An Afternoon at “Blacks-Only” Monwabisi Beach

In the fall of last year, I had a chance to visit Khayelitsha — the largest and fastest growing township in South Africa.

In the Xhosa language, Khayelitsha means “New Home”.

Historically, it was an apt name for the many non-whites who were forcibly removed from their homes in the central regions to the undeveloped Cape Flats in the 1950s — a direct result of the Group Areas Act by the apartheid government. In a sobering way, the state of newness, instability and displacement for many of the approximately 500,000 residents that have built homes in the 39 km² (15 mi²) land area still rings true. Sixty years later, the landscape is pretty much the same. The shanties, made of metal sheets and tin roofs, extend far beyond the horizon; the people, both migrants and locals, are almost exclusively black.

It was a sunny Monday afternoon, and throngs of people were out and about. The school holidays have just begun. On both entrances to the public swimming pool, there were lines of young children and teenagers that snaked around the block.

My interaction with the space was limited to observations through the window of a minivan. Our site visit was facilitated by a retired official from the metropolitan municipality of the city of Cape Town and a cautious driver who had once been held at knife-point in one of Khayelitsha’s traffic junction. Apart from highlighting the newly-minted city-funded facilities in the area to us, neither had the intention to overstay their welcome.

One of the sites we drove through briefly was Monwabisi Beach. We were told that the City of Cape Town had recently pumped in a hefty sum to revamp its amenities to match up to the standard of the other beaches.

The first thing that greeted us upon arrival was a run-down central pavilion with missing letters in the “Monwabisi” sign. At the time of our visit, Monwabisi was overflowing with hundreds of beachgoers, but not a single lifeguard was to be seen. It was intriguing, too, that the nearby tidal pool and outdoor picnic tables/braai lots were almost completely empty. Similarly, there were only a few units occupied by families at the newly improved “affordable” chalets next to the beach (priced at R320/$25USD per night for a 6 sleeper). (I drew a bird’s eye view of the area in Figure 1 to give you a rough idea of the layout.) There were plenty of cars in the nearby parking lot, but it was disproportionate to the number of people present at the beach. Most had came by foot.

To understand what traveling by foot to the beach means in scale, I mapped out some possible routes in Figure 2. Now, Monwabisi is located at the southern most part of the township, and is closest to Town 3, Harare and T3-V2 residential subdivisions. From the edges of these three subdivisions, I configured three shortest possible walking routes to the beach. Route 1 and Route 3 both require passing through hilly terrains, while Route 2 threaded along the highway tarmac. From the lack of paved sidewalks, it was clear that none of these routes were planned for walking. The routes would take about 20 minutes to 40 minutes to complete. If one were to visit from somewhere else in Cape Town and have taken the train to Khayelitsha station, it is an estimated 1-hour walk via Route 4. So, I believe it is reasonable to claim that the beach is not easily accessible by foot.

As a destination for leisure and recreation, the popularity of Monwabisi beach seems to suggest a narrative of a vibrant coastal spot that is well-utilized and wholly occupied by the black residents that are living in the adjacent townships. But what I observed speaks a different narrative altogether. There was something amiss about the complete absence of white and colored people on that beach that afternoon.

This was 2016 in post-apartheid South Africa, and yet it seemed just like an old image of the “blacks-only” beaches during the apartheid era. Monwabisi beach, to me, is a modern site of segregation.

It is not a coincidence that there were only blacks at the beach in a black township. And it is certainly not a coincidence that it is sorely under-developed.

Not only is its development far from desirable for the black residents nearby, it is also simply not intended to attract any visitors or tourists from beyond the boundaries of Khayelitsha. The Metro and MyCity buses do not serve Monwabisi. The lack of transportation alone disconnects the beach to the rest of Cape Town. This is a clear obstacle for the market-oriented political economy to even begin considering the beach as a potential area for development. And if the private market forces are not likely to invest in its betterment, will the government?

Local news have reported negatively on Monwabisi for years due to the high risk of death by drowning in its dangerous waves, lack of lifeguard support, and failure to deliver promised improvements such as basic latrines. Yet, it was not until 2013 that the City of Cape Town formally invested sufficient funds to upgrade some facilities.

While I don’t deny that the upgrades to the chalet facilities next to the Monwabisi beach must certainly have its benefits, the low occupancy rate during my visit begs me to question if there is a mismatch between what the public wants and what the city‘s implementations. I question if there were any considerations for public opinion in the planning of the site, and also if the slight improvements were a means of distraction from the far bigger structural inequalities that demands governmental action in a much grander scale. Ultimately, the city and the government’s commitment to Monwabisi is unconvincing.

It is perhaps impermissible to describe an area as “whites-only” or “blacks-only” in post-apartheid rhetoric, but in reality, Monwabisi can be bluntly described as a “blacks-only” beach. To challenge this segregated status quo, radical improvements in transportation, housing, education, economic opportunities and food security are urgently due in Khayelitsha, and many other townships in Cape Town.

There is a danger to leaving the beach as it is in its current “unreachable” state. In allowing an involuntary exclusivity, segregation by color continues to exist. 23 years after the creation of the Rainbow Nation, the ghost of apartheid lingers on.