Neil Fraser
March 31, 2003
Fietas is a microcosm of South Africa's past. Its history is one of vibrancy and one of despair. It was established as an exclusionary racial area but grew into an integrated community of people, space and use - and then was callously and cold-heartedly destroyed.
It suffered the same fate as the better-known District Six and Sophiatown. Like them, it is a story within which there are thousands of untold stories and today there is a renewed energy and urgency to capture the memories of a place "where nobody was nobody and everybody was somebody".
Fietas is the name given to an area on the west of the Johannesburg centre city which had its origins as a 'location' for people of Malay descent. Where does the word 'Fietas' come from and what does it mean?
All the reading I have done and the questions I have asked have not proided the answers to those questions. Suffice it to say that it was a popular name amongst its earliest inhabitants for what Paul Kruger named the "Malay Location" in 1894.
Whilst originally set aside for Malay people, by 1905 the area was occupied by Chinese, Africans and Indians. During the 1920s and 30s the majority of inhabitants were Indians but by 1940 Fietas was a "multi cultural melting pot of all races and religions".
In 1943 the area was established as a township and named Pageview as a tribute to JJ Page, then Mayor of Johannesburg.
Fietas comprised twenty six parallel streets and 352 residential stands on almost all of which were erected four cottages. Each comprised two rooms, a kitchen and a communal toilet and bathroom. The resultant urban form of narrow streets fronted onto by buildings forced people to interact closely with one another on a daily basis that added to the harmonious integrated community spirit.
In 'The Social History of Pageview' author N. Carrim records that Pageview had shops or cafes on the streets that bordered the area and cafes that were found in the middle of the streets. There were masjids (mosques), four churches, two cinemas, four Islamic schools, one Hindu school and one Tamil school/temple/hall.
Educational establishments in the area included the Indian Girls School, Coloured Junior School, Coloured College and Indian Junior School. There was also a communal hall and social clubs in the area. These social, cultural and religious establishments were of utmost importance acting as the social glue for community life." There were also shebeens, alleyways backyards and stoeps that melded together to form a place of energy and vitality.
14th Street was known throughout Johannesburg as the fun place to shop attracting locals and tourists. And then there was sport. Sport to Fietas was what jazz was to Sophiatown.
But its unique multiculture was anathema to the newly elected Nationalist Party in 1948. Within two years it had promulgated the Group Areas Act that established separate living areas for people from different races.
Fietas was to be destroyed and to be rebuilt for whites. Its inhabitants were to be forcibly removed and placed in new racial townships, Lenasia for the Indian Community, Soweto for black community and Eldorado Park for 'coloured' persons.
The Fietas Project Report says "The historical impact of the Group Areas Act went well beyond the bulldozing of homes and the resettlement of its residents. It brutally interrupted the development of an integrated national identity, laid waste to a rich and dynamic cultural heritage in all its dimensions and, created conditions for the profound alienation of the people affected. In effect it ripped out the soul of a people for generations past and to come."
N Carrim describes the destruction as "Piece by piece 'Fietas' was destroyed under the eyes of the people who loved the place. Slowly rubble took over the place where buildings once stood. Gradually the place that everybody knew so well was transformed into heaps and heaps of debris. Pageview, a place of vibrant and dynamic aura of life, was now filled with the nauseating stench of death. Pageview was dying."
Fietas - vital, exciting, energetic - died to all other than in the collective memories of those that lived there. Whilst District Six and Sophiatown were virtually razed to the ground, Pageview was left with quite a number of historic buildings but they are all under huge stress. Some people from the original community have moved back but much of the vacant space is subject to land claims.
Last year a group of former residents organised the first Fietas Festival as a tribute to those who had lived there. The Festival, held over three days, celebrated what had been and the community that had existed through music and food, poetry, oral history and film. People sat under the stars on plastic chairs in the location of the demolished 'bioscopes' to revisit some of the films of the day.
The anecdotes and stories began to flow often along with the tears. A heritage trail, guided by former residents, was identified, a commemorative plaque was laid. The people of the forced removal gathered together to "celebrate, reflect and embark on a journey of reclaiming their heritage".
Last year's Fietas Festival laid the foundation for a unique annual cultural festival to promote public awareness of the history of the people of Fietas and to reunite former residents. But it was also the seed to spur the community into reorganising themselves into identifying interventions that are required to develop Fietas as a heritage site. A Fietas Foundation is being structured, surveys of the area have been conducted by volunteers from the community, the need for a spatial development framework is being promoted and a document providing the basis from which such a strategy may be informed has been produced, "The Fietas Project - the journey of a community".
On Thursday morning I listened to one of its authors, Steven Narsoo whose grandfather was a part of Fietas and who himself has a background in town planning, tell the story that I have recounted here, heard some of the problems and difficulties that the development of the area as a heritage site will have to overcome and saw the proposals for the Urban Gateway into the area, the first visual statement of intent of a community embarking on a journey of reclaiming their heritage.
A short foreword to the Report by Immam Ikram says it all: "The history of South Africa is a history of exclusion. 'Our' history is not 'our' history, but represents the history of a privileged few. The stories of so many South Africans remain an enigma, many of the histories of people in South Africa have disappeared, and as a nation we are on the verge of witnessing our heritage disintegrate before us. This report aims at documenting the Fietas Project and its attempt to reveal the histories and stories of the people of Fietas, it is a bold display of their struggles, to survive, their struggle to endure, their struggle to define who they are and where they belong. These are the stories that have evaded popular narratives. The memories and stories of a place that embodied the immense diversity of our country, a once colourful and vibrant community, that have refused to let the past fade away and have thus come to reclaim their heritage in a place people know as Fietas".
"Fietas was a place where nobody was nobody and everybody was everybody"
