Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News, 2016-01-20
As residents of Cape Town marked the 130th anniversary of the Tana Baru cemetery riots, the Bo-Kaap community has called for the burial ground on the slopes of Signal Hill to be made a heritage site.
Situated on the north side of the Bo-Kaap, the 18,000 square meters Tana Baru is the first officially recognised Muslim cemetery in southern Africa with many pioneers of Islam buried there.
Chairperson of the Tana Baru Trust Aadil Bassier says the cemetery was also central for the uprising by Muslims when they protested against authorities to close the burial site.
“An army of 1 200 law enforcement officers had to be brought in to quell the uprising by the Muslims, who felt they were unjustly treated by having their place of burial taken away.”
He says the burial site which was donated by a governor in the Cape to the Muslims and initially known as ‘Mohammadan se Population’ cannot be declared a heritage site until they have total ownership of the land.
“So we basically then took ownership of two of the 14 sites a few years ago and in the interim over the last year Alhmadulillah we’ve managed with some help from foreign funding to acquire another three of those that are left. If the sites are not consolidated we don’t have a ghost of a chance of having it declared a heritage site.”
Bassier says the process of the declaring the cemetery as a heritage site is extremely difficult with a lot of red tape and also requires a lot of motivation.
“Luckily for us we have an expert on the trust who works for the province and was assisting us to have it declared a provincial heritage site, never mind a national heritage site.”
Bassier says the cemetery has a rich history and is a symbol of religious freedom which the Muslims forefathers so generously guarded.
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