A Captured Past ...

On the 5^th August 1962 an event occurred in the Midlands that was to become a part of South Africa’s convoluted political history. At an otherwise uninspiring point on the R103 between Durban and Johannesburg, our most famous political prisoner was arrested. His given name on being taken into custody - David Motsamayi.

Today the site, although still modest in its acknowledgement of that event is clearly marked for passing travellers – these often being contented tourists experiencing the magic that is the Midlands Meander. Signs displaying the familiar symbol of National Monuments and placed a few metres either side of a poorly maintained brick memorial wall read Mandela Capture Site. Already crumbling, being slowly covered in weeds and uncollected litter - obviously paid little attention by the ineffectual local regional council - it was here that Nelson Mandela was to begin the most arduous part of that Long Walk to Freedom. Both he and our history surely deserve better treatment.

There is hope that things may change, for the significance of the place has been acknowledged by the ‘curator’ of much of our cultural and artistic heritage the director of the apartheid museum, Christopher Till. More about this and Christopher’s plans for the area can be read on the sagoodnews website.

The word tsiamelo (a place of goodness) found on the granite plaque of the monument interestingly strengthens the links of the site to the Meander route on which it is located – the Meander’s by-line being ‘a good place.’ That it is!

In much the way that I admire the stark simplicity of the Deportation Martyrs Monument in Paris, I like the simplicity of the design of this memorial – it suits the historical context. (If only its upkeep was the former’s equal). I did some weeding, removed the litter, and with the overhead cables of the train lines in the background, the light and dark of the two wings of the wall, I think the spirit of the site and significance of its history can somehow be sensed here.