Cape Town, South Africa At the corner of a major intersection in the heart of Cape Town’s city centre, lies the oldest cathedral in South Africa.
Every Wednesday for more than 52 weeks, a crowd has gathered on the stone steps outside the Gothic-style high-rise, many holding signs and wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, demanding an end to Israel’s year-long war on Gaza.
“We all suffer secondary trauma from witnessing the brutality, but we find peace in each other,” said Imam Rashid Omar, of the Claremont Mosque in the south of the city.
Next to him on the steps of St George’s Cathedral stands a multicultural mix of anti-war protesters – including Christian and Jewish activists. Megan Churitz of South African Jews for Free Palestine, an organization working toward a just and peaceful end to the conflict, is also joining the weekly vigil.
“We had been meeting for more than 50 weeks… We were determined, despite the rain, to show our solidarity with the people of Palestine,” Omar told Al Jazeera English.
“It means a lot to me,” added the 64-year-old, who was an activist during the era Apartheid He is also coordinator of the Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding Program at the University of Notre Dame.
Chants of “Freedom, freedom for Palestine” blend into the lunchtime traffic of cars and people passing by. Cars honk in solidarity with those standing at the vigil while a few homeless people who sometimes sleep on the cathedral steps gaze at the scene.
Posters and banners recall the brutal violence carried out by Israel and the more than 42,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
Peace and protest are nothing new at this iconic site in South African history.
St George’s Cathedral, an Anglican church also known as the People’s Cathedral, has been a symbol of sanctuary for decades – making it a natural site of unity and hope amid the despair for today’s Palestine protesters.
During apartheid rule, the cathedral opened its doors to people of all races. At the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s – when it was under the leadership of the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the country’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu – it stood against the hostility of the white minority regime.
“Society in its darkest moments”
Omar has been an activist since 1976 – the year black South African children took to the streets to protest racist education laws and were shot by the apartheid government, killing dozens, especially in villages.
During the apartheid regime, Omar says he attended many demonstrations, marches and prayer meetings at the cathedral, along with anti-apartheid clergy including the Reverend Alan Bosak, the cathedral’s last dean, Father Michael Wieder, and the late Bishop Tutu himself.
A big lesson Omar said he learned from Tutu is that injustice in any form must be fought against.
Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, was chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated human rights abuses by the apartheid regime.
During his life, the bishop publicly likened Israel’s actions in Palestine to the oppression suffered by black South Africans under apartheid. He remained an outspoken critic of Israel’s occupation until his death in 2021 at the age of 90.
“The cathedral represents social justice struggles in the apartheid era,” Omar told Al Jazeera. “And the fact that in the post-apartheid era, we can continue the legacy of the People’s Cathedral, which stands for issues of social justice – whether it is for the people of Palestine or for the people of Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo – that is truly the legacy of the late bishop.”
Omar – whose mosque was one of the religious institutions in Cape Town providing solace and inspiration to anti-apartheid activists – said St George’s Cathedral played an important role in highlighting the wrongs of apartheid and continues to be a voice for moral justice today.
Anglican priest Father Edwin Arison, who served under the late Bishop Tutu and was also a member of his staff, holds the cathedral in his heart.
“The cathedral was truly a home, a ‘safe space’ and of course a space of struggle for us as activists,” he told Al Jazeera.
Arison, a black priest, became active in the anti-apartheid movement and was a preacher at Mitchells Plain on the Cape Plain in the late 1980s and early 1990s at the height of the civil unrest. For activists in Mitchells Plain – a poor non-white area on the outskirts of the city – churches were often the safe space for activists targeted by apartheid police.
Arison said that as a young activist he studied to become a priest during the turbulent 1980s, and the cathedral was a refuge for him and many others. “We found community and encouragement there, especially in our darkest moments.”
As head of a church youth group, he was detained and imprisoned in 1985 for 66 days and in 1986 for 71 days. In 1985 he was arrested again and taken to Victor Verster Prison where he was held with other anti-apartheid activists. Nelson Mandela was later detained in the same prison.
Now Arison is part of the steering committee of the South African Anti-Apartheid Congress, which was formed by the country’s various Palestine solidarity groups and aims to work to dismantle Israeli apartheid.
History of justice
St George’s Church – or the original Anglican church first built on the site – opened its doors on Christmas Day in 1834.
The current building, which includes a soaring inner tower, bell tower and intricate stained glass windows, was designed and built by British architect, Herbert Baker, known as the favored architect of British colonists, including Cecil John Rhodes. The cathedral was built from Table Mountain sandstone and the first stones for the foundation were laid in 1901.
At the time, art historians said of Baker’s work: “For his churches, Baker generally favored a low-span round-arch style with buttressed walls ranging from entirely raw stone to varying bands of white stone…” according to Artefacts.
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He added that Baker designed “a classic building in the shape of a Gothic cross.” Gothic architecture It is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late twelfth century to the sixteenth century. The cathedral also has a beautiful courtyard garden.
Ten years ago, the cathedral building was recognized as a provincial heritage site by the Western Cape Heritage Authority. “The church played an important role in the anti-apartheid protests and the liberation struggle during the 1980s in Cape Town as well as the intangible heritage associated with the role of the various priests associated with the church in this regard,” the Heritage Authority said at the time.
The cathedral’s former dean, Father Weider, who retired this year after serving there since 2011, spent much of his final months at St George’s overseeing vigils for Palestine.
Weider was also active in the struggle against apartheid after being ordained a priest in 1985. During his tenure at St. George’s, the conflict in Gaza became a central issue.
In November 2023, he led a hunger strike for Gaza in what he described as a call for a permanent and sustainable ceasefire. He also traveled to Bethlehem during Christmas to celebrate with Palestinian Christians.
But this also means that he has been subjected to hate messages on his social media platforms from those who oppose his position on Palestine.
The legacy of Desmond Tutu
Father Wieder worked closely with Archbishop Tutu during his tenure as Dean. He said this was a gift given to him.
The most famous face of St. George’s and South Africa’s first black archbishop, Tutu led many protests and marches against the scourge of apartheid from the steps of the cathedral.
One of the most significant demonstrations was the peace march in September 1989 at the height of apartheid. An estimated 30,000 people, led by Tutu, marched peacefully through the city centre, in one of the largest marches since the 1960s.
Apartheid police fired tear gas and water cannons filled with violet or purple dye – a tactic to later help them identify and arrest participants – at the protesters. When people tried to escape the onslaught of police brutality, many found refuge in St. George, which at the time was surrounded by several police trucks.
Among those who attended the march and fled to the cathedral was anti-apartheid activist, Patricia Annette Farren Fort. She said she “almost collapsed” from the tear gas and purple rain outside, before running for cover.
“We ran to the church and knew it was a safe place,” she told Al Jazeera.
“But I still threw up inside the church because of that purple rain and who knows what kind of chemicals were in it,” she added, calling the building “our refuge from the police.”
According to the Sunday Times Heritage Project, a protester outside the cathedral climbed onto a police vehicle and pointed a purple cannon at the police. Varn Fort said the dye stains most of the surrounding buildings. The next day, graffiti appeared in the city saying “Purple will rule,” similar to the popular phrase at the time: “The people will rule.”
Decades later, in now free South Africa, St George’s Cathedral displays various stained glass windows commemorating different icons. One at the entrance honors Tutu, whose ashes are also placed in the cathedral.
In the window, Toto poses against the African sunrise. “The sunrise represents the dawn of a new era, which means hope, enlightenment and a bright future for South Africa and its people,” Weider said in April, during the opening of the window.
“The window is a tribute to Tutu’s legacy and his role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa,” he added.
Symbols keep hope alive
Walking up the cathedral stairs, various reliefs are on display. “If you want peace, don’t talk to your friends. Talk to your enemies,” says one inscription. “Forgiveness means you are given another chance to start over,” another inscription says.
Father Peter-John Pearson, who is director of the Office for Interaction with Catholic Bishops and a priest at the city’s main Catholic cathedral, regularly attends special events, including the Vigil for Gaza, at St. George’s Cathedral.
The cathedral represents “an incredible kind of continuity,” he told Al Jazeera. “It is the spirit of continuity of many struggles and represents an expression of the struggles that are based here.”
The “energy” or spirit of activity found at St George’s Cathedral is something many people take home with them – to communities across Cape Town, South Africa and the continent, Pearson said.
“I love that, over the decades you see that energy continues; it reaches the people of the Cape Flats, to the people of Palestine, in eastern Congo and Sudan. The people passing through here represent all those threads of struggle and this is the place that represents them and weaves them together and brings hope to the oppressed.”
“Symbols keep hope alive,” Pearson said, adding, “This place fosters hope.”
Many others agree that the cathedral is an eternal symbol of resistance and perseverance, or something that connects its history, present and future.
In the context of local issues, it is a place of conscience and hosted public demonstrations, such as prayer vigils during Jacob Zuma’s presidency, when corruption was at its peak in South Africa.
Looking beyond the country’s borders, its role as a beacon of hope and activism is evident in current calls for freedom and justice in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Palestine.
“In all my time as an activist for over 45 years, I have never experienced anything like the continuity of this group,” Omar told Al Jazeera from the steps outside St. George’s Cathedral, speaking of the “touching moments” the mix of people from different cultures found while standing together for Palestine. .
Speaking of their unity and togetherness, he said: After the weekly demonstrations end, people gather inside the church to share stories with each other, telling stories that help many heal from the secondary trauma of a war that took so many.
“We find healing and solace in each other,” he concluded.
