Kiru Naidoo. Kiru Naidoo.
Durban - The memory of Magazine Barracks tugs at the heartstrings.
It was a community of working women and men.
Battered, bruised and brutalised by colonialism, indenture, racism, unfettered capitalism and apartheid.
But it was a lotus that bloomed on that Eastern Vlei (to borrow the defiant botanical imagery of Pushpam Murugan’s seminal people’s history of the community that was her home).
Out of the muck, daily struggles for survival and the condemned living quarters, Indian municipal workers of the Durban Corporation carved a close-knit community steeped in the arts, culture, faith, sports, politics and education.
Beyond the old residents and their descendants, “the barracks” hardly warrant a mention in the kaleidoscope of South African communities affected and infected by the country’s tortured past.
For those who know of the existence of Magazine Barracks much less is known about its pulsating heartbeat over the span of almost a century and its eventual destruction in 1965 by the Group Areas Act.
There is a phenomenal appetite in contemporary South Africa for stories from the ground up, of people’s stories about themselves and the emotions that make them whole.
This is eloquently captured in the African proverb: “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt will be told by the hunter.” The risk, however, is to romanticise.
The old residents invariably look back with blinkered nostalgia, seeing the barracks as a time capsule.
The close bonds of community are recalled with great affection.
The indignity of the living conditions and the breadline wages is quaintly erased. One revolting picture is of the communal toilets.
People went about their business sitting in rows facing each other. Its construction had scant regard for dignity or privacy.
In 1904, assistant town clerk WPM Henderson compiled an almost 400-page municipal history of Durban to mark the borough’s golden jubilee.
African and Indian workers get passing reference often in the context of detailing nuisances rather than respect for their labour. Race presents another dilemma.
Well before the apartheid Group Areas Act was passed by the Nationalists in 1950, the municipal authorities enforced a rigid race-based residential segregation.
From early colonial times, divide-and-rule, pioneered by the colonial administrator Lord Lugard, was a rule imbibed by the oppressor and oppressed alike.
Interaction between Indian and African municipal workers was very limited even though they lived in neighbouring barracks.
Even a pioneering trade union like the Durban Indian Municipal Employees Society (Dimes), which had its roots in the communist movement, showed flashes of protectionism.
Sport, more especially soccer, presented an opportunity to break out of the rigidity of racial segregation.
A charming reference is to the legendary soccer player Matambo (real name Mariemuthu) arising from the isiZulu word for bone, ithambo.
He routinely played on what was called the “African ground”.
While there are different interpretations of the name given to him by fellow players, one describes his physical strength on the field and the other about his tackles being so fierce that it could break an opponent’s leg.
The champion boxer Billy Nagiah, whose sport brought him into contact with all communities, recalls the exchange of rations with African workers in the adjacent barracks.
Items like rice and cooking oil were exchanged for mielie meal.
The overarching shadow of racial oppression and forced relocation aside, there is palpable pride among the old residents and their descendants that there was once a community called Magazine Barracks.