Welcome back, folks! The podcast’s diasporic journey in southern Africa continues. This month we are in Bo-Kaap, Cape Town and Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
To date, my trips to Joburg, SOWETO and the Apartheid Museum helped to concretize the significance of what it means for Black South Africans and those classified as Coloured to have access to resources and opportunities in order to live freely and happily.
As you heard from my March 2024 podcast guest sociologist and political analyst Tessa Dooms (Episode #45) about the Population Registration Act of 1950, South Africans were divided into distinct racial classification categories. As I ventured south toward Cape Town to Bo-Kaap and Cape of Good Hope, I got a taste of a nuanced history of what it means to be Coloured.
Here I met with individuals whose family histories of being classified as Coloured group was further sub-divided into groups such as: ‘Cape Malay’, Indian, Khoisan and other people of mixed heritage to signal distinctions between who are native, foreign and the formerly enslaved. My travels brought me to Bo-Kaap.
Bo-Kaap is closely associated with the Muslim community of the Cape, however, over the centuries it has been home to people of various East African and South East Asian ancestry, non-Muslim coloureds, Native and Indigenous peoples. It is also an area best known for its brightly colorfully painted houses, unique architecture and cobblestone streets (as a major tourist attraction) ideally situated in the Cape Town city center, but has deep history for being racially segregated from whites under Apartheid.
A few minutes’ drive from the first established Muslim Mosque in all of South Africa, I met with podcast guest for Episode #46 Yusef and Nazil Larney, owners of the iconic and famous Malay restaurant, named the Kombius, in Bo-Kaap on a bustling Saturday midday for lunch. (Episode #46 debuts April 16 2024)
With restauranteur Yusef (or Joseph, as he referred to himself), I wanted to further explore “Colouredness” and learn more about his personal experience living in the area, what it was like navigating Apartheid as a Coloured person, starting his famous restaurant and why he and his wife Nazil believe their food reflects Bo-Kaap, its history, heritage and love for people regardless of race, religion and creed: “If every neighbor helps a neighbor, no one goes hungry.”
Listen and enjoy our conversation, Ep #46, on April 16 2024! Peace & Love @ProfYndia & @JourneysB2B_Podcast
I will be waiting anxiously to listen and learn from that interview!