Countering Colonial Memory Through Public and Popular Culture in Cape Town

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an excellent article that does a great job of placing colinail history, apartheid history, and current events on a timeline that clearly connects ideas and attitudes of white supremacy that remain intact in South Africa today. Using both literary and musical elements to discuss rememory and the ongoing battles to present the actual events and themes of history is very well done. Morrison’s concept is used as a strong foundational point that is elaborated with the content of this article. Indeed, the roles of arts and literature are shown here to be immensely valuable aspects of culture that navigate these issues in very effective ways.

The paper also does a good job of placing Cape Town within a global context of both colonial history and ongoing processes and debates about rememorying. The concluding paragraph is especially potent. These same issues are happening across the Atlantic and South Pacific world where European white supremacists took hold and established bases of power. As we experience a global reactionary resurgence of white supremacy, pointing out the specific histories of places like Cape Town helps us understand how this resurgence is taking up outdated arguments and applying points of the resistance to colonialism to argue that their history is being erased in teh process. That is to say that white supremacists today are using the arguments of erasure developed by people of color and the colonized over the past century. This article can play an important role in illuminating how these genuine arguments are being appropriated by white supremacist powers.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your thoughtful comments and feedback on this paper. The paper is now a much more robust paper due many excellent reviewer comments. I have added several more contextual expansions on both case studies and clarified the concept of rememorying further. I have also drawn deeper connections between the two case studies and located them within the impact that they have had on the Capetonian popular culture landscape.

I hope you find these revisions satisfactory and I look forward to your feedback.

Remaining in conversation...

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

SUMMARY:

This article employs the concept of “re-memorying” developed by Toni Morison, using it to explore two sites of popular culture in Cape Town and how they have challenged white supremacy and the colonial past in South Africa by reframing colonial history and memory in the present. The first is the Iziko Slave Lodge as a post-apartheid museum which was reimagined from the previous South African Cultural History Museum. The author describes how the museum redresses the history of enslavement in South Africa by reclaiming the past through recognizing and remembering those individuals and communities who were oppressed and how their descendants have claimed this history and their identities in the present.  The second site is a song “YVR” by the Capetonian rapper Youngsta CPT which challenges both the standard colonial narrative of South African history as well as reframing that history into a history of resistance, connecting the past with the present and ongoing struggles for equality.

COMMENTS:

This is a highly original comparison – a museum and a song – to explore challenges to colonial memory through popular culture in Cape Town. The choice is compelling, particularly as it is highly likely that readers will not be familiar with one or both of the case studies. The author does a good job of contextualizing the museum and the song within the appropriate sections of the article.

I would like to suggest that the author consider the concept of “site” as a way to clarify the logic of comparing two very different examples of popular culture. This would also help the author to reinforce the importance of place, ie. Cape Town itself, as a site for contested claims of history, memory, memorialization, and re-memorying.

For example, the author begins by stating the Khoe term for Cape Town. But does it refer to the geographical space between the mountain and the sea? There was no “Cape Town” prior to colonization. The author then states that “Cape Town is also fondly known as the Mother City…” When was that term coined? It was not used during the Dutch colonial period where the most common term for the town was De Kaap (The Cape) until well into the 18^th century. If the author is using Tariq Mellet’s analysis of naming that should be made clear. (Mellet’s The Lie of 1652 should also be included in the bibliography.) The author needs to clarify these naming practices by conducting further research because readers will also be interested in knowing how the site changed names over time to become “Cape Town.”

It would also be useful for the author to mention the contested history of the Bo-Kaap as almost a counter narrative to the destruction of District Six. The struggles of rememorying District Six have to contend with the obliteration of the site into a contested “empty space” (except for the religious institutions that refused to deconsecrate their buildings and land) which in the post-apartheid era is being reclaimed by competing interests. The struggles of the Bo-Kaap during the colonial era and into apartheid were against state neglect and in the post-apartheid era a community struggle against gentrification. That might help to clarify the difference between two of the major  sites of struggle for post-apartheid gentrification struggles in the city.

For clarification the major sites for the VOC slave trade included South and Southeast Asia  not only “southeast Asia” (sic) (69).

The author does not make clear why they are focusing extensively on Jouwe and Zaaymans mapping project, particularly as it is aimed at a Dutch audience (119) and it is published in a book that is not open access and relatively expensive for a local South African readership. The author should clarify how this publication is relevant for community struggles at the local level in Cape Town.

It would also be helpful to readers for the author to elaborate on how Dianne Ferrus’ poem was received by South African audiences when it was first published. Did the poem become a call for community organizing around the return of Baartman’s remains? How was the poem received and recited at the local level? The author reproduces this poem in its entirety so it is important to give it more context as “rememorying.” Sarah Baartman was put on display in London and Paris – not “across Europe.” The author might want to refer to Crais, Clifton & Scully, Pamela (2009). Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13580-9. Crais and Scully discuss Baartman’s response to British abolitionists trying frame her as enslaved while she was in London.

The discussion of the TRC and Goboda-Madikizela’s arguments about the links to #RhodesMustFall is interesting. The author might want to address the class and generational issues involved in the latter movement.

The discussion of the Iziko Slave Lodge is interesting. Again, I would encourage the author to consider “the museum” as a particular site of contestation in rememorying. As established institutions museums have a very particular form of narrative authority – and are important for educating local youth (through school visits) in understanding history and isn’t primarily a tourist site. The author could elaborate on this – particularly as the Slave Lodge has been so important in reclaiming not only the site itself but also the history of enslavement and exploitation at the Cape. Who visits the museum? Who curates the exhibitions? What are the relationships with community groups in how the site is used?

The discussion about the development of the Cape Flats needs revision as it is not accurate. The author states “within the racial category of Coloured are Cape Malays, people enslaved by the VOC and brought to the Cape from South-East (sic) Asia, East Africa, and across the Indian Ocean.” (8) The author needs to clarify the apartheid category of Cape Malay – which was, basically, used to identify Capetonians who were Muslim. There is a very robust scholarly literature on the evolution of these categories in South African history generally, and Cape history specifically, that the author does not reference.

It would also be helpful for the author to explain the emergence of “Afrikaaps” as a linguisitic and cultural concept distinct from Afrikaans. This is essential to the argument particularly as Youngsta engages in code switching and very localized references that is mainly aimed at a local audience.

The section “Youngsta CPT’s YVR” is the most original part of the article and needs further elaboration, particularly in the rapper’s use of cultural tropes of apartheid narratives of South African history (including the way they were made familiar to generations of South Africans through the cultural lens of the South African Cultural History Museum).

It would be interesting for readers to understand who Youngsta’s audience is and how his music is performed and distributed. How popular is he? Does he do live concerts? Or are his performances mainly video based? This is relevant to the author’s argument about popular culture. To put it bluntly, readers need to know whether or not Youngsta is famous enough to make a significant impact on popular understandings of resistance and if so - how and where?

The conclusion needs revision because it is not necessary for the reader to know what sites were not chosen. This is an opportunity for the author to make the case for the importance and relevance of the case studies they have chosen.

The article needs careful line editing, including the following:

62: it’s – replace with its

72: abolishment – replace with abolition

346: word missing from sentence:  “The Cape Flats is an housing where people…”

375: delete possessive on VOC and British

502: chapter  – replace with article

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback. I really appreciate the time and care you put into the review, I have found your suggestions to be incredibly valuable and have pushed me to recognise expansions in this paper that work towards a much stronger paper.  

I have tried to incorporate all of your fantastic and useful comments in the following way:

1. I incorporated the concept of site at the end of section 3 of the paper and returning to it in the reworked conclusion.
2. I have added some more information about the naming of Cape Town. Giving more background to the indigenous name of Cape Town, as well as the nickname of the Mother City. I also provided some more information about the geographical space between the land and sea. I have added some more resources in the text and to the bibliography.
3. I have added some more context to District Six and added further information about Bo-Kaap, I agree that this is essential information to understanding the make-up of the city, but also necessary background for the two case studies as well.
4. I have adjusted to include South and Southeast Asia.
5. Initially I had chosen to discuss Jouwe and Zaayman’s book as an example of the mapping of cities and as a tool to understand the histories besides naming policies and practices throughout the colonial-apartheid eras. However, after reflecting on your comments, I know feel that is does not add to the overall point of the paper, nor is it relevant to local experiences. I have therefore removed this paragraph in it’s entirety. Thank you for raising these pertinent points.
6. I have adjusted some of the information as per your suggestion in relation to Dianne Ferrus’ poem, and the biographical information of Sara. I agree that more information is required in relation to how I am using to show rememorying. Unfortunately, I was unable to find an accessible version of the book recommended. I found only a pdf of the front matter and reviews of the book. My institution also does not have access to the book. So I chose writings from other authors to bolster the arguments and add critique. Gqola – who I have chosen to cite here instead, references the point you had made in your comment that was made by the other authors, and she has also cited their work in her chapter. I hope this is sufficient to address your concerns.
7. I have added the class and generational dynamics of the movement, and referenced FeesMustFall as well.
8. In relation to the Iziko Slave Lodge, I added some further background information about museums, but also about the specific questions you asked about the museum. While it was difficult to find specific statistics for the questions, I tried to answer these questions through what was available on the website. This has been done throughout the section.
9. I have adjusted the section on Cape Malay identity through adding further explanation about the history of the category and including relevant literature.
10. I also added some further information about Afrikaaps.
11. I have included additional information on Youngsta CPT in terms of who he is and his audience base to further solidify the selection. And I have addressed the use of cultural tropes and the background behind this. And then further showed the impact that Youngsta brings and why he is a central part of popular culture in south Africa.
12. Then I have reworked the conclusion.
13. I have completed all the line edits as well.

Again, I would like to thank you for the effort put into the comments and feedback, I now believe this paper to be much stronger. I look forward to your response to the changes I have made.

Remaining in conversation…

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear author,

Thank you for this very interesting and well written article, from which I learnt a lot.

I only have one suggestion for you to consider and that is around the conceptual framework of your analysis. In my view, it would be beneficial for the article if you engaged the concept of rememorying more, especially on a theoretical level. How does it differ from other approaches to memory of (formerly) oppressed people, what are the merits of thinking about disobedient memory in these terms, generally but also with regards to your case studies?

From the text as it is I could not grasp the concept well and instead found myself wondering, at some point, if any instance in which those who have been erased from dominant or colonial memories retell their stories counts as rememorialisation? Some more nuance would be great here. In this context, you could also add a brief discussion about the differences between your two case studies. Does a single hip-hop artist, even if well-known, have the same impact on re-memorialisation as a national museum? What are maybe also the differences between your two examples when considered from the broader perspective of how they might change South Africa's mnemoscape?

Lastly, I would like to draw the author's attention to something that struck me as a contradiction in the argumentation: Throughout the text, you speak about the aim of your and others' work to "rehumanize" the enslaved. Yet, at the bottom of page 7, you cite Jouwe and Zaayman's criticism of the idea of "rehumanization", as it would suggest that it had actually been possible to take away the enslaved people's humanity, which they say it wasn't, because they were always human. If I am not totally misunderstanding the citation, does this not stand in contradiction to your own frequent use of "rehumanization"? Why, then, did you cite this specific passage from their book?

I would propose that you either simply remove it or else, explain why you nonetheless chose to still think along the lines of "rehumanization" through re-momorialisation.

Once again, it was a pleasure reading this article. Best of luck with further research on this important topic.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

I have addressed the following points:

1. I have added some further clarification and explanation of rememorying. I have also expanded on postcolonial memory by connecting it to rememory more clearly. And I have addressed the case studies further in the next point.
2. I have also added some further information about the two case studies – in each case study section, I have included further background information in relation to their importance. More specifical in the section about Youngsta CPT I have added more information about the impact that he has had on popular culture in Cape Town but also in South Africa more broadly to highlight how seminal his music has been for the furthering of the histories of the enslaved. I have also further addressed the merits of each case study, while acknowledging their standalone importance and impact as well. In the conclusion, I have also made the connections between these two case studies clearer.
3. In terms of the quotation by Jouwe and Zaayman, I agree that it does not add to the argument I am making. Initially I had thought that it would add more nuance to who and how and why rehumanisation is important and how it has been perceived, however, this paper might not be the right space for that. So I removed it from the paper.
4. The paper has also been significantly more contextualised with the comments of other reviewers, and further connections have been made between the two case studies, as well as their merits within addressing popular culture but also in rememory exhibits in both cases.

I hope these revisions have addressed your concerns.

Remaining in conversation…