WATCH: While SA dances and celebrates heritage day, our heritage sites fall apart

Once testament to a rich history and heritage, the 1940s thatched Mamelodi Rondavels, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu studied, and the oldest known buildings in the Pretoria township, is now a monument of neglect, pillaging, and vandalism.

The significance of the heritage site, defined by a small cluster of rondavel-styled buildings, is described in a paper published by the SA Journal of Cultural History in 2003 as a “visual local remnant of the history” of Bantu Education and struggle for a non-racial society.

There is now, however, little left, “except for a small brick wall,” local historian, Aubrey Mohase, laments.

“It now stands as an example of how citizens and government have no regard for history and posterity.”

Mohase said the site in Mamelodi West, D6, was refurbished for R22million in 2018, but there was hardly anything to show for it and then, it was mysteriously gutted by fire last year.

According to the author of three books on the history of the township, the site had been neglected before but the community kept it going, using the buildings to host social and educational events.

“It was when the Tshwane municipality stopped the community from using the facility that vandals moved in and took everything, with the fire consuming anything left. Sadly, all local heritage sites have suffered the same fate,” he said.

The Mamelodi Rondavels are among about 150 heritage sites across the country listed as endangered by members of the heritage community on the Heritage Portal, an information platform for the SA heritage sector.

Cultural activist, Khuluma Mahlangu, said what hurt most was that it was monuments and heritage sites documenting African history and the country’s struggle history that was being left to decay.

“It is really sad. We can dress in traditional attire all we want, but the neglect of our national monuments and heritage sites will be the legacy of this generation,” he said.

The Solomon Mahlangu Freedom Square, with a bronze statue of the struggle icon, Solomon Mahlangu, has been stripped of its perimeter fencing and plaques at the base of the statue removed.

A few blocks away is the Ribeiro House, in which Dr Fabian Defu Ribeiro and Florence Bárbara Mathe lived and held anti-apartheid meetings, raised funds for many people in exile, and documented the torture of apartheid victims for the international media.

The couple was killed by apartheid security agents in their courtyard in December, 1986 following several attempts on their lives but the house, in which Dr Ribeiro ran his surgery from 1961 until his death in December 1986, has been neglected and left in ruins.

The DA has raised concerns about the state of heritage sites, which the party said were in a terrible state despite millions of Rands allocated annually for the maintenance and completion of refurbishment projects.

“While the country continues to commemorate Heritage Month, there is nothing to celebrate in Gauteng as several facilities worthy of preservation remain a shadow of their former selves,” Lebo More, the party’s spokesperson for Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation in Gauteng, said yesterday.

He said Nelson Mandela’s house in Alexandra, also a heritage site, had been abandoned and left to deteriorate, despite plans to convert it into a museum.

He said the historic Rotunda building in Braamfontein has been vandalised and the roof was disappearing, the Cradle of Humankind in Mogale City was an environmental and health risk due to pollution in the rivers flowing through the world heritage site.

“The archaeological and palaeontological resources of the site have been listed as one of 53 sites around the world that are in danger of losing their status, according to Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)…” More said.

He lamented that the Boipatong Monument and Youth Centre was also not fully operational, though completed in November 2015, as it was plagued by structural defects, sewer blockages, broken windows and air-conditioners not functioning.

Department of Sports, Arts and Culture spokesperson, Zimasa Velaphi, did not respond to questions. siphom@citizen.co.za

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