Walk of Remembrance to honour forgotten Cape communities

IT IS HOPED that a Walk of Remembrance through the streets of Claremont and Newlands on Heritage Day will mobilise support to establish an inclusive Newlands/Claremont Heritage, Environmental Justice and Restitution Society.

Imam Rashied Omar, of the Claremont Main Road Mosque (CMRM), said in partnership with St Saviour’s Anglican Church in Claremont, the institutions will be leading a walk on Friday in a journey to acknowledge and reclaim the history of the displaced communities of Newlands/ Claremont.

The 1.6km walk will commence at the St Saviour’s Anglican Church on the corner of Main and Bowwood roads, stop over at the Claremont Main Road Mosque, and end at the Newlands Kildare Springs.

At each of the places of historical significance, a speaker will provide brief histories of the institutions and landmarks, telling the history of pain and loss of local communities who were forcibly removed from the area.

Omar said both the mosque and church were established in 1854, making the institutions among the oldest infrastructure in the areas.

“The first congregants of Claremont Main Road Mosque and St Saviour’s Anglican Church came from the surrounding vibrant, well-established, diverse community of Claremont and Newlands.

“These former residents did not just live here, but were an integral part of the development of this green, desirable place at the foot of the mountain. Their children grew up playing in the streams of Newlands long before many of the present residents were born,” Omar said.

This was also a place of fruitful gardens where families made lives for themselves aided by easy transport access to their workplaces, he said.

“Our congregants, their families, neighbours, friends, people of all faiths, were brutally ejected from these neighbourhoods in the forced removals of the 1960s.

“Our families were traumatised by this process and continue to yearn for justice.

“Scattered all over the Cape Flats, they and their descendants watched as their homes and heritage were profitably bought up and gentrified in this lucrative property market,” he said.

This was why they were encouraging former residents and their descendants to join the Walk of Remembrance to share their stories of homes, families and livelihoods violently disrupted through forced removals, with current residents.

“The Claremont Main Road Mosque and St Saviour’s Anglican

Church hopes to build on the collaboration around this event to launch a Newlands/Claremont Oral History Project and mobilise support to establish an inclusive Newlands/Claremont Heritage, Environmental Justice and Restitution Society.”

Omar said this would be the first event in what would hopefully be many of its kind, and they were hoping to gauge support for the initiative from the event on Friday.

Strict Covid-19 protocols will be observed and the number of participants will be limited to 100.

To attend, email Imam Rashied Omar at Omar.1@nd.edu or Reverend Chesnay Frantz at stsaviours.rector@ gmail.com