It’s a puzzle how the Mayor can think that you can honour Khoi heritage by destroying it.

His press release claimed that the rejection of the appeals by Khoi indigenous groups, civics, environmental and heritage groups would enable the City to honour Khoi history. It seems he would rather believe the heritage consultants paid for by the developers and small group of Khoi leaders who have come out to support the development and its destruction of the riverine Open Space and the original course of the Liesbeek River.

It’s no coincidence the main spokesperson for this “First Nations Collective” supporting the development is a Chief in the Goringhaiqua Cultural Council, the same group promised custodianship of the concessions offered by the developers – viz. a heritage centre, indigenous garden, a cultural praxis site, an indigenous media and communication centre and an amphitheatre where Khoi and San art, culture and music can be showcased.  It seems these concessions, offered by the developers after they hit a speed bump at the Heritage Appeal Tribunal in 2018, can be used to make up for the complete destruction of the intangible heritage of the site.

Since custodianship implies you are looking after something for the group, on whose behalf exactly are they practicing custodianship of the site? It can’t be the !Aman Traditional Council, the Taaibosch Kei Koranna Royal House, the Kai !Korana Transfrontier, the Cochoqua Royal Council, the Southern African Khoi and San Kingdom Council, the First Indigenous Nation of South Africa, the Federation of First Peoples of South Africa, the A/XARRA Restorative Justice Forum, the !khoraIIgauIIaes Council, the IKhowese Nama Traditional Council, the Western Cape Khoi and San Kingdom Council and the Goringhaicona Khoen Khoi Traditional Council, all First Nation groups who have strongly opposed the development. In fact, so strong was the unanimous opposition of Khoi leaders at the first meeting of the Heritage Appeal Tribunal in the River Club in September 2018 that one of the Khoi leaders vowed to take the matter to President Ramaphosa as the first case of ‘expropriation without compensation’ should the development go ahead. Present in that meeting and part of the unified opposition was Kai Bi'a !Kora Hennie van Wyk, of the Goringhaiqua (see the image in this link), the only one of those leaders present in the room  then who is now in support of the development. So, custodianship is not for the Khoi nation but for the Goringhaiqua who will establish some kind of autonomous legal entity to exercise custodianship, as confirmed in the developer’s proposal.

But custodianship in the context of indigenous people’s claim to land should not just be to manage a cultural centre or a garden. It involves a sense of responsibility towards land and the landscape not just to what a developer puts on that land.  It implies a relationship with the land that is holistic. Zena Cumpston, a Barkandji aboriginal scholar, writing in the Conversation, describes it as follows:

“First Peoples have a relationship with Country that is loving, reciprocal and engaged. This “kincentric” relationship includes custodianship obligations – often lacking within non-Indigenous views of Country. Instead of being seen as kin – something to be cared for, listened to, deeply respected and nurtured – Country is seen by many non-Indigneous people as a resource to be exploited and controlled.”

But that’s strange because what is happening at the River Club is exactly that - the subjugation of the land as a resource to be dug-up, infilled, disfigured, concretised, exploited and controlled. Rather than protecting the land, the First Nations Collective appear to be in agreement that the Open Riverine character of the land, integral to the intangible heritage of the site, should give way to behemoth buildings of 18 to 44m in height, densely packed onto a 14.7 ha site.

So, it would seem the City is willing to protect one version of Khoi history that enables the City to exploit a natural resource, destroy intangible heritage and replace it with a recreation of Khoi history.

But the City’s track record on protecting and honouring Khoi history seems consistent with a say-one-thing-mean-another approach:

1.      In April 2018, Heritage Western Cape issued a Provisional Protection Order over the River Club, in order to grade the site for heritage before any development could be considered. The Order was rapidly appealed by the Developers. The City, rather than assisting the process of heritage grading, went out of its way to join the developers in appealing the order, disputing that there was an imminent threat to heritage that necessitated a Protection Order. The appeal was dismissed by an Appeal Tribunal 18 months later but by then the Protection Order had lapsed and HWC had not completed grading the site for heritage. This left the path open for the City to proceed with rezoning. Notably, the Tribunal directive lamented the 'politics of divide and rule' which involved actions perceived as forming “alliances with other tiers of government and developers, instead of aligning the scarce resources, with experience skills and expertise to cooperatively solve complicated heritage issues cooperatively, internally, and in good faith.” It is clear that the City’s intent in appealing the protection order was not to protect Khoi heritage but to camouflage the threat to heritage and allow the development to proceed, ultimately with minor concessions to a small group of Khoi parties.

2.      In October 2019, the City released a draft Local Spatial Development Framework for the Two Rivers Urban Park (from which they removed the “Urban Park”). The draft LSDF wrote the River Club development into the LSDF as a fait accompli as did the accompanying Heritage Impact Assessment for the LSDF. However, in October 2020, the Impact and Assessment Committee of Heritage Western Cape rejected the TR-LSDF HIA as failing to meet the requirements of the National Heritage Resources Act. In their comments, they echoed many of the reasons that HWC rejected the HIA for the River Club earlier in the same year– that heritage indicators were not properly developed to recognise intangible heritage, that development rights should not pre-empt heritage assessment and that the heritage of the whole TRUP should be considered in an integrated way.

The City’s attempt to slip through a new development framework which would have easily justified the River Club development failed again because it is brutal for heritage.  It hasn’t stopped them from bludgeoning the approvals through the MPT and through the appeal process.

3.      In August 2020, the plaque commemorating Khoi history on the banks of the Liesbeek River was vandalised by unknown persons. The OCA reported this heritage crime to the City authorities. Eight months later nothing has been repaired. The site is about 40m from the entrance to the River Club (see above).

4.      In September 2020, the Municipal Planning Tribunal considered the rezoning application for the River Club and ignored the recommendations of the City’s own heritage specialists that the development should not be supported because, as they stated in their appeal of the Environmental Authorisation “the current proposed development does not conserve sufficiently the historical and cultural value and significance of the cultural landscape of the area. The importance of historic and existing spatial context is not adequately recognised in the proposed development in its current form which could be mitigated by a further reduction in bulk and heights.” The Environmental Management Department also raised questions during the rezoning process about “how inclusionary the process of participation with the First Nations has been.” But for the MPT, this was not worth considering in their enthusiasm to approve the development.

5.      In September 2020, the City put out a call for nominations for sites for a Liberation Heritage Route for Cape Town. In their provisional list, they did not mention the Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) or the River Club as a potential site, despite being apprised numerous times in the River Club development process of the site’s importance as the location for the first acts of resistance by indigenous people to colonial intrusion, including the defeat of the Portuguese in 1510 and the resistance of the Khoe-khoe to the theft of land and cattle by the Dutch. The site is also slated for inclusion in the National Khoisan Liberation Route and is the subject of applications for both Provincial and National Heritage status. But the City didn’t deem it worth recognising as a provisional site for the Liberation Heritage Route for Cape Town. We submitted the nomination but have had no reply or confirmation to date.

Two Rivers Urban Park (TRUP) is a site rich in First Nation history and the River Club land should be a park celebrating heritage, environmental benefit and social development. It deserves honouring of Khoi history by a genuine and inclusive process that takes all stakeholders’ seriously, not just those who agree with a pre-determined decision.

The Observatory Civic Association, working with the Salt River Heritage Society, the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Council, the Two Rivers Urban Park Association (TRUPA) and the Oude Molen Eco Village will undertake a ‘walk of resistance’ on Freedom Day, the 27th of April 2021, to register our opposition to the development and the destruction of irreplaceable intangible heritage. Those of you in Cape Town are welcome to join us. The walk will start at the Goringhaicona Khoena Kraal at Oude Molen at 9am and end at the plaque, on the banks of the Liesbeek opposite Hartleyvale, where a reinstallation ceremony will take place at 11am.

This is the start of a new phase of our struggle, one which will be long and difficult. We urge you to support us. Please contribute at our fundraising site where we are collecting funds for our High Court action. Imagine! If everyone who signed this petition could take the time to donate R 10 or $1 to our cause, we would be set.