Cape Town's 100 year old Malay Carnival revives

It's midnight on New Year's Eve in BoKaap, Cape Town's old Malay Quarter which lies above the city in the shadow of Signal Hill, and the thick tablecloth of cloud that blankets Table Mountain.

Families arrive with picnic baskets and blankets, lining the cobbled roadsides. The smell of freshly baked tarts and koeksisters (a traditional Cape Malay delicacy of deep fried, plaited dough, dipped in syrup and coconut) is wafting through the air. Doors stand open and inviting.

The people are celebrating. Its one of Cape Town's `Big Days' - Carnival time. January 2, or Tweede Nuwe Jaar (Second New Year)- the climax of months of planning, practising, stitching and sewing. Teams of crooning minstrels from the most far flung areas on the Cape Flats take to the streets; dancing, singing, beating tambourines and ghoema drums (handmade, hand-held drums resembling a tambourine, but without the bells). Finally, the teams compete for prizes in various categories including best dressed and best performance at the Green Point stadium.

Origins of the festival

In the 1800's, inspired by the Christy Minstrels- a visiting United States troupe that docked at Cape Town Harbour - the slaves blackened their faces with polish and whited out their eyes to look like 'raccoons'. The face painting and carnival type atmosphere was all they could do to celebrate a welcome day-off after a hard week of festive service. When slavery was abolished in South Africa in 1834 there was even more reason for a parry.

The Carnival in all its sequinned glory, has been a part of the city's history for more than 100 years, and has continued to reflect issues at the heart and soul of her communities.

In 1996 when the then South African President Nelson Mandela arrived at the stadium decked out in ANC-coloured `coonstyle' costume, the Carnival took on new significance. Beyond getting the public acknowledgement it deserved, the carnival became an important factor in regional politics. Different political parties woo the massive troupes and politicians actively canvas support from the teams. They are often invited to perform at official functions.

Beyond being the ideal platform to address social issues like crime and Aids prevention, the carnival is also recognised as a way to build bridges between fractured communities, post-Apartheid.

Reducing impact of drug lords

Melvyn Matthews is head of the Cape Minstrels Carnival Association and owner and director of the Penny Pincher's All Stars troupe. Matthews has already begun several initiatives aimed at reducing the impact drug lords have on its younger members. "Teaching youngsters from a targeted gang to sing and dance three times a week for four hours has already produced positive results," he says.

Meanwhile, in a cast iron garage attached to a modest home in Heideveld - one of the poorest, most gang-infested townships on the sand flats - things are hotting up. Almost 200 people have come together to practice the songs that will hopefully see their troupe walk off with the coveted trophy this year.

Watching the troupe, who have little or no formal musical training, singing Italian arias is inspiring. Ronald Bowers, the voice coach, took on the tremendous task of teaching his unlikely pupils to sing the famous aria for the World Cup, Nessun Dorma. "People don't just want to be thought of as a 'Coon'," he says. "We want people to know that what we have here is real talent."

"The first minstrels to come to the Cape were Americans painting their faces to look black, "says Matthews. "Today it's brown people painting their faces white.

Hopefully in future we'll see white people pretending to be black people pretending to be white people!" he laughs. "A day of make believe and fantasy!"

Point of hope

Hardy Dollie, a captain in the Scotsche Kloof Glamour Boys, has taken part in carnival for more than 40 years. He says the event brings hope and happiness. "After Apartheid came it was the only way for us to express our talent. The policy of `separate development' stole our houses and cricket and rugby from us, but this was one thing they couldn't take away."

Nevertheless the Group Areas Act of 1966 declared District Six, where the carnival route originated, a whites only area. The following year the event was banned from its home at the Green Point stadium.

It scattered the mixed-race and Cape Malay community from District Six, BoKaap, and Sea Point to far-flung areas on the windswept Cape Flats, the sand flats area between the Indian and Atlantic Ocean at the Cape Peninsula. Here, thousands of people were resettled in `Non-white' townships during apartheid.

It is land that has remained underdeveloped despite the millions of people living there; and it is home to the world's highest murder rate - some 24,000 each year.

Dark times for festival

"When the people were scattered the Carnival became scattered," remembers Dollie. "Suddenly we were faced with new challenges. Contacting each other and organising rehearsals became much more difficult, and people had to spend money they didn't have to pay for transport to get to practice."

The 70's were dark times for festival organisers fighting traffic bylaws and the Illegal Gatherings Act. They also faced disapproval from leftist elements within their own community who discouraged others from participating in what they believed was a tragically comic and racist depiction of the oppressed.

The event was forced to move between various stadiums just to stay alive. Dollie remembers: "There was a feeling of disappointment, but many of us continued to march with our old friends under the old names - like the Sea Point Swifts. But once your uniform was on, you forgot all that. We made people laugh and smile. We gave them a chance to forget about the money they owed. You couldn't help joining in."

Besides providing entertainment and relief to the oppressed and destitute, something else was happening. Music and dancing had penetrated a wasteland of joblessness and frustration where children of colour were denied access to the arts at school. Now they attended practice sessions three times a week, paving the way for world famous musicians like Jonathan Butler and Taliep Petersen -- both winners of the hotly contested Juvenile Sentimental Trophy - to emerge.

In 1989, the competition returned to Green Point, tramping out its traditional route from District Six through the city centre. But years of oppression had taken their toll; public drunkenness, drug peddling and allegations of violence towards pedestrians all contributed to the idea that carnival had become little more than `gangsters-in-drag'.

This year authorities have promised more visible policing to control this element.

Together with Cape Town tourism and representatives from the Western Cape department for Arts and Culture, Matthews has formed a working committee to chart the course to the carnival's future. He believes the event could generate more than $1m through tourism revenues and job creation. "If everybody takes part, we all uplift each other," says Dollie. " If we can keep people talking, singing, dancing, then we all heal."