The Slave Lodge

I was taken on a tour, this morning, by Patrick Mellet, the man who put together the storyline for the Slave Lodge in Cape Town. I was struck by several things. Firstly, the way in which the story of the slaves in the Cape is still a far from dominant theme in the City, the Province and the country - despite the fact that in this Province, the majority of the people who live here, either directly benefitted from what slaves did in the past, or are directly descended from slaves.

It is an extraordinary thing, the way in which this history, which should be all-pervasive, is in fact, a whisper. It is as though the suffering and the inhumanity perpetrated against the slaves is made to continue by the dominant historical voice. Which of us does not know about the Second World War? Which of us has never heard of Jan van Riebeeck and the Dutch East India Company? On the other hand, which of us knew that Simon van der Stel would, probably, today be termed "Coloured" (in the terminology of the apartheid state?) And which of us knows where the slaves who built the Cape Colony, with not much more than their bare hands, came from originally?

The Slave Lodge is an impressive building, having served once as the High Court and even the Parliament. But it is unfinished as a fitting monument to our slave ancestors. The exhibition space is fair enough, but as it is at present there is no clear cohesion and the visitor is left puzzeled as to the logic of the thing. Had Patrick Mellet not been with us, I would not have understood the logic of the thing (as indeed I did not on the time I visited the Lodge before). Nor would I have understood that the exhibition as a whole is incomplete!

Upstairs, there is a very strange cultural history collection, with bits of Egypt, toys, and old pianos and clocks thrown in to the mix. Downstairs, some of the exhibits work, and one room in particular is a complete failure. For it to remain like this is, to my mind, hugely disrespectful to both the tourist and our slave ancestors, whom it seeks to represent.

Old Pictures of Greenmarket Square - Cape Town

Greenmarket Square Slave Market, Cape Town

Rights to this picture are owned by The Western Cape Provincial Archive

Greenmarket Square, Cape Town

Rights to this picture are owned by the Western Cape Provincial Archive


Greenmarket Square

Rights to this picture are owned by the Western Cape Provincial Government

I work on Greenmarket Square. It is a really vibey cobbled square in the centre of the CBD, with good restaurants all around it and interesting looking buildings looking over it. The Square has a very long history, dating back to the slave trade, when slaves were bought and sold at the market, but for the most part, the square was the centre of trade in goods and supplies to the hundreds of ships that passed the Cape of Good Hope en route to the Indies.

The Square was originally known as the Burgher Watch Square and was built on the corner of Short and Longmarket streets in 1696. It soon became a fruit and vegetable market, obviously from where the name derives and in 1961 it was declared a national monument tied to the history of slavery. Slaves used a tavern next to the Old Town House for drinking and gambling. There was also a fountain on the square from which slaves fetched water.

Important notices and proclamations were read from the balcony of the Town House, including the slave code, which read:

* Slaves must go barefoot and must carry passes.
* Any slave who stops in the street to talk to other slaves may be beaten.
* No meeting in bars, no buying of alcohol, no groups on public holidays.
* No gathering near church doors during a service.
* Any slave out after dark must carry a lantern.
* Curfew - slaves must be indoors by 22:00.
* No singing, whistling or noise at night.
* Not allowed to own and carry guns.
* Flogging and chaining for insulting a free man or making false accusations.
* Any slave who dares to strike a slave-holder must be put to death.
* Free black women are not allowed to be as well dressed as respectable burghers' wives and they must carry passes.

Presently, in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the Square is being fairly extensively upgraded.

Slave Mentality

I came across an article recently, by political commentator Andrew P Jones, which made a very interesting point, in the after-glow of the Obama victory. His point is that while indeed the Obama ascendancy to the Presidency has been great and historic, the unquestioning support which African-Americans have given him is something deeply rooted in a master-slave mentality.

African Americans, he argues, have proved themselves in the past, to be virtually incapable of rallying around the “ideas” of liberty (incorporating such issues as restitution and reparations for slavery and psychological independence from the majority) but when a charismatic leader such as Obama comes along, they will follow him, blindly, to the end.

Jones relates conversations he had with his grandfather, who was born in 1861, four years before slavery was abolished. His grandfather had many recollections of the history (which largely preceded him), given to him by others. Most startling was that, contrary to popular belief, many slaves did not hate their white masters. Indeed, slavery was unbelievably hard, but rather than see their masters as tyrants, they saw them as benefactors who looked after them, so long as they acted like slaves. Slaves, he contended, had much more affinity with their masters than they did with other slaves, whom they treated with contempt – since the only way you could survive as a slave was by doing others down.

Most slaves didn’t have any concept of freedom, because being slaves was all they knew. Rather than being free, the fantasies they harboured was about living in the big house, and being the master. Jones’ grandfather had said to him that slaves didn’t want to be free. They wanted to be the master.

I have thought about this startling comment quite a lot recently as we enter a period of elections in this country – particularly in the context of the rather toxic politics of the Western Cape. And I have said before, in this column, that their Obama and our Mandela are not the same thing, by a very long shot. Obama had whites voting for him a-plenty. Mandela most certainly did not – however much they might now love him – I doubt whether they will, even now vote for his party the ANC, in any significant numbers.

But Jones’ argument puts a whole new perspective on it all. What he is saying is that African-Americans, in general, have voted for a master. Behind this master are all the institutions (political and otherwise) which are not in the control of blacks, but rather remain in the control of whites. This is very different from South Africa, where the black majority, once it gained political power immediately set about the task of remaking those institutions. To quote Jones:

“…white people, I submit, via their institutional control of the political system in the United States, elected their first black president, just like black people did … (in South Africa)... We African-Americans, on the other hand, because we do not have that kind of institutional control, nor the mentality that would create it, chose ourselves a master whom for now we shall treat like a king.”

In the Western Cape, slavery has left its mark in the psyche of the majority of the people, in a way in which it simply has not done in the rest of the country. Jacob Zuma’s ancestors were never slaves. They were oppressed, but they were never slaves. And yes, both have suffered immense oppression, but there is a psychological difference between them which plays itself out in the politics of the present (among other things). Because I would bet my bottom Dollar that what the majority of people in the Western Cape really want, and will demonstrate at the polls, is not freedom. Not real freedom - political, institutional, social and psychological - which they build for themselves, from scratch if necessary. What they want, is a master to look after them well.

25 January 2009

The Article referred to in this column is Andrew P Jones: “A people chained by a slave psyche” in The Argus 20 January 2009.
Andrew P Jones is a political commentator and author of the book Barak Obama: America’s Saviour or Judas Goat, Diary of a mad black voter