Thoughts on The District Six Museum

The District 6 Museum was a little underwhelming. It’s about the former community of working-class, mostly Coloured people living near downtown Cape Town and the harbor, which was demolished and its inhabitants forcibly relocated to the Cape Flats to live in squalor in townships such as Manenberg or Mitchell’s Plain. I was expecting perhaps more innovative or interesting displays, which the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg featured heavily through video, audio, and a plethora of visuals. We took part of it briefly, a tour guide, a former activist and self-proclaimed pan-Africanist, a Coloured Man who claimed to have been a follower of Robert Sobukwe, but in reality was perhaps a little too old and losing his memory and engaged in an conversation with my friend, Sizwe, that almost turned into an argument over nothing.

And these white South Africans in the group included an older woman who clearly had a lot of guilt for apartheid and slavery, since she on two or three occasions ensured the Coloured tour guide that NOT ALL white people supported apartheid and neither was she responsible for the man’s great-grandmother being a slave! Needless to say, that was a little awkward. Anyway, the museum was not as small as I thought, but the displays were often full of boring text, and, at times, were not explained in great detail. It was, as one would expect, a ‘traditional’ museum but lacking in enough depth and scope on District 6 to truly move me, despite the ugly history of forced relocation, racism, and segregation that parallel experiences of people of color in the US so well.

Highlights of the museum included watching children eat a meal while their teachers stood by, watching my friend almost get into an argument with the old tour guide over nothing because the latter kept talking down to him as if he was a fool, and pictures from houses, community institutions, and families that once lived in the area. The museum is one of those trips you 'have' to do in Cape Town, and I am sure for those less informed on the history of forced removals in apartheid South Africa, it will be more informative and educational. It is undeniably an emotional experience in some way, especially as one can see the names of people whose lives were forever altered written at the museum, as well as replicas and pictures of former houses in the area that illustrate the strong community that inhabited the region. Personally, I prefer the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, but this is a nice start.

All pictures courtesy of my friend, Sizwe, who fortunately brought his camera with him when we visited the museum.