.

A number of other organisations is working to expose youngsters to positive experiences on the Table Mountain chain and thus re-establish the connection so many Capetonians of an earlier generation have lost – these include the Pride of Table Mountain Project, the South African Education and Environment Project and the Schools Environmental Education Project.

The spatial imprint of apartheid remains a part of South Africa’s political reality where, despite slowly diversifying residential populations, suburbs and townships still bear a close resemblance to the segregated communities of the apartheid era. Compounding the discriminatory legacy of the Group Areas Act is the fact that many of the new housing settlements for lower-income residents make inadequate provision for public green space, thus perpetuating this disconnection from the natural environment. This is especially concerning given that access to open green space is important for the physical and psychological well-being of urban residents.

It is crucial the connection which communities such as District Six once enjoyed with the Table Mountain chain be re-established among the younger generation, as it is from their ranks that the defenders and protectors of our natural environment in general, and the Table Mountain chain in particular, will be developed.

Deon Holloway, a member of the CPMC’s executive, understands this responsibility well when he says of the next generation of mountaineers the club is nurturing: “We develop their love for the mountain, its fauna and flora, so that they develop an understanding of that environment and realise that the mountain is more than a rock.”

* Dr Khan is an environmental historian and independent researcher with an interest in the history of mountaineering in Cape Town.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

Weekend Argus

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