Cape Town - The City has labelled the nine Khoisan activists who destroyed a Rock Girl Safe Space bench as “thugs”, while Rock Girl has offered the group an olive branch.
The Khoisan activists were arrested on Tuesday and released on warning from Cape Town police station on Wednesday.
They will appear in court on October 14 on a charge of malicious damage to property and a charge under the Illegal Gatherings Act.
Rock Girl partnered the City to erect the Safe Space bench three years ago in honour of legendary Khoisan descendant Krotoa van Meerhoff, after whom the square where the bench was is named.
The mosaic bench featured Van Meerhoff’s face and the activists took offence.
One of the arrested Khoisan activists, Tanya Kleinhans-Cedras, said the bench was destroyed because it was disrespectful for people to sit on Krotoa’s face.
Rock Girl director India Baird said the organisation partnered the City to create the bench in 2012 as part of Rock Girl’s ongoing campaign to create symbolic and safe spaces for girls and women.
Similar benches, inspired by Manenberg and Gugulethu young girls working together for the past five years to make their communities and lives safer, have been installed all over the province.
Baird said the bench’s destruction was ironic as 16 Rock Girls are to travel to the Northern Cape in October to meet Khoisan girls and women.
“The idea is to encourage conversations about how to end violence against women and girls. These girls are walking in Krotoa’s footsteps. At a very young age, she began working as a translator for Jan van Riebeeck,” Baird said.
Baird said the bench had been unveiled on Women’s Day in August 2012 in the presence of Khoisan community members.
“We wanted to honour and celebrate the legacy of Krotoa, an inspirational heroine who negotiated for peace and safety in the Cape Colony, at a time when most women did not have a voice outside of the home.
“Despite her youth, she helped shape the future of the colony, negotiating peace, building relationships and uniting disparate communities. We do not condone violence, but we believe this violent act provides an opportunity to pick up the shards and work together,” Baird said.
The City’s naming committee chairperson, Brett Herron, said the Khoisan group had no right to call themselves activists.
“They are thugs who opted for violence instead of engagement with the City,” Herron said.
Kleinhans-Cedras, in welcoming a meeting with the Rock Girls, said: “We are more than willing to enter into dialogue with them, to alleviate their consciousness and give them a deeper meaning as to why our critical objectivity was displayed in the manner that it was. We are not opposed to any form of artistic expression that will honour our ancestors.”
She felt aggrieved that the Khoi had not been consulted in the erection of the bench.
Herron said the City had never received any complaints about the bench and the renaming of the square to Krotoa Place.