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Muslim Views . June 2019
Islamic heritage as colonial and apartheid redress SADIQ TOFFA
‘THE community spirit of Bo-Kaap as described in many historical studies has been carried through the last two centuries by generations of families residing in the area. The protection of religious, cultural and architectural heritage of the area is at the fore of community concerns.’ These are the opening words of the Government Gazette Notice of April 30, 2019, where 19 places across Bo-Kaap, Cape Town, were declared national heritage sites by the Department of Arts and Culture. They include six mosques, three schools, four historic homesteads and six open landscapes. This large number of concurrent declarations is unique and unprecedented in the history of post-apartheid South Africa. Heritage is activated when there is a sense of imminent threat to the survival of a people or a place. In Bo-Kaap, what is under threat is the inter-generational transmission of cultural knowledge, its religious life and its architectural heritage. Under this wide ambit, heritage has become a political keyword for the negotiation of identity, access to resources and the wielding of power. Threats to Bo-Kaap have largely been one of displacement and colonisation along its borders. The South Asian academic and activist Harsha Walia uses the term
A total of 19 sites in Bo-Kaap, including mosques, schools, homes and open spaces were declared national heritage sites on April 30, 2019. This large number of concurrent declarations is unique and unprecedented in the history of post-apartheid South Africa. Important questions that arise are: How was this achieved? Why now? What has been lost and won? And who belongs? Photos SADIQ TOFFA
‘border imperialism’ to signal to us who ought to matter and who ought not, who is enriched and who is dispossessed by economic growth, and who belongs in the city versus who does not. Borders confine, enclose and exclude a group. They also lay claim to space and determine who is an insider and who is an outsider. Borders are neither natural nor apolitical.
Rather, they are artificial constructions unjustifiably inscribed upon land and bodies through violence. Border zones partition not only space but also people and races. Bo-Kaap’s borders became formalised under the Group Areas Act, where an apartheid buffer strip was instituted to separate ‘Malay’ and ‘coloured’ population groups from the colonial white city.
These borders have proven to be adaptable and resilient, where the apartheid buffer strip has transformed in the post-apartheid era into an onslaught of high-rise gated developments that has disrupted the character and culture of the area. These new borders take the form of fenced-in back streets, locked up public spaces, gated communities and developments that promote economic exclusion
and social polarisation. These are new and unpredictable modes of dispossession that must be understood alongside centuries-old processes of colonisation that continue to shatter communities and alienate individuals today. CONTINUED ON PAGE 11
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