Diary of a Palestinian Exile’ in Cape Town: Reflections and Connections
Bradly, while driving me from the airport to Cape Town said:
“Don’t believe everything you see, the truth is buried much deeper”
His words prepared me for what was to come.
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“The first thing that you have to experience here is the District Six Museum,” was a remark that Lucille, my spiritual guide and inn keeper, had insightfully made that morning. I passed District Six on my way to the Museum and it was there that I discovered what was hidden below the sixty hectars of empty expanse near the port; a place that was once called Kanaladorp, (place of sharing), by some 66,000 people who once inhabited it.
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Kanaladorp
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My first encounter with District Six reminded me of South Africa Forest, that site on the road from Lake Tabariya (Tiberias) to al-Nasrah (Nazareth), in present day Israel. A commemorative plaque dedicates the pine forest to South Africa for ‘its support for the State of Israel’. If one looks more closely between the trees, one can see some masonary stones strewn around, with old cactus plants still growing that is all that remains of the Village of Lubieh. The village was destroyed and its population ethnically cleansed in 1948, as was the fate of some 471 Palestinian communities. That
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Lubieh
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cataclysmic human tragedy the Palestinians collectively call the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe),which forced the majority of Palestinians out of their homeland.
District Six Museum is the hub of the continuing struggle for return and restitution, by a community that was forcefully evacuated from the most ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse community in Cape Town. African “Blacks” were the first to be evacuated in 1901 and the remaining mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, artists, musicians, laborers, and immigrants, were gradually forced out after declaring District Six a ‘white area’ in 1966. By 1981 some 66,000 had been forcefully evacuated and their community bulldozed to the ground.
The struggle of District Six symbolizes the movement for return and restitution by all uprooted communities, victims of Apartheid, in South Africa.
- In 1979 Friends of District Six was established
- In 1987 Hands Off District Six Committee was formed
- In 1989 the District Six Museum Foundation was established
- In 1991 the Group Areas Act was repealed
- In 1994 the opening of the District Six Museum
- In 1995 the Land claims Commission was established
- In 1996 the Land Claims court held in the Museum; District Six Beneficiary Trust Formed
- In 2000 a Homecoming ceremony took place and the District Six Beneficiary Trust was entrusted to redevelop the land. Some 20,000 people were to be accommodated in approximately 4000 units (40 hectars).
In 2004 first two claimants to return to District Six and handed keys to their new homes.
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First Visit to District Six Museum
Noor was the first person I met on that first visit to the Museum. He is one of the founders of the Museum and is currently an Education Officer and runs the museum shop. Soon after I arrived that morning, a group of people came in and Noor began his guided tour. He began by showing them where his home was on the big floor map. He talked of his family that appears in the nearby pictures and later pointed to a cloth that was made of hundreds of meters worth of material, and inscribed with the names, addresses and information of the ex-residents and their
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Noor at museum
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descendents. Names were literally added daily with a felt marker and later embroidered by volunteers of ex-residents. We were taken around a multidisciplinary installation ’streets’ that celebrated the cultural diversity of District Six, and invites visitors to interact with the contents. Ex-residents themselves continue to update the installation with inscriptions and artifacts. There were sounds and sights of the area, with audio oral histories. I was saddened by the story of how a music group broke up because its members were forced to leave District Six to live in different and distant communities.
Human Rights Day at District Six Museum
Exactly 35 years earlier, on March 21, 1960, demonstrators against the apartheid pass laws were gunned down by police in Sharpenville. I returned to the museum that day as a special program was to be held. The scene I saw was one of children reclaiming the old-church-turned-museum, transforming it into a concert and dancing space. Children were playing music and dancing alongside Cape musicians with whom they were engaged in workshops. In the background was the altar that now had applique’ banners hanging from the ceiling, by different religious groups (Muslims who were a majority, Christians and Jews) from the old community.
Another Museum, Another Occasion
A group of children were dancing, singing and playing percussion music at the entrance to the Museum of Slavery.
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They were wearing t-shirts that read: “Rape: a community responsibility“. Inside the museum, the history of slavery worldwide is chronicled. A number of activities commemorating International Day of Poetry were going on, including music, poetry and films. I sat to watch a movie entitled “Brown Sugar”. In it the director takes her grandfather and family back for a visit to what was their home and land in Constantia, near Cape Town, from where they were uprooted and their property destroyed. In the film, the grandfather remembers how some elderly
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Lubieh
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residents, upon learning that they would be uprooted, pined away and died before the evacuation. The film of their moving encounter and recollections, reminded me of a film that a Palestinian friend, Mahmoud Issa, directed. In 1994, he took his family and other villagers who became refugees in 1948, back to the Village of Lubieh for a reunion. His father is filmed looking for his
old trees amid the new trees planted in the name of the South Africa forest. When he finds the three trees he planted before 1948, he eats their leaves and inscribes his name and that of his grandchild who had come with him, on their trunks. To date the villagers of Lubieh are scattered in 26 countries. Mahmoud Issa, who lives in Denmark where a large number of the Lubian refugees live in exile, has helped establish a section on Lubieh at the Danish National Museum. The museum engages Lubians, young and old, and introduces their experience to wider audiences. Annually scores of young Lubians, from around the world, try to visit what remains of their village, but with foreign passports.
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Meeting Menisa
It was on my last visit to the District Six Museum that I met Menisa, a dignified woman sitting with her crutches next to her. She was embroidering a long canvas of felt pen messages written by visitors. She talked to me about her memories of Kanaladorp, and showed me her photo album and a photo of her as a beautiful, happy young girl in a white dress that appeared in a local newspaper. There were no crutches then. She told me that she would embroider my message if I were to write it on the visitor’s canvas. On my way out that day I wrote:
“As a Palestinian living a long exile, this museum gives me hope and inspiration.”
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Menisa
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Noor’s Story
I finally had the chance to read Noor’s book that he signed for me at the end of my first visit. The book contains recollections and photos that he had taken of life in Kanaladorp before the community was uprooted. At first I didn’t understand the photo he had at the beginning of the book, one which captured his family posing during his brother’s engagement in 1967, and one in which there was not one smiling face, on the contrary, they were all sad. He later explained that they all knew, at that time that it would be their last group photo before they were forced out of their home. His father and all his family were born in that very home.
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My Pigeons Come Home
I will let Noor read the following section from his book:
“By 1975 I was fortunate enough to have saved sufficient money to buy myself a house in Athlone. This meant that I would not have to move to any of the areas designated for ex-residents of District Six. So on a warm day in January 1975, my wife and I with our two children, aged three and five, moved to our new home . With our belongings were my prized racing pigeons, for whom I had built a loft, using the same wood that had made up the loft in District Six.
After three months in Athlone, I felt that it was time to let the pigeons fly free. When I returned home that evening, the first thing I did was visit the loft After three months in Athlone, I felt that it was time to let the pigeons. fly free. When I returned home that evening the first thing I did was visit the loft.
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“Where are my pigeons?” I asked my wife. Not a single pigeon had come back.
After a sleepless night I returned to work the next morning, driving, as I always did, through the demolished landscape that was once District Six. As I drove past the now empty plot that used to be my home in Caledon Street, I saw a sight which shook me to the core: my pigeons, all 50 of them, were congregated on the empty plot where our home had stood .Getting out of my car, I walked over to where the pigeons were. Very surprisingly, they did not fly away, but looked into my eyes as if to ask: “where is our home?”…..
This moving story triggered the following association.
“I Wish I Were a Bird”
Starting in 1998 I lived a very rich four-year experience with a group of 30 children aged between 10-12 years old, and who came from two Palestinian Refugee Camps in Beirut. The multi-disciplinary, active-learning and creative expression project aimed at engaging fourth generation refugee children in researching, reflecting and expressing their views on their issues, lives, and wishes. They used the media of photo-journalism, creative writing, art and film to capture their experiences & expressions
This Al-JANA Center project coincided with the 50 year anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was remembered by 5 million Palestinian refugees as 50 years of violation of their human, national and civil rights. Palestinian refugees constitute the largest refugee population in the world, living the longest exile, since 1948, and their right of return systematically blocked and denied.
Four years after the project began, the young participants in the group project signed their photo-voice book, inaugurated their photo-exhibit and screened their films in a special children’s festival of their own organization. Their bi-lingual book (Arabic / English) has now been translated into Italian, Spanish and German and their films have received international awards. Today, their project is touring and engaging children around the world.
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In the beginning of their book they wrote this:
“We are making this book to prove our existence on earth.”
The young participants chose this title for their book and project:
“I wish I were a bird to fly back to my homeland.”
Moa’taz Dajani
Al-JANA Center, Beirut
May 13, 2007
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For further information and resources please see the following:
www.districtsix.co.za
www.al-jana.org
Diary of a Palestinian Exile’ in Cape Town: Reflections and Connections
Diary of a Palestinian Exile’ in Cape Town: Reflections and Connections
Bradly, while driving me from the airport to Cape Town said:
“Don’t believe everything you see, the truth is buried much deeper”
His words prepared me for what was to come.
“The first thing that you have to experience here is the District Six Museum,” was a remark that Lucille, my spiritual guide and inn keeper, had insightfully made that morning. I passed District Six on my way to the Museum and it was there that I discovered what was hidden below the sixty hectars of empty expanse near the port; a place that was once called Kanaladorp, (place of sharing), by some 66,000 people who once inhabited it.
Kanaladorp
My first encounter with District Six reminded me of South Africa Forest, that site on the road from Lake Tabariya (Tiberias) to al-Nasrah (Nazareth), in present day Israel. A commemorative plaque dedicates the pine forest to South Africa for ‘its support for the State of Israel’. If one looks more closely between the trees, one can see some masonary stones strewn around, with old cactus plants still growing that is all that remains of the Village of Lubieh. The village was destroyed and its population ethnically cleansed in 1948, as was the fate of some 471 Palestinian communities. That
Lubieh
cataclysmic human tragedy the Palestinians collectively call the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe),which forced the majority of Palestinians out of their homeland.
District Six Museum is the hub of the continuing struggle for return and restitution, by a community that was forcefully evacuated from the most ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse community in Cape Town. African “Blacks” were the first to be evacuated in 1901 and the remaining mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, artists, musicians, laborers, and immigrants, were gradually forced out after declaring District Six a ‘white area’ in 1966. By 1981 some 66,000 had been forcefully evacuated and their community bulldozed to the ground.
The struggle of District Six symbolizes the movement for return and restitution by all uprooted communities, victims of Apartheid, in South Africa.
In 2004 first two claimants to return to District Six and handed keys to their new homes.
First Visit to District Six Museum
Noor was the first person I met on that first visit to the Museum. He is one of the founders of the Museum and is currently an Education Officer and runs the museum shop. Soon after I arrived that morning, a group of people came in and Noor began his guided tour. He began by showing them where his home was on the big floor map. He talked of his family that appears in the nearby pictures and later pointed to a cloth that was made of hundreds of meters worth of material, and inscribed with the names, addresses and information of the ex-residents and their
Noor at museum
descendents. Names were literally added daily with a felt marker and later embroidered by volunteers of ex-residents. We were taken around a multidisciplinary installation ’streets’ that celebrated the cultural diversity of District Six, and invites visitors to interact with the contents. Ex-residents themselves continue to update the installation with inscriptions and artifacts. There were sounds and sights of the area, with audio oral histories. I was saddened by the story of how a music group broke up because its members were forced to leave District Six to live in different and distant communities.
Human Rights Day at District Six Museum
Exactly 35 years earlier, on March 21, 1960, demonstrators against the apartheid pass laws were gunned down by police in Sharpenville. I returned to the museum that day as a special program was to be held. The scene I saw was one of children reclaiming the old-church-turned-museum, transforming it into a concert and dancing space. Children were playing music and dancing alongside Cape musicians with whom they were engaged in workshops. In the background was the altar that now had applique’ banners hanging from the ceiling, by different religious groups (Muslims who were a majority, Christians and Jews) from the old community.
Another Museum, Another Occasion
A group of children were dancing, singing and playing percussion music at the entrance to the Museum of Slavery.
They were wearing t-shirts that read: “Rape: a community responsibility“. Inside the museum, the history of slavery worldwide is chronicled. A number of activities commemorating International Day of Poetry were going on, including music, poetry and films. I sat to watch a movie entitled “Brown Sugar”. In it the director takes her grandfather and family back for a visit to what was their home and land in Constantia, near Cape Town, from where they were uprooted and their property destroyed. In the film, the grandfather remembers how some elderly
Lubieh
residents, upon learning that they would be uprooted, pined away and died before the evacuation. The film of their moving encounter and recollections, reminded me of a film that a Palestinian friend, Mahmoud Issa, directed. In 1994, he took his family and other villagers who became refugees in 1948, back to the Village of Lubieh for a reunion. His father is filmed looking for his
old trees amid the new trees planted in the name of the South Africa forest. When he finds the three trees he planted before 1948, he eats their leaves and inscribes his name and that of his grandchild who had come with him, on their trunks. To date the villagers of Lubieh are scattered in 26 countries. Mahmoud Issa, who lives in Denmark where a large number of the Lubian refugees live in exile, has helped establish a section on Lubieh at the Danish National Museum. The museum engages Lubians, young and old, and introduces their experience to wider audiences. Annually scores of young Lubians, from around the world, try to visit what remains of their village, but with foreign passports.
Meeting Menisa
It was on my last visit to the District Six Museum that I met Menisa, a dignified woman sitting with her crutches next to her. She was embroidering a long canvas of felt pen messages written by visitors. She talked to me about her memories of Kanaladorp, and showed me her photo album and a photo of her as a beautiful, happy young girl in a white dress that appeared in a local newspaper. There were no crutches then. She told me that she would embroider my message if I were to write it on the visitor’s canvas. On my way out that day I wrote:
“As a Palestinian living a long exile, this museum gives me hope and inspiration.”
Menisa
Noor’s Story
I finally had the chance to read Noor’s book that he signed for me at the end of my first visit. The book contains recollections and photos that he had taken of life in Kanaladorp before the community was uprooted. At first I didn’t understand the photo he had at the beginning of the book, one which captured his family posing during his brother’s engagement in 1967, and one in which there was not one smiling face, on the contrary, they were all sad. He later explained that they all knew, at that time that it would be their last group photo before they were forced out of their home. His father and all his family were born in that very home.
My Pigeons Come Home
I will let Noor read the following section from his book:
“By 1975 I was fortunate enough to have saved sufficient money to buy myself a house in Athlone. This meant that I would not have to move to any of the areas designated for ex-residents of District Six. So on a warm day in January 1975, my wife and I with our two children, aged three and five, moved to our new home . With our belongings were my prized racing pigeons, for whom I had built a loft, using the same wood that had made up the loft in District Six.
After three months in Athlone, I felt that it was time to let the pigeons fly free. When I returned home that evening, the first thing I did was visit the loft After three months in Athlone, I felt that it was time to let the pigeons. fly free. When I returned home that evening the first thing I did was visit the loft.
“Where are my pigeons?” I asked my wife. Not a single pigeon had come back.
After a sleepless night I returned to work the next morning, driving, as I always did, through the demolished landscape that was once District Six. As I drove past the now empty plot that used to be my home in Caledon Street, I saw a sight which shook me to the core: my pigeons, all 50 of them, were congregated on the empty plot where our home had stood .Getting out of my car, I walked over to where the pigeons were. Very surprisingly, they did not fly away, but looked into my eyes as if to ask: “where is our home?”…..
This moving story triggered the following association.
“I Wish I Were a Bird”
Starting in 1998 I lived a very rich four-year experience with a group of 30 children aged between 10-12 years old, and who came from two Palestinian Refugee Camps in Beirut. The multi-disciplinary, active-learning and creative expression project aimed at engaging fourth generation refugee children in researching, reflecting and expressing their views on their issues, lives, and wishes. They used the media of photo-journalism, creative writing, art and film to capture their experiences & expressions
This Al-JANA Center project coincided with the 50 year anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was remembered by 5 million Palestinian refugees as 50 years of violation of their human, national and civil rights. Palestinian refugees constitute the largest refugee population in the world, living the longest exile, since 1948, and their right of return systematically blocked and denied.
Four years after the project began, the young participants in the group project signed their photo-voice book, inaugurated their photo-exhibit and screened their films in a special children’s festival of their own organization. Their bi-lingual book (Arabic / English) has now been translated into Italian, Spanish and German and their films have received international awards. Today, their project is touring and engaging children around the world.
In the beginning of their book they wrote this:
“We are making this book to prove our existence on earth.”
The young participants chose this title for their book and project:
“I wish I were a bird to fly back to my homeland.”
Moa’taz Dajani
Al-JANA Center, Beirut
May 13, 2007
For further information and resources please see the following:
www.districtsix.co.za
www.al-jana.org