Malay Camp

The Malay Camp has a history similar to that of District Six and Sophiatown. The site has been a source of deep racial divides in the capital of the Northern Cape for more than 60 years. During September - Heritage/Tourism month - the Premier of the Northern Cape, Ms ED Peters, officially unveiled a commemorative obelisk in the Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens as well as a permanent museum exhibition depicting the history of the site and its people.

The exhibition, housed in the McGregor Museum in Chapel Street, Kimberley, has been created to honour the hundreds of coloured, black and Indian families who were forcibly removed from the Kimberley City Centre during the Apartheid era.

In addition to the exhibition, memorial boards have been erected, illustrating the layout of the original area, and a book has been published on the social life of the residents at the time.

The suburb dates back to the very early days of Kimberley, during which it was described as a vibrant area whose cosmopolitan population made the area a unique place. The noted Solomon Plaatje, first Secretary-General of the African National Congress, and Abdul Abass, the President of the South African Rugby Union for many years, were residents of the broader Malay Camp. The Leon, Fortune, Abass, Kesters, Fredericks and Abrahams families all played key communal roles at the time.

In the 1950s and 1960s, as part of the then Government’s policies and at the request of De Beers who owned the farm on which the suburb in Kimberley was situated, the Malay Camp was cleared of its coloured and black population and all their houses were demolished.

Except for one Master’s thesis on the suburb, very little has been done to record the history of the Malay Camp. The recently launched memorial and exhibition is an attempt to make people aware of the injustices of forced removals and restore some dignity to those who were expelled from their homes.

Those appointed to do historical research on the suburb used all resources available for the project, including that of oral history. The research investigated the historical background of the site, from its origin to its demolition. Other aspects considered were the homes, schools, religion, sport, social life, business, political removals, personalities, land claims and where the Malay Camp’s residents are located today.

For years, a large part of the area lay barren, and De Beers built a memorial park in honour of its revered chairperson on the remaining part. The rest of the site has since been transformed into a shopping centre. Ironically, when this centre originally opened its doors, no black or coloured people could trade there and were not allowed to attend the cinema shows at the on-site auditorium.

Like the District Six museum, this new project seems set to attract considerable interest from visitors from both South Africa and abroad, giving as it does a unique look into the lives and lifestyles of a cosmopolitan community destroyed by Apartheid but yet continuing to exert an influence on a city more than 50 years later.

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The Protea Hotel Diamond Lodge is a sponsor for the launch of the Malay Camp Tourism Project.