The District Six Museum

Disembarking in their dozens from  coaches parked in Cape Town’s Buitenkant Street, tourists step inside the District Six Museum and immediately are able to enter the world of a community forcibly removed from their homes a few decades ago.

The plaque on the exterior wall addressed to “all who pass by” exhorts them to remember “with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of this city and were forced by law to leave their homes because of the colour of their skin. Father, forgive us.”

The prayer for forgiveness is wholly appropriate on the wall of this former Methodist house of worship, on the edge of a community infamously obliterated in the mid-1960s.

For almost 200 years, people from all over the world, enslaved and free  men and women of every colour, of many different religions and speaking several languages, arrived in Cape Town andsettled in the sixth of Cape Town’s municipal districts.

Broken and scattered

The community they and their descendants created was culturally rich and diverse, vibrant and cooperative, and  certainly not without its problems -  but it was their world; their homes, their community, their churches, mosques and schools, and they and thrived. From the 1960s, as a result of the racially-motivated Group Areas Act, their homes were demolished and more than 60,000 people scattered to the Cape Flats. One of them was Joe Schaffers. Born in 1939, Joe was making his way as a young man when District Six was bulldozed.

Working with the District Six diaspora on the Flats for 35 years, Joe came to a keen understanding of their sense of loss. “Old people would die of supposed natural causes but really they died of heartbreak,” says Joe, now retired from the public service and one of 18 full-time staff at the District Six Museum.

Every day, between 300 and 400 people visit this small but popular stop on Cape Town’s tourism trek. Many of them will encounter Joe, 69, at the museum’s bookstore where he happily dispenses his reminiscences and advice. The small museum, which features, on two levels, telling and touching exhibits on District Six before its destruction, the break-up and the aftermath – as well as the hope born out of so much despair – is always buzzing. So much so, says museum director Bonita Bennett, that “It’s not always possible to find a quiet place for a meeting. But I guess that’s a good sign; we’re always busy.”

A vibrant corner

Bonita, whose parents both lived in District Six, explains that the museum is run by a non-profit trust and that funds and resources have to be used to their best effect. Apart from the museum, the building houses a children’s centre and a shelter for women living on the street called Ons Plek (Our Place). “We’re a pretty vibrant corner of Cape Town,” says Bonita.

Yet despite its vibrancy this corner didn’t have the resources or the expertise to market itself to South Africa and the world. “TEP has helped us a great deal with marketing materials and with actual marketing. The museum now has got an excellent profile, thanks to TEP They’re an excellent support. With their cluster concept I have no doubt that we will take tourism in Cape Town to an even greater level.”