Migrant labour history remembered The Museums Association of Namibia (MAN) yesterday launched a new mobile art exhibition at the Walvis Bay Municipality Hall, aimed at raising awareness of the country’s historic migrant labour system before independence.The exhibition forms part of MAN’s contribution to National Heritage Week, marked from 16 to 22 September every year.
Affecting indigenous Namibians born between the 1920s and 1940s, the South African government’s contract-labour system required people living in tribal lands to acquire passes for movement around the country. In order to get work, the local labourers were assigned to contracts in mines and municipalities for a year at a time, having to leave their families behind for the duration.
“The exhibition starts by introducing the viewer to the concept of migrant labour and the way in which men became numbers,” the MAN said about its exhibition, entitled ‘Omtete wOkaholo’.
“It asks why so many men from northern Namibia joined the migrant labour system. What were the roots of the system?” the association said.
Among the aspects of migrant labour explored by the exhibition are the system of classification and physical inspection the men went through at the recruitment centres – being graded according to age, physical strength and education.
“The wages they received were determined by their classification. Once recruited, workers were issued with passes which they had to carry at all times while on contract.”
Also featured in the exhibition are the names of 16 South African migrant workers discovered by the MAN research team, who were killed by German soldiers in 1910.
“It was, probably, the most deadly labour dispute in Namibian history. The men died near the small railway station at Wilhelmstal, on the line to the coast,” the association said.
It said it hoped the exhibition would serve as a tool to help collect more memories and images from those who worked as migrant labourers, with the aim of one day displaying these in a local museum for educational purposes.
DENVER ISAACS