Abstract
Namibia went from being a colony of Germany to being a colony of the republic, and
it is not surprising that South African racial policies extended to Namibia. Although
segregation was part of Windhoek’s residential layout during Germany’s rule, it was under
South Africa that a deliberate policy of plotting an apartheid city began. In 1912, the
Windhoek Town Council established the Main Location where blacks could live, west of
town. The land belonged to the municipality, whereas the dwellings on the land belonged
to the indigenous people, giving them a sense of security and ownership. The residents
favoured the position of the location as it was located about two kilometres from the city
where most people worked. A sense of community characterised life in the old location.
The night was full of jazz performances and dancing, which connected people (Melber,
2020). Not a single resident of the Old Location favoured the proposed move to another
township. The many encounters that the old location residents had with the municipality
contributed to the tensions between them, resulting in the tragic massacre, which played
a prominent role in Namibia’s fight for freedom. Memorialisation in the form of museums,
monuments and statues will play a part in healing the abrasions of the apartheid past. Light
and Young (2015) explained that such memorials “represent a critical terrain where the past
is confronted, and conflict can be addressed.”
This project aims to create a memorial space, under the guise of transitional justice, in
remembrance of the massacre that occurred on 10 December 1959 and the series of
events which occurred before, such as the women’s demonstration on 8 December 1959
and the forced removal of the habitants from the Old Location to Katutura (Melber, 2020).
According to Duncan Light and Craig Young (2015), public memory is defined as “a body of
beliefs and ideas about the past that help a public or society understand its past, present,
and by implication, its future”. It is a society’s collective understanding of the past and how
this past is represented in the present (Light & Young, 2015). A memorial at the old location
cemetery was built to remember the lives lost at the massacre in the form of a formal gate
and epitaph. However, the names of the 11 people killed in the shooting are not engraved
anywhere. The complete account of all events that transpired concerning the old location
residents before and after the massacre is not visible or shown at the memorial. I believe that
this critical public memory is being mistreated as memory is integral to forming collective
identity (Light & Young, 2015). The massacre and forced removal created a historically
defining moment for the indigenous people in their fight for independence from the South
African government and thus has a vital role in our identity as a nation.
The project will be located in Hochland Park, where the Old Location was. Creating a
place of memory has many tangible and intangible intricacies involved; as explained
by Patrizia Violi, “These places help us understand the network of relations between
individual memories and the diffuse memories of a community”.Two significant memorials
in Windhoek that ground memories of colonial opposition and national liberation is the
Heroes Acre and the Namibian Independence Memorial. As stated by Heike Bekker(2018)”
Heroes’ Acre is a key site for the production of social memory in Namibia, embedded in
the dominant historical narrative, it significantly contributes to the making of post-colonial
futures”.The equestrian statue’s removal happened following a verdict by the country’s
national government to build the Namibian Independence Memorial Museum on the
exact location where the Windhoek Rider was. Heroes Acre and the new additions to the
urban memory scape have been designed and constructed by the North Korean company
Mansudae Overseas Projects. Namibian Architect Jaco Wasserfall claims the new Memorial
Museum is “completely foreign to Namibia, its people, culture and history” (Bekker, 2018).
I visited the Independence Memorial Museum this year. I only saw six images that tell
the story of the old location compared to the many images, artefacts, text and paintings
made which speak of the history of the Namibian people before and during colonial times
and the liberation struggle. Why is there little mention of the horrific encounters that
the Namibian people experienced from the South African authorities in the 1950s at the
National Independence Memorial Museum?
Light and Young (2015) defined Memorialisation as a ‘means of recognising those who
suffered hardship, repression, exile or death under oppressive regimes. The practice of
shaping public memory through commemoration and memorialisation are essential
attributes of transitional justice, the term used for approaches that deal with the past in
the aftermath of despotic regimes or violent conflict. Mieth (2015) explained that it has
since come to describe an ever-expanding range of mechanisms and institutions, including
tribunals, truth commissions, memorial projects, reparations, and the like to redress past
wrongs; vindicate victims’ dignity, and provide justice in times of transition.’ Will the justified
manner of commemorating these events pave another way for reconciliation of the past?
Will narrating the story of the old location in the proposed manner allow the Namibian
people to rethink their national identity?
I will be exploring ‘Narrative as Form Generation’ as one of my methods of investigation,
which means using stories to give order or develop images in the design process (Potteiger,
1998) . The Old Location constructs narrative as there is an interrelation between landscape
and narrative. Narratives are present in landscapes as they accumulate as layers of history
and overlap with sites. By telling these narratives in visual form, Catherine (2004) explains
that ‘we may understand more of them and how to design with them and in them’, which
will allow me to design in a justified manner as I will have a greater understanding of the
untold stories of the people of the old location and the harm the forced removals caused.