Footbridges named after reconciliatory pioneers
TALIEP Petersen’s daughter A’eesha has described her father as a bridge-builder and praised him for the legacy of music he had left behind.
She was speaking at the naming ceremony of seven footbridges yesterday. The footbridges, along Mandela Boulevard and Rhodes Drive in Cape Town, have been named after Father John Oliver and Father Basil van Rensburg; Khoisan descendants /A!kunta (Klaas Stoffel) and Dawid Kruiper; legendary poet Ingrid Jonker; singer, performer and producer Taliep Petersen and Tuan Guru (Muslim Imam Abdullah ibn Abdus Salaam).
The bridges were named after them because they, like Nelson Mandela, had used their lives to bridge the divide – by building bridges between the rich and poor, the haves and have-nots, and those who had access to education and those who didn’t, said Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille.
Speaking at the naming event in Searle Street in Woodstock, De Lille said /A!kunto contributed Khoisan narratives and a large number of words and sentences to the Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd Archive of /XAM AND 1kun archive texts.
Guru is regarded as the father of Islam in South Africa. He was banished by the Dutch to the Cape in 1780 and incarcerated on Robben Island for 12 years until 1792. He wrote several copies of the first Qur’an in South Africa.
Jonker was a South African poet, whose poem Die Kind was read out by Mandela at the opening of South Africa’s first democratic Parliament in 1994.
Kruiper was a traditional healer and leader of the Khomani San in the Kalahari Desert, and addressed the UN in 1994 on the rights of indigenous people in South Africa.
It had led to successful land claims for San people and the restoration of 40 000 hectares of land for them in 1999.
Father Oliver of the St Marks Anglican Church in District Six had been an antiapartheid activist and founder of the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative.
Petersen’s songwriting collaborations with David Kramer on popular stage musicals reflected authentic Cape Town life, talent and vibrancy, said De Lille.
Father Van Rensburg had gained international recognition for his fight against apartheid.
“All these individual we are honouring today played a role in bridging those divides, and were all reconciliatory pioneers and bridgebuilders.
“We will forever remember and be indebted to them for their contribution to our history,” De Lille said.
“These seven icons individually contributed significantly to the history of Cape Town. We are very fortunate to have had people such as these lay the foundations of our great city.”
She said the city had, through its renaming processes, also commemorated worthy deceased heroes such as Madiba, Steve Biko, Helen Suzman and PAC leader Robert Sobukwe.
Van Rensburg’s sister described him as having been involved in protests against apartheid’s forced removals and motivating people not to buy property in the vacant District Six.
The unveiling ceremony also involved songs by various solo and group singers, band performances, Khoisan dancers, poetry recitation, and slide shows depicting some of the heroes.