Nothing that memory cannot reach or touchor call back

Gone
Buried
Covered by the dust of defeat -
Or so the conquerors believed
But there is nothing that can
Be hidden from the mind.
Nothing that memory cannot
Reach or touch or call back.

- 1987, Don Mattera, South African poet and author

Today I went to the District Six Museum in Cape Town. District Six, an inner-city neighborhood, was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a thriving community of freed slaves, artisans, merchants and other immigrants. After World War II and in the beginning of the apartheid era, District Six remained a cosmopolitan area composed primarily of coloured people,* but with a population consisting also of blacks and whites.

The main hall of the District Six Museum, with its tower of original street signs rescued from demolition and preserved in the museum exhibit.

On February 11, 1966, District Six was declared a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act. Forced removals from the area began in 1068. Three main reasons were cited for the removals:

1. Apartheid philosophy states that interracial interaction causes conflict, and races must be separated.
2. District Six was declared a slum, and only fit for tearing down.
3. The area was portrayed as crime-filled and dangerous, a haven for gamblers, drinkers, prostitutes, and all kinds of immoral activities.

Most District Six residents believed, however, that the government coveted the land because of its proximity to the harbor, to Table Mountain, and to the city center.

The museum's monument to the demolition of District Six.

By the end of 1968, more than 60,000 residents of District Six were forcibly relocated to the bleak Cape Flats township area some 25 km away. Cape Flats is today the location of the massive Khayelitsha township. All of the houses in District Six were bulldozed, and the only structures left standing were churches. Local and international pressure on the government made redevelopment tricky, and to this date most of the land remains undeveloped.

The District Six Museum was established in 1994. The museum is devoted to remembrance of the events of the apartheid era and the freedom struggle, as well as to memorializing the life and culture of the residents of District Six before they were forced out of their homes. The museum exhibits a number of personal items, documents, artifacts, and photographs that give a sense of what life was like in the homes and businesses of District Six before 1968.

Museum staff member Noor Ebrahim grew up in District Six, and in his memoir he tells the story of being forced to leave his home with his collection of trained homing pigeons:

My whole family was very lucky, and in 1975 we moved to a place called Athlone. That was one of the so-called coloured areas where you could purchase a house. When I moved, I built my new pigeon loft in Athlone. Of course, I used the same wood.

After three months, during the summer on a Sunday morning, I said to my wife, "I think it's about time I let all my pigeons out and set them free. I want to see if they will come back to this new house."

I did that and then I went out for the day. When I came home that evening, at about half past six or seven, I went straight to my pigeon loft to feed them. When I opened the door, not one pigeon had come home.

I couldn't stay away from District Six, so on my way to work every morning I would usually go down Caledon Street in my car. My house was bulldozed already and that morning I stopped right opposite where my house used to be. When I got out of my car, guess what? All my pigeons had come home.

This was a sad day for me, very strange, but true. They were facing the sea, the harbour, and when I tiptoed behind them, they all turned around. This was absolutely amazing. I actually cried. As if they wanted to ask me, "Where is our home?" If that was a pigeon, imagine how we felt as human beings when they moved us out of our homes. But I always say, we don't even hate them. We forgive them for what they did to us.

- Noor Ebrahim, Noor's Story: My Life in District Six (1999)

Noor Ebrahim stands in front of photographs of his family in their home in District Six.

Apartheid-era washroom sign from District Six.

Park bench with writing in Afrikaans and English.

Today the museum tells the stories of those who were forcibly removed, dehumanized, and classified under the apartheid regime. It stands as a testimony to the everyday, ordinary, human details of life in the homes of District Six. The pigeons found their way home, but the majority of District Six residents never will. In 1994, the new government recognized the rights of the former residents to return to the area, and some effort has been made to redevelop the area. Most recently, this effort has been stalled by political difficulties with the national government and the municipality of Cape Town.

This mural stands against the arched ceiling at the front of the museum. If you could walk through the wall, you would be in the middle of a very busy intersection of downtown Cape Town, not far from the central train station.

Mural detail.

* A side note: the designation "coloured" still exists in South Africa today, as you can see in this article in yesterday's Cape Argus on hiring quotas in education. It seems to be a catch-all category for anyone who is not clearly black or white, and includes mixed-race, Arab, Indian, and a number of other groups. Coloured people often speak Afrikaans as their mother tongue. They were generally subject to the same apartheid policies as blacks in South Africa, and it was this primarily coloured community that was displaced from District Six.