Community needs living memorial, not ‘ag shames’

There was no government support and no justice for the victims of the 1990 northern areas uprising,  South End museum manager Colin Abrahams says.

Abrahams is the author of The 1990 Northern Areas Uprising in Port Elizabeth: A South African Story of Communities Resisting Oppression.

He said an investigation into the events of August 1990 would be one form of justice, and that the question of how people had suffered and what those losses were needed to be calculated.

The matter of how affected families should be compensated also had to be investigated, he said.

“For example, the education of children — how can those children be helped to be educated?

“It is a bit late now — perhaps a living grant — but more than that kind of assistance, the recognition of your plight.”

Abrahams said pent-up frustrations with the long history of oppression had led to the uprising.

“We call it an uprising and not a riot because you will always get criminal elements who will take over the situation.

“Practically everything was destroyed in the northern areas.

“About 56 people died and though they will say a certain number, there were still people lying in mortuaries, names not given,” Abrahams said.

For Michael Barry, an artist and member of the Northern Areas History and Heritage Project (NAHHP), a living memorial to understand the history and heritage of the northern areas is important.

More than 10 years ago the NAHHP embarked on a research project funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, and facilitated by the Southern Africa Development Research and Training Institute, to contextualise and document the cultural and historical needs of this community.

“It allowed us to investigate the northern areas, which is a complex township.

“It’s got these issues around identity, and where people fit into SA and don’t fit in.

“For four years we interviewed people about issues, from identity to history, to economics and to the riot itself.”

The NAHHP interviewed victims, investigated the political, socioeconomic and historical reasons behind the uprising, and produced several products, including a video and Abrahams’s book.

He said NAHHP changed the word “riot” in relation to the events  to “uprising” after the study.

“We came to the conclusion it wasn’t a riot.

“It had elements of that but it was an uprising, which is unusual for this area, because people in this area were usually placid.

“But that uprising was a kind of breaking point.”

The NAHHP developed the concept of a living memorial to educate people of the northern areas about their history and heritage.

“For a lot of people, a memorial is some cross somewhere.

“We said no, for us this memorial must be living.

“We developed a whole curriculum of programmes that speak to this living memorial. And then we found a location.”

Barry said a proposal was taken to the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality.

“It must be revisited.

“You have to have something positive come out of it [the uprising] — not just a commemoration every year where we say ‘ag shame’.”

- HeraldLIVE