Bo-Kaap Misrepresented

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Bo-Kaap Misrepresented by M.F.Arnold(PTD, B.A, Ph.D [HC])

By Whom: The Colonial Narrative

Why: To reduce the Value of Islam as the Spirit of Strength and Freedom in Bo-Kaap

How: By degrading Faith as part of Culture

Method: Creating a narrative of a “Colourful Bo-Kaap” by intention that the people of Bo-kaap are descendants of colourful coons and a community with no real roots, but the descendants of slaves

Intended Impact: Disrespect for the value of the people of Bo-Kaap

Function of This misrepresented Narrative: To attract European Tourists to see a living museum of people who were colonised by the Dutch and British and who today need them to survive

What is the effect on the People and their property: They are flooded with strangers and their privacy and property disrespected.

What is the reality: Bo-Kaap was The Bastion against Apartheid

Why: because it was the only city centre area that withstood the government’s attempts the declare it “White”

How: Three attempts of City Council to Build a bridge through Bo-Kaap cutting it in half  [like they did in District Six] and then declaring the upper part white and the lower part business.

How was it thwarted: Three attempts to build a bridge connecting De Waal Drive with Sea Point through Bo-Kaap was dislodged by a different Mosque of the Bo-Kaap that stood in the way of building the bridge – which they were fearful to demolish

The Result: The in-complete bridge at the entrance to the Waterfront – where the engineering failed and the funds were withdrawn

Why: The Spiritual Presence of Bo-Kaap with its 10 Mosques dotted through it that protects its area and the spiritual luminaries buried there– By The Grace of God

So Why are Tourists attracted to Bo-Kaap: Whatever the narrative:  People’s natural inner-heart- yearning for the Call to God is personified in Bo-Kaap

So What is the History: The people are not the descendants of the Slaves, but the emancipators of slaves through the spiritual presence in Bo-Kaap and because Tuan Guru started the first public school that taught religion and secular sciences holistically in the Owal Mosque. The free-time slaves had, were spent with the Muslims in Bo-Kaap, who welcomed them in the Mosques, schools and homes for spiritual occasions and offered them the opportunity to marry – under the Eyes of God. This gave them honour as a family – which the Dutch denied them – for they were not allowed to marry, but allowed to procreate to have children to be owned by the slave owner as slaves. The slave quarters in churches slowly emptied, because the African slaves became Muslim.

Proofs:

1.       “By the 1820’s About 370-491 free and slave blacks were taught Islam by Malay priests in their homes” [Behr, Shell, Ajam]

2.       The Plakaat of the Dutch Government prevented slaves from:

a.        Keeping their family names – Muslims in Bo-Kaap still have their original family names

b.       Slaves were not allowed to marry, but to cohabit – Muslims married and Their Faith does not allow cohabiting

c.        The Slaves had to follow the faith of their owner – Muslims were always free and kept their religion and the Bo-Kaap Muslims, established the first public school and mosque in South Africa in 1794 - The Owal Mosque in Dorp Street– Slavery was only abolished by the British in 1836

d.       Slaves could not own property – The Bo-Kaap people own the houses in Bo-Kaap for generations

3.       A Muslim does not submit to the enslavement by a human and hence would fight and die for his faith – knowing he would go to heaven for fighting oppression – the Dutch and British thus feared Muslims and would rather employ them as craftsmen and women but not as slaves – and some black slaves, who became Muslim, killed their abusive, oppressive slave owners, to free the other slaves–[ See Lady Barnard’s history]

4.       The moneys earned by the Muslim servants and craftsmen allowed them to become the property owners in Bo-Kaap.

5.       The emptying of the slave quarters in churches and the increased Slaves becoming Muslim – prompted the government to start Christian Missionary Schools – prior to that, there were no public schools – so the Muslims of Bo-Kaap initiated public school education [ Lord Charles Somerset promulgated in 1823 compelled Christian slave owners to send their slave children to Christian Missionary schools – after Lord Caledon’s complaint since 1807 “ that imported Mozambiquecan slaves were becoming Muslim”[Ajam 1986]

6.       The The first recorded arrival of free Muslims known as Mardyckers is in 1658. Mardycka or Maredhika implies freedom. The Mardyckers were people from Amboyna [an Indonesian island] in the southern Moluccas and were brought to the Cape in order to defend the newly established settlement against the indigenous people, and also to provide labour in the same way that they had been employed at home, first by the Portuguese and later by the Dutch, in Amboyna. Jan Van Riebeeck had requested that the Mardyckers be sent to the Cape as a labour force. The Mardyckers were prohibited from openly practising their religion: Islam. This was in accordance with the Statute of India [drafted by Van Dieman in 1642] which stated in one of its placaats [statutes]: "No one shall trouble the Amboinese about their religion or annoy them; so long as they do not practise in public or venture to propagate it amongst Christians and heathens. Offenders to be punished with death, but should there be amongst them those who had been drawn to God to become Christians, they were not to be prevented from joining Christian churches. " The same Placaat was re-issued on August 23, 1657 by Governor John Maetsuycker probably in anticipation of the advent of the Mardyckers to the Cape of Good Hope. The Placaat governed the Cape as part of the Dutch Colonial Empire.

7.       The Muslims of Bo-Kaap are also descendants of influential political exiles who fought the Dutch and who were too dangerous to be jailed on the islands of their origin, because of their influence on the people against the Dutch. This explains the strength still inherent of the Bo-Kaap Muslims.

8.       The Colour technology of Plascon Paints was only possible in the late 1990’s – early 2000, Therefore the Red Bus Tour claim that Bo-Kaap people were so happy to be freed as slaves that they painted their housed different colours – is not only derogatory , but blatant ignorance of modern life and history – there was only white Chalk paint in those times, hence the beautiful white old Bo-Kaap, Dutch and British houses