by Koleka Putuma
When I first heard about the plans to build the Labour Corps Memorial in Cape Town, I was struck by the profound significance of such a tribute in the city I call home.
Cape Town, with its layered history and complex landscape, has always been a place where symbols of power and resistance are deeply intertwined. It was impossible for me not to think about movements like Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall, both of which challenged us to confront the legacies embedded in our public spaces, and to rethink how we honour and remember history.
This memorial, dedicated to the South African men of the Labour Corps who served in World War I, is a reminder of a history that is often left out of textbooks and public discourse. These men – grandfathers, sons, brothers, and descendants of chiefs – were sent far from home to fight in a war that was not theirs.
They left behind families, villages, and traditions, and many never returned. Their names and stories have been obscured by time, but this memorial seeks to correct that, to give voice to their lives, and to remember them as more than just a footnote in the annals of war.
Working on the poem that I co-wrote with Royal Society of Literature chair and poet Daljit Nagra for this memorial, I wanted to capture the spatial and historical connections that Cape Town holds. The very land on which the memorial stands stretches far back to the Khoi and San people, whose own histories are often disregarded.
For me, writing the poem went beyond an intellectual exercise – it was deeply spiritual. It felt like a chance to not only commemorate the men of the Labour Corps but to also reflect on the broader disruptions caused by war and colonialism – disruptions that echo through apartheid and into the present day.
One of the most profound disruptions is the absence of rituals of closure. The families of the Labour Corps men were often never informed of their loved ones’ deaths. There were no letters, no markers of their graves, no symbols of remembrance.
These absences resonate beyond the war, as we have seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, where many families were denied the chance to say goodbye. This disruption of mourning rituals is a recurring theme, and in our poem, we sought to acknowledge this, to honour not just the men who died but also the communities left behind, waiting for news that never came.
The poem takes liberties that a memorial cannot. While the memorial is engraved with names and dates, the poem imagines the emotional landscape – the grief, the longing, the unspoken sacrifices. Poetry allows us to sit with history, to unpack it slowly, line by line, in a way that a static monument cannot. It evokes empathy and understanding, drawing connections between the past and the present.
I hope that this poem encourages people to engage with the memorial and the history it represents. I hope it sparks curiosity about other memorials in our communities, about the stories that are told and those that are omitted. We live in a time where we are constantly asked to reimagine how we commemorate, how we mark loss, and how we remember those who came before us.
Monuments, while important, are not the only way to do this. The act of remembering can take many forms, and poetry, in its ability to linger with the reader, is one such form.
The Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial, like many others, is more than its physical structure: it’s a space for reflection, for reckoning with the past, and for imagining a more just future. It stands as a reminder of those whose voices were silenced and whose stories were erased, but whose legacies endure. As a society, we must continue to ask ourselves how we choose to remember and what that says about where we are headed.
The lives of the men commemorated by this memorial are part of our collective history. Their contributions, though forgotten by many, helped shape the world we live in today. By visiting the memorial, by sitting with the poem, by contemplating their stories, we honour them. We give them the tribute they were denied, and in doing so, we write ourselves into the future they helped to create.
The Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial invites us to pause, to reflect, and to remember. It’s a space where history, legacy, and the land itself are intertwined, reminding us that the past is always present, and that remembrance is both a responsibility and a gift.
* Putuma is an acclaimed poet and playwright.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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