This past month was the month in which we passed through the Equinox, the date when day and night are approximately equal. It marks the seasonal transition from summer. It’s a most significant time for indigenous cultural activists as it is the day when, from the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers, the sun can be seen to set on Lion’s Head, an event that held deep spiritual importance for the indigenous Khoi in pre-colonial times. Khoi families and clans would have gathered in the Cape for seasonal summer pastorage at the crossing point of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers and so the transition from summer would have signalled important changes in the transhumance practiced by the Khoi. For that reason, the Equinox is highly significant In Khoi cosmology. The link between the sun, the mountain, the rivers, the land and their way of life was captured by that rare event, at the Equinox, when the sun set on the Lion’s Head. And it was only from the land at the confluence of the rivers, as confirmed in indigenous narrative, land which is now occupied by the River Club, that this view was evident.

Last month, however, for the first time ever, there was no view from the River of the setting of the sun on the mountain. Instead, as can be seen in the image above, the sun set on the Amazon’s behemoth concrete buildings, studded with cranes, blocking the view of Lion’s Head. This is what the LLPT’s redevelopment has done for indigenous heritage, replacing the views that connect mountains to the rivers and human spirituality with a view of a concrete behemoth built as part of an R4-billion development project that is a testament to commercial and technological avarice on a grand scale.

Perhaps that is what Anathi Madubela meant when he asked the question “Will Amazon take the lion’s share?” in the Mail and Guardian of 24 February 2023.  A rapacious business entity geared to overtake local South African retailers, has also swallowed a key element of indigenous heritage on the River Club site. 

Strangely, when the Grading Committee of the South African Heritage Resources Agency’s (SAHRA) convened on the 10 March 2023 to consider provisional protection of the River Club site, it did not give appropriate recognition to the deep connections linked to the site which should have triggered provisional protection. While they were at pains to say that the River Club site is a very important cultural landscape, which is a microcosm of early Cape History and which was witness to both determined resistance to colonial oppression but also the brutal eradication of Khoi (and San) identity and history and the distortion of historical fact, SAHRA’s grading officials also rather feebly conceded to the idea that heritage resources must contribute to social and economic development and that any provisional protection would be unlikely to nullify the approvals once these approvals had been given. 

This is all the more puzzling as SAHRA’s comments as an Interested and Affected Party to the Basic Assessment Report in 2020 included confirmation that (a) they disagreed with the developers’ assessment that the River Club site is “of low heritage significance”; (b) confirmed “the site’s deep and sacred connection to the First Indigenous communities, its important 20th -century history, its Sense of Place for Cape Town communities, and ecological importance as a green lung”; (c) they were concerned that the “development at the proposed scale will inevitably change the entire character of the site, therefore having inevitable impacts on the cultural landscape, the sense of place, heritage resources in proximity to the site, and a vital environmental resource.”  The  failing of SAHRA’s Grading Committee to follow through on that logic by baulking at provisionally protecting a site of “deep and sacred” importance for indigenous people is profoundly disappointing.

SAHRA’s Council must still consider the recommendations from the Grading Committee. We hope that they will adopt a more independent-minded position on the matter in the same robust manner that Heritage Western Cape’s Council pursued protection of the site in 2018.

In 1821, the Caledonian Mercury famously wrote that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Today another coloniser has captured the sun for itself. Much like the Dutch East India Company of the 17th and 18th centuries, Amazon has arrogated to itself the right to spread, to claim and to conquer. But naked oppressive power does not last. Writing about the 18th century naturalist and social commentator Francois le Valliant, who spent much of his travelling time in South Africa engaging with the indigenous people of the area, Ian Glenn notes Le Valliant as one of the early critics of colonisation and its impact on indigenous culture and peoples. One of Le Valliant’s reviewers of his writings, a Jacobin speechwriter, observed that “Le Vaillant criticises the Dutch East India Company and gives them excellent advice from which they will not benefit because despite counsel and warnings, power marches blindly right up to the moment when it falls.” 

The Western Cape High court must still decide if the approvals by the City & Provincial offices were legal or not. We believe at that point, Amazon’s power and the LLPT’s bluster will be exposed as having failed, because the development approvals were unlawful. They are marching blindly to that point.

However, to be victorious in Court, we really need your support. We cannot pursue this case and the campaign effectively with our hands tied economically behind our backs. Hence, we appeal to supporters of our campaign to support us financially to keep the case going. If everyone who has signed this petition contributed R20 or US$1, we would be in a much stronger position to fight this case fully. Please support us by contributing at our fundraising site. Any donation of any size will make a huge difference

Visit our website and follow the Liesbeek Action Campaign on twitter: @LiesbeekAction. 

Make the Liesbeek Matter!