Food, Community, and District Six

Photo stolen without permission from flickr as an artistic protest in solidarity with the former residents of District Six. Yeah, thats it, artistic protest... 

I went to the District Six museum today with my mother in Cape Town, South Africa.

District Six was (big emphasis on the was) a thriving, multicultural community in the heart of Cape Town where, ex-residents reminisce, you could find or do anything. Though relatively poor and with some serious crime problems, the District was a dear home to thousands upon thousands of black and "coloured" (their term, not mine) South Africans for decades, and for many, was a crucial part of their identity.

That is, until white South Africans decided that the District posed a "health and safety" risk to the rest of Cape Town, forcibly removed over 60,000 inhabitants, demolished their homes and businesses, and declared it a "whites-only" zone. Reparations for this atrocity, committed a little over forty years ago, are still underway, and it wasn't until 2004 that the first original residents were allowed to return. District Six has become something of a figurehead for the tragedies of apartheid, and the entire story is immortalized in the museum.

So, what does this have to do with food? A common element to the museum was pictures and interviews with former residents, and in the vast majority of these, I couldn't help but notice the crucial role that food and kitchens continued to play. Again and again, people remembered watching their mothers' stand at the stove; entire families congregating in the kitchen; celebratory feasts; conversing over dinner with neighbors and friends; buying cheap fish to take to the movies and share with the entire front row; the old woman who used to sell peanuts on the corner.

Of the millions of interesting things that undoubtedly happened everday in District Six, it was these almost mundane memories which the residents chose to share again and again.

This, I believe, is not unintentional or coincidental.

It's true, I think, that our homes and neighborhoods give us identity. They are our original foundation from which we draw our sense of self, and from which we orient ourselves toward the rest of the world. And what makes you recognize home more than the smells of your favorite food from childhood, or the sight of your family preparing a holiday meal? What feels better than going into a neighborhood restaurant which you've frequented for years and knowing the servers by name? Or going into the corner shop or super market or farmer's market or gas station or whatever it is that you have that provides you sustenance and knowing exactly - exactly! - where to find the food or drink that you're after?

This is what makes us know that we are home.

And sharing these things with others - opening our tables to them, opening our kitchens to them, exchanging recipes with them, bringing them food in times of tragedy or economic hardship - this is what makes us know that we are not just a bunch of individuals living near each other but that we are, in fact, a community. And I believe that it is this same sense which the former residents of District Six were tapping into again and again in their interviews.

Food = community. That connection is something which nobody can touch, not even the cruel ruling elite.

And thank god for that.