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    You are at:Home»Uncategorized»Fighting for Fingo – yesterday’s heroes and today’s challenges
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    Fighting for Fingo – yesterday’s heroes and today’s challenges

    Grocott's MailBy Grocott's MailNovember 8, 2012No Comments5 Mins Read
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    n the 1960s and 1970s the community of Fingo Village, supported by
    various solidarity groupings in the City of Grahamstown, successfully
    fought against being forcibly removed by the apartheid regime. In so
    doing, they have left today’s citizens with an urban space that is

    n the 1960s and 1970s the community of Fingo Village, supported by
    various solidarity groupings in the City of Grahamstown, successfully
    fought against being forcibly removed by the apartheid regime. In so
    doing, they have left today’s citizens with an urban space that is
    more racially integrated than would otherwise have been the case.
    It is precisely this reality and this realisation that should impress
    upon us the opportunity that we have to turn macro spatial integration
    into lived and substantial integration. Because the reality is that
    whilst today’s residents may occupy the same city bowl, we don’t
    actually live together in the full sense of the term.

    From the mid 1950s until the late 1970s, the apartheid government was
    intent on removing the ‘black spot’ of Fingo Village from ‘white’
    Grahamstown. Indeed, in its 1970 guise the Group Areas plan for
    Grahamstown sought to protect whites from the perceived threat of
    blacks by setting up a buffer zone to be occupied by coloureds and
    Indians.

    Had this pernicious plan been implemented as intended by the apartheid
    regime, the bowl of Grahamstown (the valley between the Settlers
    Monument and Makana’s Kop) would have been largely cleared of black
    people. In this scenario, Grahamstown would have looked like countless
    other South African towns, where black people were dumped out of town
    – around a corner, behind a koppie – out of sight and therefore out of
    mind of middle-class whites.

    However, the community of Fingo Village realised it would not be in
    its interests to move from Grahamstown – away from familiarity,
    family, friends, property, nearby job opportunities – to desolate,
    isolated Committee’s Drift. And so they resisted, using a variety of
    tactics.

    Most important, the community understood the importance of solidarity
    and unity. In the face of sustained efforts by the regime to break the
    community through divide-and-rule devices, it stood together, and so
    triumphed.

    In 1980, all of 25 years after it first signalled its intention to
    remove Fingo Village, the government finally backed down and began the
    process of re-proclaiming it as a black area.

    The magnitude of what was achieved at Fingo Village – the protection
    of African freehold rights in so-called ‘white’ South Africa – is
    significant not only in the local context but also in the national
    South African context. By way of reference, the only other community
    in the country that successfully defended its freehold rights in the
    face of the apartheid onslaught was Alexandra, in Johannesburg.
    During this 200th anniversary of Grahamstown, a matter that today’s
    citizenry should consider is: are we doing enough to build on the
    successful defence of Fingo Village, to truly integrate and unite the
    city? For this, surely, would be an appropriate way for us to pay
    tribute to the immense contribution that the 1970s Fingo residents
    have made to Grahamstown?

    These men and women have bequeathed us a city bowl in which all races live.
    But what is the quality and quantity of our inter-racial and
    inter-class interaction with one another today? Surely we could
    conduct ourselves differently, to foster better integration, cutting
    across all realms of life – business, culture, religion, sport,
    education.

    It seems to me that, despite the noble intentions and good efforts of
    many people across a range of sectors, we have not yet properly
    grasped the nettle as a community. There are so many things on our
    side – geographic compactness; widespread philanthropy; well-endowed
    educational institutions.

    Yet there is not enough focus on fashioning and implementing incisive
    and effective strategies that will genuinely integrate the city.
    One of the most important strategies that is currently under-valued
    and under-invoked is the sharing of resources through the direct
    actions of ordinary citizens. Increasingly, there is a need to get
    educated middle-class people into the townships, not merely for
    purposes of research and observation, but for purposes of bringing
    their capacities to bear there in meaningful ways. Similarly, there
    are opportunities for more significant involvement of our powerful
    educational institutions such as Rhodes University, in Fingo, Tantyi,
    Zolani, Joza and so on. And there are opportunities for more
    inter-school exchanges, in the classroom, on the sports field and in
    the extra-curricular domain. In the context of such interactions,
    thousands of new relationships would be forged and developed.
    Increasingly, we would find each other, empathise with one another,
    take an interest in one another and find fulfilment in others’ joy and
    progress.

    Come and share Fingo’s history

    Over the past few months, as part of Makana Municipality’s ‘200 Years’
    commemoration, Gadra Education has worked with a variety of energetic,
    skilled young people on a public exhibition showcasing the resistance
    of the community of Fingo Village against its threatened forced
    removal to the Ciskei. The organisation is proud that its exhibition,
    ‘Fighting for Fingo’ will be permanently housed at the fabulous
    library in Fingo Village.

    It is a gift from the organisation to the Fingo Village community in
    recognition of the tremendous role that it has played in the history
    of Grahamstown and in gratitude for the opportunities that
    contemporary citizens have as a result to unite the City today. The
    exhibition will be opened on 16 November, at Fingo Village Library, at
    4pm. All are welcome to attend the event.

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