Soweto's present troubles a legacy of the past

Soweto's present troubles a legacy of the past

South African Tourism invited 26 journalists from Malaysia,
the Philippines and Indonesia on a two-week introductory tour of
the country's tourism and investment opportunities in late March.
The trip was led by South Africa's High Commissioner for
Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei Darussalam Her Excellency
Lindiwe Mabuza and Third Secretary Skhu' Xinwa. Through the
following article and photographs The Jakarta Post reporter
Ivy Susanti recounts her visit to Soweto.

JAKARTA (JP): Lindiwe Mabuza is 62, old enough to remember the
days when being born with black skin was a curse if you lived in
South Africa.

As a child raised in the black township of Soweto, she was
required to carry a special pass when she wanted to visit her
mother, who was a domestic worker in nearby Johannesburg.

She learned the hard way about race restrictions.

"I was 11 years old," she said. "I went to Johannesburg with
my auntie after 8 p.m to visit my mom. We didn't know about the
curfew. We met her at her landlord's house. She was taking part
in a religious service at a nearby garage, so she left us
sleeping in the house.

"We didn't know that a neighbor had informed the police about
our visit. The police came to the house and found out that we did
not bring the special passes. So we spent the rest of the night
in jail."

Under the terms of the Native Laws Amendment Act (No. 54)
passed in 1952, African women and men were made subject to influx
control when traveling between districts. Under what were
infamously known as "pass laws", from Section 10 of the act,
neither men or women could remain in an urban area for longer
than 72 hours without a special permit stating that they were
legally employed.

Segregation of races under the apartheid policy was further
entrenched when the government issued the Abolition of Passes and
Coordination of Documents Act (No. 67) in the same year. Africans
were then issued with a "reference book", containing their
photograph, address, marital status, employment record, list of
taxes paid, influx control endorsements and rural district where
they officially resided.

Without the reference book, a person was liable to be charged
with a criminal offense, punishable by a prison sentence.

"It was clear that the white people really wanted to clean
Johannesburg (of blacks) at night," Mabuza added.

Blacks were forced to move out of Johannesburg and into the
specially designated townships, including Soweto, notorious for
its squalid conditions.

Seven years after Nelson Mandela was elected the country's
first black president in a peaceful transition from white rule,
Soweto still shows the legacy of discrimination.

The township comprises 26 suburbs, including Diepkloof,
Dobsonville, Orlando and Dube, well-known from the years of
struggle against apartheid.

At No. 8115 Vilikazi Street in Orlando West, stands the house
of former South African president Nelson Mandela. He lived in the
house for about 50 years with his two wives: Evelyn Mase and
Winnie Madikizela.

It is now a museum. For the entry fee of R20 (US$2.60) the
housekeepers, mostly youngsters, take visitors on a tour, though
photographs of the one-story building are prohibited.

"Many people around here still like to visit this house. Once
Mr. Mandela came and asked them 'People, don't you have anything
to do?', then they replied 'We came here because we miss you',"
said Jane Monakwani, one of the housekeepers.

Several blocks away from his house is the residence of
Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Both Mandela and Tutu were Nobel Peace
Prize winners. Winnie, now divorced from Mandela, lives in
Diepkloof.

During his term in office, Mandela improved conditions in the
areas by installing running water, electricity and toilets. One
section of a district, where about 2,200 people lived in box-like
shanties, is now called Mandela Park.

During apartheid, Soweto was designated to house employees of
mining companies, mainly based in Johannesburg and nearby cities.
The government built a row of hostels for the male workers.

"It was easier to employ black male migrant workers if they
were separated from their wives and children," said a township
tour guide called Linda, also a Soweto resident.

Social problems in the township include high unemployment and
illiteracy, with attendant issues of crime and juvenile
delinquency. AIDS, a huge problem in South Africa, has inevitably
hit the township.

"We have a crime problem here and in Johannesburg. In part,
it's because the former government didn't properly educate the
black people," Linda said.

"A criminal becomes a role model for the youngsters. They see
that they can get fast money and buy a beautiful house very
quickly through criminal acts. Here in Soweto, people are enemies
of each other," she said.

The evidence is everywhere, from the iron bars on the windows
of homes to jobless people on street corners scraping pieces of
scrap metal, which they sell for recycling.

Fight

Yet Soweto is most famous as the place which put the fight
against apartheid on the world map.

It began when the newly appointed minister of Bantu education
decided in 1974 to enforce a previously ignored provision of a
1953 act, requiring that Afrikaans be used on an equal basis with
English as an official language of instruction in schools.

Afrikaans, a 17h century African variant of Dutch German,
Belgian and French, was identified by Africans, especially by the
young and by those sympathetic to the black cause, as the
language of the oppressor.

Opposition to the policy grew throughout 1975 and into 1976.
Some African school boards refused to enforce the policy and saw
their members dismissed by the government. Students began to
boycott classes.

On June 16, 1976, hundreds of high-school students in Soweto
marched in protest against having to use Afrikaans. They were
joined by angry crowds of Soweto residents. Tear gas, panic,
stones and bullets ensued.

The government sent in a large number of police and troops,
quelling the violence within a few days, but at the cost of
several hundred African lives.

A 13-year-old schoolboy, Hector Petersen, was shot dead and
came to symbolize the inhumanity of the apartheid system. A
monument to him was erected on the corner of one of the
township's streets.

The action in Soweto led to a cycle of violence for the next
two years.

Young African National Congress (ANC) supporters abandoned
school in droves; some vowed to "make South Africa ungovernable"
through their protests against apartheid education. Others left
the country for military training camps run by the ANC or other
liberation armies, mostly in Angola, Tanzania or eastern Europe.

Many schools were vandalized or burned; students and teachers
were attacked when they tried to attend school; some teachers and
administrators joined in the protests.

The government improved black education in 1984 through the
issuance of the National Policy for General Affairs Act (No. 76)
but maintained the overall separation outlined in the Bantu
education system.

Only in January 1993 did then president Frederik W. de Klerk
call for the need for a nonracial school system, with enough
flexibility to allow communities to preserve their religious and
cultural values, as well as their native language.

Despite all the hardship she encountered during apartheid,
Mabuza said she does not bear any animosity toward white South
Africans.

"It's because we won. The blacks now have the chance to
improve their living conditions -- and also that of the white
people," said Mabuza.