January 16, 2003
By Bongani Majola
"WERE you detained at all?" Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs quietly asked Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Valli Moosa, not in court, but on the minister's first visit to the Constitution Hill in Braamfontein on Tuesday.
On the occasion, the judge seemed in every way an unlikely tour guide to the minister, but we all trudged along amid the city's heat wave to witness the tour.
While Moosa's answer might not have been significant, what was certainly significant was the tribute Constitution Hill will pay to the struggles not just against apartheid, but for freedom and human rights in South Africa, rights that are now enshrined in and protected by the country's Constitution, hailed as one of the world's best and also most liberal of constitutions.
Laid out in front of Moosa was an ambitious plan of transforming an area, encompassing what used to be the Johannesburg's Women's Gaol on the outskirts of Hillbrow, the blacks-only "Native Gaol" and the Johannesburg Old Fort, which housed only white prisoners, into a Heritage, Education and Tourism Project.
The minister was invited on a walk-about of the area, to get a sense of what it looks and feels like now, a brief outline of who was kept in what corner, as well as plans to turn the place completely around.
Originally built between 1896 and 1899 by Transvaal Boer Republic president Paul Kruger to provide a lookout over the "uitlanders" (foreigners, mainly English gold fortune-seekers) in the then mining village of Johannesburg, as well as later also serving as prison to all sorts of "violators", the now 95 000 square metre precinct will be turned into a place to behold.
Once completed, the Constitution Hill will consist of a Constitutional Court building, a building for Constitutional Commissions, museums, heritage sites, archives, libraries as well as recreational grounds, hotels, restaurants and retail stores. The old prison buildings will be landscaped and refurbished, turning the site into Johannesburg's hottest tourist attraction.
Not only that though, said Dhianaraj Chetty project manager for Clear & Effect Media, which is part of a consortium that won the tender to develop the site.
"It's intended to be a new way of experiencing the inner city," Chetty told the minister. "With the Constitution as the subtext to the whole site, we juxtapose this against the background of a real history of incarceration. In the end what you have is a deliberate tension between an institution that takes away your freedom and one that protects your freedom."
Moosa is not the first luminary to grace this former place of captivity. Many before him found themselves in the confines, albeit under different circumstances. As a prison, the place has played host to the famous and infamous alike.
Former president Nelson Mandela was held captive within the walls. So did Indian-born passive resistance leader Mahatma Gandhi, child and husband serial killer Daisy de Melker and the man who inspired prison gangsterism, thief and murderer Jan Note, otherwise notoriously known as Nongoloza. Nongoloza's name became synonymous with the infamous "Native" section of the jail, known as Number Four. But that, according to Sachs, is all going to change.
"It's going to make existing government buildings look awful, once completed," quipped Sachs, "and need I remind you minister that this is the place where we will hold the government accountable."
The government, at both provincial and national levels, is intimately involved in the initiative. Other partners include the City of Johannesburg, the Johannesburg Development Agency and national departments of Public Works and Justice.
"This walk was very powerful," Moosa exclaimed as they took the last glimpse from an aerial view looking down at the building contractors at work.
So powerful was the walk that, as the minister confided to the judge, it revived his convictions that Parliament should move to Johannesburg. "Here is a perfect place for people to walk through and see Constitutional democracy in action," Moosa offered.
"But to answer your earlier question," the country's chief of tourism said to the judge, "I have been to several prisons as a detainee, but certainly not this one!"
