2024-01-02 08:36:13
At the blue hour after sunset, when the curtain of night slowly descends over the candy-colored houses of the Bo-Kaap district, Cape Town’s historic Malay Quarter actually comes to rest. On normal days you only occasionally hear footsteps on the pavement. Televisions blare behind the tilted windows. Otherwise it is quiet.
But on one day everything is different: every year on January 2nd, Bo-Kaap is excited, boisterous and loud. The terraces and balconies are full of people, and people are also crowded together on the streets of Bo-Kaap.
The music of the wind instruments and drummers can initially be distinguished. But when they play against each other in a kind of musical competition to throw the other side out of sync, everything merges into a driving, deafening, feel-good noise.
One troupe of minstrels after the other passes by, always hundreds of them. Sometimes the performance seems like a serious parade, then like the romp of a carnival club. The drum majors let their drummers march with iron precision. But instead of gala uniforms or camouflage patterns, the musicians wear costumes in bright colors. They dressed up in makeup and glitter, hats and umbrellas, boas and oversized glasses – the funkier the better.
The festival has a dark background
January 2nd is not a normal day in Cape Town. Because “Tweede Nuwe Jaar” is celebrated, the second New Year, two days after the official turn of the year. The initiators of the double New Year celebration are the Coloreds – this is the name given to the population group that emerged centuries ago through the mixing of native peoples, slaves from Asia, contract workers from the Dutch East Indies and European immigrants.
During the second New Year, people dance, sing, act, laugh and joke around from early in the morning until late at night. “The parade is an important part of the city’s history,” says Muneeb Gambeno, director of the Kaapse Klopse Karnival Association. “That’s why we keep them alive to this day. Not for the tourists, even if they are of course welcome. But to celebrate our culture.” At almost 50 percent, the Coloreds are, to date, the largest ethnic group in the Western Cape Province around Cape Town, ahead of black and white people.
The children also celebrate with make-up on their faces
Quelle: Helge Bendl
The festival has its origins in colonial times. “Back then, slaves were only given the freedom to let off steam on one day a year – one day after the masters had celebrated the beginning of the new year,” says Fagmie Solomons. The man in his mid-sixties is a rugby legend in South Africa and lives with his family in Bo-Kaap, which is still a center of Coulored culture today.
The fact that he is part of the group D6 Entertainers is a matter of honor: “After the abolition of slavery, our ancestors remained dependent. So for them ‘Tweede Nuwe Jaar’ was always a day of liberation. The racial segregation of the apartheid years is history, but we must never forget the times of inequality.”
Around 60 music groups
Most people in Cape Town celebrate New Year’s Eve like other celebrations: with Bubbly (as sparkling wines are described in South Africa) for the ladies, with beer for the men – and with a braai, i.e. a barbecue, for everyone together. After a day’s break, many people continue with whistles and trumpets, umbrellas and Rambazamba.
When the Cape Town Minstrels, known as Kaapse Klopse in Afrikaans, parade through the city, everything in South Africa’s oldest metropolis comes to a standstill. The parade route runs from the formerly multi-ethnic district of District Six, which the apartheid government once razed, to Bo-Kaap, which is threatened by gentrification.
The pink hat suits this young lady extremely well
Quelle: Helge Bendl
The groups Happy Boys, V&A and Good Hope have home advantage: many of their members are coloreds from the Bo-Kaap district. But why are the participants of the Shoprite Pennsylvanians, who have their fan base in the township of Hanover Park, waving the flag of the Federal Republic of all things? That’s just how it looks, they say – black, red and gold are their traditional club colors, they have nothing to do with Germany.
Every year there are around 60 groups with more than ten thousand participants, and at least a hundred thousand spectators line the streets of Cape Town. It’s a hell of a spectacle. Behind the clowns and the drag actors with their burlesque acts follow dancing marieches in petticoats and shiny tights. And above all, countless musicians with timpani and trumpets, trombones and horns, tubas and banjos, bells and drums, whose playing at times sounds as if all the dishes in a commercial kitchen were rattling from the sky.
Some of it is inspired by minstrel shows
The driving Ghoema rhythm that underlies many songs has its roots in the era of slavery. The same goes for the way they move: the musicians walk in small steps; In doing so, they imitate the oppressed who could only march in this way with chains on their feet.
The fact that the groups today dress up so colorfully and appear exalted is a tradition from the late 19th century. At that time, minstrel shows became popular in America, in which the work of slaves on the plantations there was staged: singing, happy black people, often exaggeratedly portrayed by actors with a different skin color.
The colorful houses are typical of the Bo-Kaap district
Source: picture alliance/Bildagentur-online/Schickert
Some minstrel musicians went on a world tour from the USA and also stopped off at the Cape: their shows were enthusiastically celebrated there – and immediately adapted. To this day, many groups still have American names. The most popular song of the plays is “Daar kom die Alabama”; that was the name of one of the ships on which the Americans came to South Africa.
Meanwhile, the Tweede Nuwe Jaar, now also known by its new name Cape Town Street Parade, is the most important festival of the year for the Coloreds in the Cape. Some people in the city turn up their noses because there are regular disputes over who is allowed to organize the parade and because drug gangs are said to be linked to some troops.
But ever since Nelson Mandela marched in a parade, it’s practically official: this foolish folk festival is part of the heritage of the new South Africa. And it’s for everyone. Anyone who looks under the thick make-up will notice that more and more black and white participants are now taking part.
Source: Infographic WELT
Tips and information
How do you get there?
Condor and Lufthansa fly non-stop from Frankfurt to Cape Town. For example, KLM via Amsterdam or Emirates via Dubai offer connecting connections from various German airports. You can safely get there by Uber taxi. Rental cars are available when booked through online brokers from 20 euros per day including fully comprehensive insurance.
Where is a good place to live?
A nice guesthouse in the colorful Bo-Kaap district is the “Rose Lodge”, double rooms from 45 euros, rosestreet28.co.za. The “Winchester Hotel” offers a great location on the Sea Point waterfront and a lot of history, double rooms from 290 euros, newmarkhotels.com. If you want to live in class: the luxurious “Ellerman House” sits high above Bantry Bay (double rooms from 683 euros, ellerman.co.za).
South Africa organizer
For self-drivers: Abendsonne Afrika organizes individual 13-day rental car trips from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth with stays in the Cape Region, the Winelands and along the Garden Route (from 995 euros per person, excluding flights, abendsonneafrika.de).
For the spoiled: In addition to short programs around the Cape of Good Hope, Select Luxury Travel also offers an exclusive South Africa tour with Cape Town, whale watching and safari in the Kalahari, twelve days including flights from 15,990 euros per person. select-luxury.travel. Geoplan has a 17-day combination tour by rental car and Rovos Rail luxury train, which starts in Cape Town, from 6780 euros, geoplan-reisen.de.
Further information
capetown.travel; southafrica.net/de/de/travel
Participation in the trip was supported by Abendsonne Afrika and Select Luxury Travel. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at go2.as/unabhaengigkeit
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