Cato Manor museum still not open two years later
Building remains vacant after glitches halt project
TWO years have passed and the R350 million uMkhumbane Cultural and Heritage Museum in Cato Manor is still not open.
Despite a launch event having been held in May 2017, the five-storey building, situated between Mary Thiphe Street (Cato Manor Road) and Rick Turner Road, stands vacant.
According to eThekwini Municipality spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela, the project was hampered after the main contractor was liquidated five months after the launch event.
He said plans were, however, under way to complete the project and open it to the public, but there were a few snags that needed to be dealt with.
Mayisela said that once all the relevant divisions had approved the appointment of a new contractor, they would be in a better position to know the time-frames for its completion and opening.
The museum is expected to showcase various exhibitions and artworks.
“Some of the themes would deal with the establishment of Cato Manor, general life, destruction due to forced removals, re-establishment, urbanisation from the 1980s onwards and the Afro-Asian tension of 1949, to name a few,” said Mayisela.
In 1949, tension had grown between African and Indian residents living in close proximity to each other after a racial incident occurred in Grey Street. This sparked a spate of violent anti-Indian attacks that extended to Cato Manor.
According to SA History online, this began when an Indian stall-holder caught a black boy stealing from him and punished him for the offence.
In response, the black community started looting Indian shops, residences and businesses. As a result, Indian landowners lost their properties to African shack lords and traders.
The authorities took two days to defuse the situation, which resulted in 137 deaths and left several thousand critically injured.
The curator at the 1860 Heritage Centre, Selvan Naidoo, said the establishment of the Cato Manor museum and other such museums in a post-apartheid narrative was crucial to the development of a collective South African identity.
“In learning from the history of our fractured and painful past, the proposed exhibitions at the Cato Manor museum have the potential of healing societies that live and have lived in this area by recalling the past while also learning from it.
“There remains meaningful healing to be exercised to avoid a repeat of the 1949 riots. The beautiful Cato Manor museum is the perfect place to remind us of how we can live together in harmony and peace.”
Ela Gandhi, of the Gandhi Development Trust, added it was important to record history and place it into perspective.
“I think the importance of any museum is to build bridges and to unite communities who were divided by apartheid, and to that extent, indeed, this museum can play a role in uniting communities.”