Gerald Danasekera Vedana's recently published book, 'We Shall Cross,' documents the history and life experience of the Shalcross neighborhood, tracing its transformation from the roots of the apartheid era to the modern diverse community of South Africa. Vedana, drawing on personal observations and decades of study, records the people, events, and institutions that have shaped the identity of this place. The book presents a vivid and authentic portrait of a place in transition, making it an important read for anyone interested in local history and community life.
The History of Apartheid
In the grand and absurd theater of apartheid, where the state acted as a clumsy and malevolent director, the Shalcross neighborhood in the late 1970s became the backdrop for a very touching and peculiar domestic drama. This play consisted of three acts and included homeowners, new neighbors, and a script written by the Group Areas Act, which everyone was forced to read but no one could agree on how to perform.
The action began in Extension One, a place where ambition and building materials converged to create something remarkable. Indian families, whose living rules were dictated, decided that if they had to live somewhere, it would be done magnificently. They were not just building houses; they were building statements. These majestic structures with ornate gates, expansive verandas, and gardens that served more for display than for growing cabbage spoke to the world: 'We have arrived, and we bring exquisite wrought iron with us.'
This was 'Model Village,' 'Durban Lucia,' and the residents were proud of it. They followed the script, acquired land, and built their dreams. Everything seemed fine. However, the situation soon changed.
Act I: The Invasion of Low-Income Housing
Then the Department of Public Development, playing the role of a clumsy assistant on stage, appeared and began changing the scenery. Among these newly built palaces, so-called 'low-income' homes began to be erected. The term itself was a model of bureaucratic dryness, but to the proud homeowners, it sounded like a thunderclap. The reaction was swift and sharp. One can picture a scene on a sunny day: Mr. Patel, admiring the fresh paint on his 'splendid' house, looked out at the street and saw an official driving into the ground a sign that essentially read: 'Future housing for a person earning less than 200 rand.'
'Destroyed!' someone might exclaim, clutching their pearls (or gold chain). 'They will crash property values! We were promised elitism! This is not the shade of elitism we expected!' The street turned into a surreal picture: on one side, a mansion striving to become a small Mughal fort, and on the other, a neat, modest, and utterly audacious little house that seemed to say, 'I may be low-income, but my garden will be just as green.'
Homeowners perceived this as a threat to their financial investments. The universe, however, saw in this a delightful irony: hierarchy within a hierarchy, order established inside the very cage designed to contain them. Although the fears were founded, property values did fluctuate. Men who had invested their life savings in these sprawling bungalows watched with barely concealed horror as new residents moved in. But the new residents, in turn, seemed unaffected by the angry stares from across the street. They planted their gardens, painted their gates, and continued to live. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ice began to thaw. Small signs, such as a borrowed cup of sugar, a greeting over the fence, or shared experiences of power outages and municipal inefficiency, began to bridge the gap unintentionally created by the state apparatus.
Act II: The Panel Block Fiasco
As the homeowners grew accustomed to this new, economically diverse look of the street, perhaps even nodding cautiously to the new neighbors, the department returned with an additional act. This time, they brought apartment blocks. And these were not just any apartments, but blocks that municipal construction enthusiasts described as 'even worse than in Wentworth.' Complaints evolved from economic anxiety to full-blown aesthetic and moral panic. A resident of Clearwater Road, clearly knowledgeable about design, stated that these buildings 'spoiled the beauty of Shalcross.' One could almost hear a collective sigh from the verandas. The architectural crime was not only aesthetic; it was existential. These concrete boxes challenged everything the proud homeowners aspired to.
The description was apocalyptic. The apartments were too close together! There were intermediate staircases—a horror! Dark alleys turned into imaginary headquarters for teenage cartels dealing in ganghea and managing shebins with the efficiency of a small corporation. The new towering blocks cast literal and metaphorical shadows on the luxurious bungalows. Every shadow was a potential hiding place for scoundrels. Every echo from footsteps on those intermediate staircases was a potential robber. The most tragicomic figure was the housewife who strategically moved out of lower Shalcross to avoid 'contamination' by the apartments, only to find that the contamination had bypassed her. 'I moved here to get rid of all this!' she must have cried, pointing at the new concrete monoliths. 'Now I have to move again!' One imagines an endless, weary journey through Durban, pursued by an unrelenting army of well-intentioned, poorly constructed municipal flats. Her plight, though felt sincerely, was so typical of middle-class anxiety that it bordered on the sublime.
The Ironic Finale
The real comedic twist, presented by the serious face of police representative Malvern, was that crime was not actually increasing. The gentry they feared were mostly likely just teenagers behaving like teenagers, looking for a quiet staircase to discuss important teen matters away from the judgmental eyes of the luxurious verandas. And the drama subsided. The curtain never truly fell; it simply dissolved into daily life. The promised 'model village' turned out not to be a model of uniformity, but a model of unexpected community. Luxurious houses, low-income cottages, and 'unattractive' apartments learned to coexist reluctantly, then acceptingly, and finally compatibly. Ultimately, the joke was aimed at the system that tried to categorize them all simply as 'Indians.' It turns out that people are much more complex, more particular, and wonderfully stubborn than any Act of Parliament can account for. They built fences, but over time, gossip, cooking smells, and the shared experience of living in a world not created by them seeped through them. Shalcross became not a model of elitism, but a far more interesting model of real life.