By Neil Fraser
August 15, 2005
"THE first tents were pitched under the Highveld skies only after the prospectors were sure that the richest yields were to be along a line just south of and parallel to a number of low ridges from which the Witwatersrand derives its name...
"The first tent camps should be pictured in the mind's eye on the grassy slope south of the third ridge, part of which is indicated as Hospital Hill ... The police barracks and prison were built here in 1892/3 and in 1896/9 the prison was converted into the "Fort" ... which from the south was seen as an earth rampart, with one cannon trained on the town centre and another on the road to Pretoria.
"The reason for this military show of force was the abortive Jameson Raid of 1895/6."
(Excerpted from Mining Camp to Metropolis by Gerhard-Mark van der Waal)
In this story of a city, gold and wealth is juxtaposed with military force and incarceration.
The Fort was, in fact, to form the nucleus of four ignominious institutions built on the 95 000m2 site now known as Constitution Hill - the Fort itself, the so-called Native's Jail or Number 4, the Women's Gaol and the Awaiting Trial Block.
Human indignity
The four buildings collectively came to represent, above all other things, human indignity, suffering and sheer inhumanity.
Almost exactly three years ago, on 23 August 2002, I wrote about the launch of an exhibition at the Women's Gaol (Confronting the past while looking to the future). This was before refurbishment and the building of any additional facilities had started.
On that occasion Constitutional Court Judge Justice Albie Sachs expressed the dichotomy that the occasion represented as he challenged us as to what right we had to be there. What right, he asked, did we have to sip tea and coffee, sit in comfortable chairs and walk over paving that had witnessed the tears, the anguish and the indignities of countless women torn from their families, often for no more a crime than the colour of their skin?
In light of the terrible past that this place represented, what right did we have to be celebrating this occasion? Yet, he countered, what joy and exultation this cruel and callous place now represented as we looked towards the future.
To know that through the struggle of so many who had been associated with this place, the future of the youth who were present and all children throughout the county was assured - that gave us the right to come together, acutely aware of the failures of the past and looking to the promises of the future. Past, present, future: such bittersweet mixed emotions.
Even in the earliest years of the city's history, the local authority did not want the jail to be located on the prominent ridge in the centre of their city. But protests fell on deaf ears as the central government of the time entrenched the incarceration complex.
Female prisoners
A 1904 Commission of Inquiry reported that the prison facilities were totally inadequate, resulting in funds being made available for upgrading and the construction of a building specifically for female prisoners.
The tender for the Women's Gaol was awarded in 1910. The design was based on innovations introduced by the 18th century British penal reformer Jeremy Bentham. He believed that prisoners should be under constant surveillance by the all-seeing eye of the prison authorities rather than confined to the dungeons, as was the case in medieval days.
This approach resulted in a design of an oval hall, from which cell wings fan out. It was known as a panoptican or a "round house design".
Audrey Brown, the director of research at the Women's Gaol, said, "Unlike the men's section, which does not conceal its primary purpose, this space beguiles the eye and misleads the mind. The light-filled atrium and the cells radiating off it conceals the very essence of a jail - punishment and subjugation.
"The architecture of the women's jail might be more subtle than that of a male prison in terms of power and control, but it is just as violent."
Commission on Gender Equality
This past week the permanent exhibition in the Women's Goal and the new offices of the Commission on Gender Equality were launched jointly. Unfortunately other commitments prevented me from attending the actual launch, but I did spend some time at the exhibition in the Women's Gaol on Tuesday, 9 August - Women's Day.
The exhibition pulls no punches and is quite harrowing. It tells the collective story of the hardship and resistance of hundreds of thousands of mainly black women, as well as the individual stories of those who were held captive and of those who were the captors.
It describes how countless women were arrested for not carrying their passes and how they would have their details recorded - the names of black women in blue and white women in red, emphasizing the racial discrimination that dominated life in the jail; they would be fingerprinted; stripped and searched with great indignity.
It tells of how groups of women would be stripped and herded together and shoved under a small showerhead with one small piece of soap, while others stood and watched.
In the starkness of each of six solitary confinement cells, it tells the particular stories of Nolundi Ntamo - constantly arrested for not carrying a pass book; Yvonne Ntonto Mhlauli, arrested at the age of 22 for holding hands with a white man (he was not charged); Sibongile Tshabala, for brewing beer; Lilian Keagile, arrested for terrorism and severely tortured; Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisulu, held for three weeks with 2 000 other women for protesting against the pass laws.
There is the story of Nikiwe Deborah Matshoba, who was arrested under the Terrorism Act. After serving her sentence she served with banning orders that confined her to the Krugersdorp Magisterial District, which prevented her from attending her own wedding; her wedding dress is poignantly displayed.
Then there is a wonderful exhibition of paintings and sketches by Fatima Meer, done while she was in detention for six months under charges of terrorism. The works were smuggled out of the jail and hidden for years. There is more, much more.
Today the jail, in new buildings built over the previous exercise yard, justly houses the Commission on Gender Equality and the offices of the Public Protector.
The glass door leading to the commission's offices bears a poignant quote from Joyce Pilisa-Seroke, the chairperson, saying how, today, when she comes to work in the commission's offices, she passes through the same entrance she walked through in 1976 when she was detained.
There is so much one could write about this exhibition, but it wouldn't do it justice. You have to go and experience it for yourself - and take your children, they need to know too.
Regards, Neil
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