{"id":50766,"date":"2023-02-21T12:31:43","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T10:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novanews.co.za\/peoplespost\/book-chronicles-fortunes-of-mitchells-plain-20230221\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T20:35:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T18:35:40","slug":"book-chronicles-fortunes-of-mitchells-plain-20230221","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novanews.co.za\/peoplespost\/book-chronicles-fortunes-of-mitchells-plain-20230221\/","title":{"rendered":"Book chronicles fortunes of Mitchell\u2019s Plain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A former director of the Alliance Fran\u00e7aise in Cape Town and Mitchell\u2019s Plain (2008-2013), Dr Ludmila Ommundsen Pessoa, researched a book on Mitchell\u2019s Plain, Welcome to Mitchell\u2019s Plain: Filming a \u2018Model Township\u2019 during Apartheid<\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book chronicles the fortunes of Mitchell\u2019s Plain: its conception and role as propaganda for the apartheid regime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pessoa explains: \u201cUnder the apartheid regime, Mitchell\u2019s Plain was devised as a \u2018model township\u2019. A cutting-edge urban planning scheme would provide middle-class Coloured people \u2013 evacuated from their homes by racialised rehousing programmes \u2013 with exemplary living conditions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says this \u201cflagship for the regime\u201d was inaugurated with fanfare in 1976, and heavily publicised not just within South Africa but also in the international press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCohorts of political leaders and journalists were invited to admire first-hand how racial segregation could be paired with progressive social planning. A documentary film was commissioned for worldwide distribution, Mitchells Plain<\/span> (1980). That is why the title of the book is Welcome to Mitchell\u2019s Plain: Filming a \u2018Model Township\u2019 during Apartheid<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A senior lecturer at the University of Le Havre-Normandy in France and a member of Groupe de Recherche Identit\u00e9s et Cultures, Pessoa\u2019s research focuses on South Africa\u2019s contemporary literature and culture, and 19th-century British women\u2019s South African travel narratives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a former director of Alliance Fran\u00e7aise Mitchell\u2019s Plain, she started collecting information when she arrived there in 2008. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was struck by the paucity of work on Mitchell\u2019s Plain except for the few surveys on education or socio-economic conditions. Nothing in the area of history as if the place had none. I then began consulting documents at the Rocklands Library and then at the National Library in Cape Town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI realised that Mitchell\u2019s Plain had a history of its own. Not a banal one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring apartheid, Mitchell\u2019s Plain had been a strategic site for both the apartheid government and protest movements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, she discovered that a film on Mitchell\u2019s Plain had been commissioned in City Engineer Jan Brand\u2019s 1980 report. Pessoa immediately contacted the National Film, Video and Sound Archives (NFVSA) to check if it had been made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe NFVSA and the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) were interested in my project, therefore they provided me with a digital copy (the original version is on reels),\u201d Pessoa says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The material revealed some interesting facts, the first being that the \u201cmodel township\u201d had received the \u201cAward of the Most Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement of 1979\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cContrary to other contemporaneous housing projects (for example townships), Mitchell\u2019s Plain boasted two interesting innovations that made it a specific collaborative project with design intentionality and cultural inscriptions,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first was a survey of potential owners\u2019 tastes and preferences after which the planning division of the Cape Town City Council created some 70 house designs for Mitchell\u2019s Plain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second innovation was a competition for the design of approximately 165 dwellings and their layout sponsored by Messrs Everite Limited and promoted by the City of Cape Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOther interesting information is that in his 1972 report, City Engineer Morris pointed out that the early selection of a suitable name for the town was extremely desirable. The development project, being equal in magnitude to many of the new towns of Britain and Europe, and representing a major extension of the far eastern boundary of the City of Cape Town, it was recommended that the name Goeie Hoop should be adopted for the whole town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recommendation highlighted in Morris\u2019s report, however, was not implemented thus saddling all sub editors everywhere with a spelling conundrum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince the very first report on its planning the name of the location has been spelt either \u2018Mitchells Plain\u2019 (no apostrophe) or \u2018Mitchell\u2019s Plain\u2019 (with apostrophe). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe spelling varies according to the sources cited. Both spellings can also be found in the same source,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On receiving the digital copy of the film, Pessoa contacted Janine van Rooy-Overmeyer, founder of the non-profit organisation Blaqpearl Foundation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organisation helps youth cope with the harsh realities of life through arts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, they organised a screening and a debate in 2019 (https:\/\/www.news24.com\/News24\/propaganda-film-aired-20190311) as part of a research project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pessoa says the aims and scope of the initial research project were meant to be much broader, including many interviews based on people\u2019s reactions to the documentary\u2019s images. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the sudden Sars-CoV-2 pandemic and its aftermath prevented the original plans from unfolding as expected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She revised the initial project and decided to focus on the importance of creating a new narrative of history. This is why the study chronicles the fortunes of Mitchell\u2019s Plain: its conception and role as propaganda for the apartheid regime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI spent the Covid-years reading a variety of sources that I had started collecting from 2008 and how they could help re-assess the documentary film.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five years and 200 reference sources later, the book was completed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the next two months, the author will travel to South Africa to present the book in Mitchell\u2019s Plain, Cape Town and in the Cape Flats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMitchell\u2019s Plain should not remain isolated and one should try to answer the question what effect can a history of Mitchell\u2019s Plain have on the political life of the region if not the nation,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is published in the collection Africae of the French Institute of South Africa (IFASResearch). <\/p>\n\n\n\n