Heritage is considered the practices and traditions passed on in families and communities over generations. Various South African religious and cultural groups place significance on celebrating different cultural events on their respective calendars.
However, heritage also has to do with our families in relation to the communities and where we were raised and where we came from.
I remember sitting on the pavement in Primrose Street in District Six, marvelling at the sight of the cable car. Despite growing up in the shade of Table Mountain, it remained a distant dream. I finally made the trip during my high school years when end of term and end of year functions were held in the Glen and we would spend the afternoon swimming on Fourth Beach.
For displaced communities on the Cape Flats, the end of term outing and trip to Table Mountain would start with a walk from Cape Town station up Kloof Nek Road and a hasty climb to Breakfast Rock where we would catch our breath and enjoy some boiled eggs before going up Skeleton Gorge to the mountain top.
The hordes of children from the Cape Flats schools could not afford the refreshments on sale, and, needless to say, the long queues to serve non-white customers helped us to save the few rand we had with a hasty trip down the mountain to braai and chill in the Glen Forest.
The afternoon trip back to Cape Town station would require a bus trip from Fourth Beach or another hike up through the Glen and down Kloof Nek Road, and eventually through the Company’s Garden and Adderley Street to the station, and hoping to be back home before maghrib (sunset) prayers.
For many Cape Flats pupils this regular trip to Fourth Beach might soon be canned if the City of Cape Town is allowed to sell communal land under the guise of improved services. Fourth Beach had always been the people’s beach, drawing large crowds from the Cape Flats during school holidays, and particularly during the festive season.
This tradition should be allowed to carry on, and as a community we should not let greedy developers and officials compromise our heritage.
As a young boy, I was fortunate to grow up between District Six, where my mother’s family lived, and Bo-Kaap, where my father’s family resided in Rose Street. This was a rugby-mad family who were associated with the Tricolors Rugby Club in Dorp Street - also the home of the Auwwal mosque and the Amjadiahs Maulood Jamaat. Maulood is known as the celebration of Prophet Muhammad’s birth (peace be upon him), and during the month of his birth all the mosques would have special prayers, with the customary “barakat” - a plate of cake and biscuits, and even fruit to take home.
Maulood celebrations were synonymous with “rampies”. The tradition was for women to dress up in their gadj outfits, and the younger girls dressed in flower girl or maid of honour dresses, to cut “rampies” at the mosque from lemon leaves and sprinkle them with rose water and roll them in tissue paper so the fragrant smell would stay in your pockets for months. As boys, we used to sprinkle the rose water into our fezzes for the added “lekker ruik”. Boxes of the rampies would be placed at the mosque’s entrance so the men could help themselves, or on the actual night of “maulood” they would be distributed in the mosque. This is my heritage.
The collective heritage of the Bo-Kaap and District Six communities is also closely associated with celebrating New Year and “Tweede Nuwe Jaar”, steeped in our slave heritage. And how the carnivals were kept alive and vibrant with minstrels and choirs over the decades. A Walk in the Night (19Six2) by Alex la Guma gave District Six a place in literature. In 198Six Richard Rive wrote his novel Buckingham Palace, District Six, and District Six - The Musical (198Six) by David Kramer and Taliep Petersen helped to capture the vibrancy of the community, but also the mood of people during forced removals.
The people from Bo-Kaap were spared the indignity of forced removals, but we hope the Bo-Kaap youth and civic groups will mobilise to resist the temptation of a few pieces of silver in exchange for their heritage. Gentrification and urban renewal have made communities like Bo-Kaap, Woodstock and Salt River attractive for middle-class professionals. As a result, poor working-class families are being pushed out because they can’t afford what rental developers and investors are demanding. The well-heeled “outsiders” are not attracted to the rich history and heritage, but more the convenience of inner-city living.
As rate- and taxpayers, the recent settlers are also objecting to locals’ customs and practices. The sound of the athaan and calls to prayer, or the drums and tambourines associated with New Year’s Eve celebrations are synonymous with Bo-Kaap and its heritage. Do I have reason to feel indignant because Heritage Day is trivialised as a “braai” day!
I am more inclined to urge our communities to mobilise to meet in District Six, Kirstenbosch (home of the Protea Park community), Fourth Beach, Bo-Kaap, Constantia and Green Point (site of the old Dock Cottages) to remind the City Fathers and powers that be that restitution needs to be fast-tracked.
The Constantia and Kirstenbosch communities also need a reminder that black families will take back their rightful space and reclaim their heritage. If I cannot mobilise the whole of Cape Town to come together, then at least I hope to mobilise my own family to meet in District Six on Heritage Day.
* Riedewhaan Allie is director of Foundation for Community Work
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media