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.