Cato Manor

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Cato Manor
Cato Manor (South Africa)
Cato Manor
Cato Manor
Coordinates 29 ° 52 ′  S , 30 ° 58 ′  E Coordinates: 29 ° 52 ′  S , 30 ° 58 ′  E
Basic data
Country South Africa

province

KwaZulu-Natal
metropolis eThekwini
ISO 3166-2 ZA-KZN
Residents 93,000
founding 1865
Special features:
townshipTemplate: Infobox location / maintenance / comment

The township Cato Manor is a settlement on the periphery of the South African city ​​of Durban in the metropolitan municipality of eThekwini . It is one of those urban settlement areas in the province of KwaZulu-Natal that are characterized by the great poverty of their residents. Cato Manor is located about ten kilometers from the city center of Durban and gained national fame during the apartheid period due to the beer hall unrest .

Location and settlement structure

Cato Manor is located on the northwest outskirts of Durban. The campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal joins it in the southeast. The original settlement structure has changed again and again through the development in the 20th century through informal settlements and their removal with police operations. Larger contiguous green spaces exist in the form of the Cato Manor Parks (public park), the Cato Manor Cemetery (graveyard) and the Cato Manor Sports Fields (sports facilities). They extend along a small natural watercourse.

Public facilities

The Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital is located in this district .

traffic

Two motorways pass near Cato Manor and can be reached via inner-city road links. These are the N2 in the west and the N3 in the north. Internal traffic development is mainly via the M 10 road.

history

The settlement emerged as the location of a garden market for people of Indian descent and was named after George Christopher Cato in 1865 , who was elected the first mayor of Durban in 1845 after gaining town charter . The area was an exchange area for land required by the military in the port area. Around 1900 the area was leased to Indian gardeners. In the late 1920s, black families settled here, leasing small plots from the Indians, as the sale of land to them was prohibited by law. By subletting smaller units, a labyrinthine slum developed. In the Zulu language , this area was called Mkhumbane , after a stream flowing here.

During the apartheid epoch, unrest took place here that received national attention. The living conditions here were extremely precarious, including typhus epidemics. In 1949 riots between blacks and Indians killed 142 people and 1,087 people were imprisoned. Albert Luthuli was politically active here in the mid-1950s . The Durban city government was very concerned because of its proximity to a large settlement with highly politicized blacks and Indians. It was therefore decided to convert this township into a “white” zone on the basis of the Group Areas Act . The most famous riots in Cato Manor broke out in 1959 when this law was supposed to force residents to be relocated to other townships. An initial key role in the start of the unrest in 1959 was played by the beers made by women in small domestic breweries , which they traditionally prepared for the Zulu men. The police took massive action against private alcohol production and thousands of gallons of beer were liquidated in the process.

In June 1959, numerous women demonstrated and articulated their demands to the head of the Bantu administration in Durban. On June 18 and 19, a police group armed with light machine guns opposed the rallies. In response, the women destroyed the white-controlled communal beer halls, from which the city budget benefited with revenue. The police then attacked the women with beatings and batons . When the Zulu men returning from work that evening realized the day's events, they attacked the police. This resulted in prolonged unrest in which 25 buildings burned down and seven other suffered serious damage. The police used automatic firearms , killed three men and arrested 14 people.

In response to this riot, city authorities suspended public services for Cato Manor. That included a seven-week suspension of drinking water supply and sanitation . A commission of inquiry later found that the causes of the unrest lay in the extreme poverty and housing conditions, and condemned the decision of the city authorities to temporarily suspend their public utilities. In the course of events, residents of Cato Manor put up roadblocks to prevent police operations.

The unrest spread throughout Natal, with over 10,000 women involved in other parts of the province by mid-August 1959. As a result, there were further demands for tax relief, free choice of profession and the lifting of the restriction on freedom of movement , which a women's delegation presented to a government official in Ixopo in October . The protest group was disbanded by the government through a police operation using whips and machine guns. The unrest continued and around 400 people involved were arrested and sentenced. Nine police officers lost their lives in attacks in Cato Manor by early 1960. The events of 1959 went down in apartheid history as the beer hall riots .

In 2002 a modern clinical center ( iNkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital ) and a visitor center ( Cato Manor Visitor Center ) opened in the district. In 2012 the mayor opened the Umkhumbane Theater .

Demographic structure

93,000 people live in Cato Manor. There are so-called squatter settlements in Cato Manor with an unexplained population. The Cato Manor Development Association (CMDA) is running an urban development project to improve urban living conditions . It is the largest inner-city urban development project in South Africa in the post-apartheid epoch. Residential houses with low construction costs, community halls , health care facilities, schools, public libraries and roads are being built. Furthermore, work is being carried out on the supply of electricity, drinking water , telephone connections and postal infrastructure as well as rainwater drainage and a comprehensive sewer system.

The Cato Manor Development Association is also promoting commercial development in the township, including much-needed training opportunities and small business start-ups. One of the urban planning objectives is to develop residential areas for around 170,000 people. During the apartheid era, the informal settlements were removed here with violent measures. The CMDA carries out its urban redevelopment measures with funds from municipal, provincial and state funds as well as funding from the European Union . Over 380 million rand has already been invested here in this way.

Attractions

About seven kilometers southwest of the center of Durban is the Cato Manor Museum ( Cato Manor Heritage Center ). It provides information about the history of the township with a focus on the social, demographic and political development in this settlement.

reception

The writer Alan Paton dedicated a play to the Umkhumbane (Cato Manor) settlement, for which Todd Matshikiza wrote the music. The piece was produced in 1960 for the South African Institute of Race Relations .

A 1994 film called The story of Umkhumbane-Cato Manor: whose land? whose memory? deals with the history of its residents during the apartheid period and deals with the effects of the Group Area Act. It was produced by the Media Resource Center at the University of Natal .

Personalities

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Province of KwaZulu-Natal: Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital . on www.ialch.co.za ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ialch.co.za
  2. ^ Joel Carlson : No Neutral Ground , New York, 1973, p. 107 ISBN 0-690-58457-1
  3. ↑ Timeline 1940–1949 at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on November 28, 2012
  4. ↑ a b Cato Manor History . on www.wiki.ulwazi.org  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / wiki.ulwazi.org  
  5. ^ Joel Carlson, pp. 107-108
  6. ↑ Gottfried Wellmer: South Africa's Bantustans, History, Ideology and Reality . Bonn, Informationsstelle Südliches Afrika eV, 1976, pp. 43–44
  7. ↑ www.mantramedia.us
  8. ↑ www.durban.gov.za
  9. ↑ south african audio archive (English)