‘The Soul of the City’? Sound Performances and Community in Cape Town’s Two Minutes of Silence During the First World War

Abstract

The origin of Britain’s annual Armistice Silence is often attributed to South Africa. This article considers the context of the Silence’s supposed origin: Cape Town, May – December 1918. Drawing on recent studies on war and sound history, it considers the Silence’s socio-cultural and affective dimensions, examining the collective statements and values embedded in the discourses about it, its urban staging and co-operative performance, and the instability of its meaning. The Silence was popular in Cape Town, with thousands of Capetonians observing the practice. Yet, the diversity of responses to the war in the city meant that those who participated in the Silence were not necessarily representative of the city as a whole. Nevertheless, it serves as an example of the importance of sound to defining and encouraging local and trans-Empire ideas of community and commemoration in the wartime, urban context.