Constitution Hill Citichat 26 October 2001

CITICHAT 42/2001 - 26 October 2001


Constitution Hill

Last week I mentioned the sod-turning ceremony at Constitution Hill. Attended by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Penuell Maduna , the Premier of Gauteng, Mbhazima Shilowa and the President of the Constitutional Court, Justice Arthur Chaskalson it was far more than a ceremony to mark the start of a new project. It actually was a celebration of the end of an era of injustice, suffering and separation and the start of an era of hope and of freedom.

The old era started in 1892 when the ZAR Government under Paul Kruger built the Fort which was to serve as a prison right through to 1987, apart from the years between 1899 and 1902 when it served as a military defence facility during the Anglo-Boer War. Subsequently, the so-called ‘Natives’ section for black male prisoners, known as ‘Section 4 & 5’ was added with its isolation cells whilst the Women’s Gaol and the Awaiting Trial Building, were added in 1907 and 1920 respectively. Taken together, the whole complex became known as “The Fort”. Incarcerated within its walls were both common criminals and those who were criminalised through colonial and apartheid laws such as the ‘hut tax laws’, ‘beer brewing laws’, the Pass Laws and the Group Areas Act. Boer military leaders were jailed there during the Anglo-Boer War whilst in 1906 a number of leaders of Asiatic descent were jailed for burning their passes in response to the promulgation of the Asiatic Pass Law legislation of that year. Amongst them was a young attorney, Mahatma Gandhi, who asked for the maximum sentence of four years imprisonment but was given only four months as a first offender. Ironically, white miners who took part in the strikes of 1907 and 1913 as well as in the Rand Revolt of 1922 were also jailed in the Fort. Ironically because their rallying cry was “Workers of the World Unite for a White South Africa” ! But the building was also the first stop for thousands of resistors to the repressive regime of the apartheid state before being moved to longer term detention facilities. Those involved in the 1952 Defiance Campaign, the 1956 Treason Trialists, those imprisoned following the ’76 Sharpeville uprising and the ‘states of emergency’ of the mid-80s all became familiar with the Fort and its treatment of inmates. For, irrespective of the reason for incarceration, The Fort was notorious for its harsh treatment of those that crossed its threshold. Some years ago I was part of an informal group who were looking at various possibilities for the complex and we were joined by a Senator who had spent some time there. As we stood in the courtyard he described how he and his fellow ‘detainess’ had been rudely ushered into the open courtyard where they were stripped and then indecently searched to the mirth of their jailers. We went and stood in the wire detention cages in darkness so complete that one could not see the wire mesh encircling ones body only centimetres away. A couple of weeks ago, at the launch of another city project, our past President Nelson Mandela, an ‘old boy’ of this establishment, commented on how he had never really understood the phrase “Clothes makith the man’ until he had stood naked in the same courtyard with many others, stripped and humiliated by their white captors!

In 1964 the complex was declared a National Monument although it continued to function as a prison up to 1987. Apart from being allowed to generally decay since then, parts of it have been used by the City Council’s security services and the Fort itself has been home to the Rand Light Infantry.

Against that background Arthur Chaskalson’s address at the sod turning ceremony was particularly relevant and indeed poignant, as he explained the judiciary’s position during the Apartheid era and the principles that had subsequently guided the development of our new Constitution. The complex will of course house the Constitutional Court which is the highest authority of justice in the land and which is symbolic of the era we have entered into since 1994.

So what will be accommodated in the project? The overall project comprises a number of phases, the first phase being the building of the new Court and its ancillary functions. The Constitutional Court Building stretches down the site from south to north with its Library anchoring the northern end (basically on the southern edge of the existing recreational fields) whilst the Court Chamber will be built at the opposite end of the building, ie the southern end where the Awaiting Trial Block was - ‘was’ because most of it has now been demolished to make way for the new building. However its staircase elements have been retained and will be incorporated into the new building which, capped with new upper floor viewing rooms will give the Court building a very distinctive appearance. Linking the Library and the Court will be the Administration wing off at right angles to which five parallel structures will provide Judges Chambers. Between the Admin wing and Sections 4 & 5 will be the grand ‘African Steps’ which will sweep down the site from Constitution Square.

This phase of the work has already been put out to tender and has been awarded to the Rainbow/WBHO Joint Venture for about R77 million.

Future phases, along Hospital Road on the western boundary, include a number of ‘land parcels’. Land Parcel A, the site of the existing mortuary will be redeveloped to include shared facilities such as conference and training venues, libraries and public information facilities opening onto Constitution Square as well as exhibition space. Land Parcel B, to the immediate north of A, will provide offices for the country’ various commissions, a small hotel and some retail.

Land Parcels C, D and E will provide 10 000, 5 000 and 4 000 square metres of office space respectively, generally in four storey blocks. Queen Victoria Hospital, on the north west corner of the site, built in 1906/7 as a Maternity Home, will be retained as residential accommodation.

The Women’s Gaol at the corner of Kotze and Hospital Street will probably be utilised as the Gender Commission’s offices with exhibition space on the ground floor. Its austere red brick outside quite belies the wonderful central covered space, elliptical in shape and double volume in height. I believe that Winnie Mandela was one of the inmates as was Daisy de Melker, South Africa’s first woman to be hanged for ‘murder most foul’ - but someone needs to confirm those two aspects to me.

The Fort itself will be a heritage project which, with its history, restored ramparts and courtyard will undoubtedly draw great interest. Section 4 & 5 will be used as a museum facility in the short term until agreement is reached as to its best ultimate usage but will contain tourist facilities.

There is little doubt that the whole complex will become a major tourist drawcard and here I don’t mean just foreign tourists. The terrible history juxtaposed with its symbolism of freedom and hope are both such as to attract a great deal of interest. As I have previously written, the complex is seen as the northern apex of the Cultural Arc which then sweeps west through Braamfontein and then south via the Nelson Mandela Bridge into a rejuvenated Newtown.

A Blue IQ/Johannesburg Development Agency CD Rom paints a picture of the Hill, its Fort and its Gaol as a political place; fortified, colonial, garrison, African, Boer, British and apartheid place. But it is also a place of inspiration; of solidarity, thinking, discovery, stories, singing and greatness. The fact that it was a terrible place; of injustice and brutality, of separation and segregation, sickness and suffering, of fear and torture and of rape and murder will be overshadowed by the fact that it will become an internationally recognised symbol of the new South Africa, born out of the political process but now independent of it; the home of the Law of the Constitution and the home of the Guarantor of Human Rights for every South African citizen, A working place, an ordinary place, an urban place a place of stories, of history, triumph, yet a barren place, an extraordinary place, a place of contradictions, of resolution and a place of justice, of reflection, of sorrow, of hope, of simplicity, of study, learning, art and flowers. An everyday place at the heart of the new Constitution and at the heart of the new South Africa, and it’s all happening in Johannesburg, folks!