"This castle speaks to the first economic explosion in Cape Town, she says at the beginning of her five-stop tour of the city. It's an architectural crime scene. Campbell refuses to enter the 17th-century castle, which she sees as a symbol of the violence and dispossession that the colonial era brought to South Africa's second biggest city. That is where they used to hang people, she says, pointing to one of the castle's five bastions."
"It was built by the settlers of the Dutch East India Company, commonly known by its Dutch acronym, VOC. The VOC built the fortress as part of its efforts to establish a refreshment post between the Netherlands and other trade destinations in the East. The castle is now run by the South African military. Campbell, an accredited tour guide, has been giving privately run tours like this for 17 years."
Lucy Campbell, a 65-year-old activist-turned-historian with long grey dreadlocks, leads privately run five-stop tours of Cape Town that critique colonial monuments and museums. She begins at the Castle of Good Hope, refuses to enter and describes it as an architectural crime scene and a site of violence and dispossession built by the Dutch East India Company. The fortress served as a VOC refreshment post and is now run by the South African military. Campbell says most official tributes, including the 2008 Slave Memorial in Church Square, fail to honor enslaved people and neglect recognition of Indigenous populations who lived in the area for centuries.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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