A History Of NG Kerk

 

The Three Sisters - A Church Story

Towards the end of 1838, a considerable number of Voortrekkers settled along the Mooi River, and in November of that year Potchefstroom was laid out. 

An urgent need for a church was soon realised by the initial Voortrekker community, who soon launched an appeal for contributions to a building fund. On the 26th of March 1842, Rev. Daniel Lindly thus established the first congregation in the Transvaal. 

But soon after the establishment of the first congregation in 1842, a variety of political and social conditions led to internal conflicts within the church, and these conflicts lead to factional groups who eventually decided to start their own congregations. 

These theological differences which led to the split are the root of this short inquiry into the origins of The Three Sister Churches.

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Although not claiming to an conducting a socio-anthropological inquiry, this story aims to uncover the story behind The Three NG Sister Churches, and their impact on the ensuing politics of South Africa, which also led to people of colour being allocated separate churches under the banner of NG Kerk.

As I was preparing to undertake this journey, I was compelled to visit the foundational character of the churches and their formulation and sustenance of the Afrikaner Identity, that was very intricately linked to a young yet rapidly evolving language -Afrikaans.

My curiosity also allowed for a fruitful occasion to investigate the seminal poet and theologian J D Du Toit, and his involvement in the Reformed Church denominations, while also effecting on the imaginative undertaking of establishing Theological Societies in the Transvaal.

Another enquiry aimed to uncover a detailed a count of how people of colour were eventually allocated “their own churches” so as to not worship with white people, and to understand if these NG church denominations proliferating the South African township have any affiliation with Three Sister Churches.

What complacencies were displayed by pastor of black denominations in this form of segregation based on not sole race, but religious affinities that are in themselves self-righteously flawed yet prevalent ordeals experienced by many people throughout the world.

Human do have a habit of adjusting habits according to changing times, and this I have discovered through my conversations with various Reverends, Pastors, Curators and Historians, and this oral narrative nature of their stories allows for a fresh analysis of events and times that effectively still confront contemporary minds.

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Cities like Potchefstroom  possess unprecedented historical memories that are both comprised blood and scars, but a socio-cultural signature that brands its citizens as custodians of its heritage. A certain measure of protecting artefacts, historical facts, as well the judgements that history is dealing with its present. 

Its concentration of historical buildings has left an indelible mark on the heritage value attached to this city, but undeniably there still remains a to to be excavated and preserved for posterity, places such as concentration camp gravesites fo the victims of South Africa’s grievous Anglo-Boer War.

This city is significant in that it also posses an evolving character on diversity, and as much as the many elders who observed and conserve and preserve its hallowed history might feel threatened by their once staunchest foes - embodied in blackness of filmmaker, but there are those who have opened their hearts of an inclusive retelling of the best and worst of our collective history.

To those elders I am forever indebted and do hope they would again engage with my inquisitive mind, which even though unnerved by some minor discoveries through research, he remains dedicated to telling the story of The Three Sister Churches in relation to Potchefstroom historical significance and the theological roots of its culture.

An anonymous animosity exists between the black and white residents, but the uncanny is the loathing that has separated the white community itself. This segregation is also steeped in the church history of The NG Kerks, with its denominations and profiles . 

The filmmaker has already been arrogantly been interrogated about reasons why a “swart man Moet ’n Afrikaner’s Storie vertel”, what give this black man the right to even thinks I deserve to hear their story? And this in regards to the seminal poet and linguist J D DuToit, who translated The Bible into Afrikaans.

That sense of ownership of story is something questionably, but I am still willing to delve into a myriad of sentiments that made this century long religion separation even construct a racist system that not only shredded the fabric of this country, but still continues to wreak havoc on our contemporary social structures.

There seems to exists zones of dis-remembrance, places relegated to non-memory, where horrors executed upon people and their kin are mere forgotten, or hidden.

These places are often just public spaces like parks, vacant lots and clearly abandoned infrastructure, which allows for for no hint or predictive method of dealing with sombre memories haunting such places.

A visit to a site which was the gravesite of black victims of concentrations during The anglo-Boer, left my soul disheveled and bewildered by how the history of my people seems to have been less venerated.

Located just opposite The Potchefstroom Hospital, the space is a hive of activity, with vendors and car guards allows plying their trades for hospital visitors and patients; and I am certain very few occupants of the hospital itself know of the unethical medical practices that brought people to death by starvation, pestilence and disease.

The puzzling thing is there are contradictory sentiments and expressions about the past, those who recognise the value of inclusive historical revisits between the people of South Africa; that need is evident in a younger generation of both and white cultural activists. 

Many are occupying position in heritage related posts that are meant to preserve a collective memory, and all they require is the support from the older generation who have more knowledge about the past and how it affects the present and hopefully what history can teach the future.

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Outrageously oppressive recollections of racism were  roused during this excursion into the history of a city which was once The Capital of Transvaal, after years of having woven a persona with a social conscience that goes beyond racial construct, but I must admit, there were moment of rage against sordid machine which was constantly staring me in the faces, and seeing a Kaffir, disturbing the peace of a guarded people.

I recalled and had to admit that a new dose of segregationists philosophies are still prevalent in these regions, where a farmer  is in conflict with his farm-worker he calls boys while they are older than his father.

 

Art In Repurposed Derelict Spaces

Towards the end of our tenure at The Film Resource Unit based in Johannesburg, a concept around experimental film exhibitions was conceived with a team of colleagues. It was when the film industry was experiencing loss of capital investment, and funding for the arts was being dealt yet another blunted sword in the neck through governmental funding restrictions. 

In order to find alternative means of “distributing non-mainstream film and video art content”, a crucial idea was to use of dilapidated and derelict ruins of the former San Souci Cinema in Kliptown, Soweto. 

Being one of the oldest cinemas in one of the oldest townships in South Africa, the place possessed a nostalgic spirit that made it ideal for reminiscing on the historical and contemporary receptions of cinematic arts in townships.

On one of those barely erects slab of chapped walls, with ageing peeled paint scribbled with decades of expletives and epithets of rage, graffiti art that resembled gangland tags, we painted a portion in white for the projection of African Classic Cinema.

A curated selection of 35mm films by legendary directors such as Djibril Mambety. Lionel Ngakane, Haile Gerima and Ousemane Sembene were screened on these dilapidated walls over a period of five evenings to an excited community that received the spectacle with jovial awe.

That experience was exhilarating and incredible for both the community and the team, as it had proven that through art repurposing otherwise disused and abandoned structures, new space for engaging with art.

 A plethora of under-resourced communities that have otherwise been characterized by violence and lack of artistic initiatives, are looking at such exhibitions as beginnings of art as activism, thus spawning social transformation.

 The San Souci exhibition created an unintended yet robust launch-pad for more experimentation around my dogged persistence with creating video art experiences steeped in real experiences of communities engaged, as well a resourceful blend of innovation that has seen video art exhibitions in a shack, at a taxi rank and soon an abandoned Transport Museum in Warmer Pan, Johannesburg.

An eventual culmination of events saw a series of video poems titled PROJECTIONS OF/IN ISOLATION being crafted in not merely coincidental a manner, but as a continued personal interrogation of how audio-visual media can exit the enclosures of cinema houses, darkened rooms and lecture halls.

But what is the point of taking a painting off a gallery wall, and pinning it against a lavatory wall in vacant hostel or train station, or a church for that matter? 

This experiment which will see disused and abandoned building becoming exhibition spaces is geared at decentralizing conservative and traditional gallery and museum spaces, towards a creation of secular spaces for appreciating creative output, and yet, far and beyond artists’ studios.

The impetus to create new externalizing galleries for human impulses calls for innovative way of shifting and decolonizing perspectives, where art is tangibly aware of its viewers and viewers aware of their connection in collating meanings to be attached to the art.

Artists often disappear into limbo of punitive neglect from social and art circles having not has the opportunity to showcase their brand of genius or insanity, and this can be circumvented through initiatives that break moulds with traditional exhibition techniques and trends.

Over the course of approximately four years, Covid-19 has wrought unprecedented social and economic change across the global art world. Yet the widespread suspension of social and economic norms has also opened up a space to rethink our way of creating and exhibiting art.

It was during this period that video poet, Khahliso Matela, devised an experiment of video poems dubbed Projections Of/In Isolation, which entail a variety of visual compositions projected on corrugated steel walls of shacks that are common forms of residential architecture for vast communities of South Africa. 

The visuals projected entail service delivery protests as symbolic of an expression of resilience for squatter camp based peoples from various walks of life.  And currently, Khahliso Matela is working on an enquiry that seeks to uncover what would be symbolic in projecting similar images of protestations on walls of “a constructed shack sculpture” in a an abandoned warehouse.

In Kokosi, people have discovered that art can educate, entertain and provide hope in these sordid times, and know that creative practitioners are devising practical responses to the pressing need to rethink relations in the world. This awareness has allowed many to marvel at some of the Projections, even though the concept is undeniably foreign to many people.

This series of video poems are an interrogation of emotional impacts of isolation on a society whose places of residence do not allow for luxuries such as social distancing and sufficient health care.  These projections are both testaments of a cluttered life forced into smaller spaces that confine and hinder our projections of fear, awe and mere discomfort.

To further augment this bourgeoning concept, EXT Lab Media has over the past three years been conducting similar informal exhibitions of documentary films Merafong, Welverdiend, where various artists’ collectives gather to discuss a variety of critical sociological issues and interrogate themes prevalent in films and video art exhibited. 

With guest filmmakers in attendance, these exhibitions have become forums that have bred a generation of artists who perceive collective creative output as being essential for enriching people with knowledge about contemporary social challenges.