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New Book On The Cards For Warwick Junction

New Book On The Cards For Warwick Junction

Following the launch of the two books which seek to preserve Warwick Junction Precinct’s rich history of its people, places and events, the authors of the books have promised the release of another book about the Precinct in about two year’s time.

This was announced by the University’s ROCS research project (Research Of Curries and Surrounds) team – who researched and authored the books – during the launch of the books and exhibition titled: Dirty Linen. Durban’s inner city forced removals.

The exhibition, currently being held at the DUT Art Gallery, ends on Wednesday this week (12 March 2014). The first book is titled: The Making of Place. The Warwick Junction Precinct,1870s-1980s while the second one is titled: Curries Fountain. Sports, Politics and Identity.

The expression ‘Dirty Linen’ refers to the secrets and silences of the old government and the Durban City Council (of the National Government) around the question of forced removals, an ‘open secret’ that it prefers to be best forgotten. The exhibition focuses on the City Council’s shameful policy of forced removals in the 1960s and 70s which hounded established communities out of areas designated for ‘Whites’ and relocated them to racially designated townships on the outskirts of the city.

“The next project is relocation”, said Veena Partab, ROCS team member and Senior Lecturer at DUT’s Media, Language and Communication Department. “It (the book) will document where they (the people who were forcibly removed from the area) went to and how the forced removals impacted their lives. We’ll look for those people. In about a year or two, we’ll have those stories for you,” she said.

Len Rosenberg, DUT Campus Planner and founder of the ROCS team said the launch of the books were a seven year journey of research and many meetings. He said for a lot of people who lived in the area and were forcibly removed, the subject of their forced removal is still a sore point.

Dr Neville Choonoo, a lecturer at the University of New York, who grew up in the Precinct remembered Himalaya House where he “witnessed the historic founding of the Black Consciousness Movement” as a teenager. “We (my friend and I) went there as young teens and there he was (Steve Biko). We witnessed a historic event, the founding of the Black Conscious Movement,” said Dr Choonoo. He said the meeting took place at the building’s second floor, and the two teens were witnessing something historic yet illegal during that time. “The building itself was a very progressive place. Please build a museum like they did in District 6 (Cape Town,” he pleaded.

The Making of Place. The Warwick Junction Precinct, 1870s-1980s, by Leonard Rosenberg, Goolam Vahed, Aziz Hassim, Sam Moodley and Kogi Singh focuses on the Warwick Junction precinct and present a part of the city shaped by colonial and apartheid policies. Focused on the micro level of the spatial development of the precinct, spawned in the aftermath of indenture, it identifies the facilities, institutions, places and events that collectively comprised and symbolised “non-European” Durban. The book traces the establishment and growth of this other “invisible” precinct from the time of the earliest settlement of Indians in Durban in the 1870s through to the 1980s when the apartheid ideology and its structures started to implode.

Curries Fountain. Sports, Politics and Identity, by Leonard Rosenberg, Sam Moodley and Goolam Vahed, is solely dedicated to the history of this iconic sports ground, lavishly illustrated by hundreds of photographs. The history of soccer, cricket, athletics, golf, boxing, cultural events and political activities at this site is located within the political context of the country as a whole, the precinct within which it is located and the changing sporting formations at the time.

– Sinegugu Ndlovu

Pictured: Len Rosenberg, ROCS research team founder signs one of the DUT books which seek to preserve Warwick Junction Precinct’s rich history. The signing was during the launch of the books which coincided with an exhibition titled ‘Dirty Linen’, which refers to the secrets and silences of the old government and the Durban City Council (of the National Government) around the question of forced removals of people who lived in the Warwick Junction Precinct.

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