Archive for 'South Africa'
Zapiro characters come to life on Zoopy
I have long been a massive fan of Zapiro’s work. He is subtle and harsh at the same time, can be filled with innuendo or blatant points poking fun at everyone and anyone who he believes deserves a bit of poking. The man is a genius and is recognised widely as such and hated by […]
The Soweto of 2008
I walked through Soweto at night earlier this week, the township most whites feared and dared go near when I lived here in 1984 and again almost ten years later – before the first free elections.
We stayed in Kliptown, again off limits a dozen or so years ago. Once only full of delapitated buildings and shacks, some R375-million has been put aside for Kliptown’s revival, R293-million from Blue IQ (a very interesting woman is their CEO who I’m trying to get a meeting with) and R30-million from the City of Johannesburg. Project areas include the upgrade of the Kliptown railway station, a market, the relocation of people in informal settlements, new houses, and a new 250-bay taxi rank, which is already complete.
In the early mid-eighties, I managed to go to Soweto, a very difference experience than what we witnessed this week. In the early nineties, my ex-husband and I stayed with his brother in a wealthy white Johannesburg suburb.
Like all white families in Joburg at the time, they were surrounded by locked gates, bobbed wired fences and walls. The whole city seemed to be surrounded by walls, except for of course the neighboring townships which were largely tin-roofed shacks with poor sanitary conditions and no electricity.
We were staying with them because we were young, had little money, and couldn’t afford to rent or buy on our own. My brother-in-law’s wife ran a successful catering business and he had a corporate job, and while both were successful, they were feeling the effects from sanctions as we were we since we had to contribute to the expense pool. Expenses were high across the board, landline phone charges through the roof and it was tough to get a lot of well known western brands. We shared baths and limited our laundry visits.
Everyone talked about the impact of sanctions at the time and also added, “the outside world doesn’t realize that sanctions really hurt the blacks more than it does the whites.” They’d complain, some touting that others don’t understand “our situation at home.” We hung out with English South Africans, Afrikaners and everyone in between.
There were those who really wanted change, some because they were embarrassed by their government, some for ethical and humanitarian reasons, and some because it was trendy to “integrate,” which was starting to happen in 1992 and 1993.
Even though there were some South African whites who were ready for change and pushing for integration, many didn’t know where to start since “equal exchange” with black South Africans was so foreign for them. Where does one begin? How does it work? What will happen to us along the way? There was still a lot of fear despite positive reinforcement from people who wouldn’t have budged on their political views five years earlier. Yet, I also felt a lot of hope.
We’d sit in big and small gardens in a variety of white suburbs and drink champagne, eat strawberries with cream and gorge on cheese from around the world. We’d have braais, play games and jump in large swimming pools which were surrounded by neatly groomed gardens, all tended to by their black gardeners.
While we sipped our champagne, our wine and downed our Castle beers, we’d often see smoke clouds coming from Soweto — likely Kliptown, only a kilometer away. You would hear gunshots at times and yet, people ignored what was happening around them, at least in public. It’s not as if they didn’t care, but some were afraid, so simply didn’t want to focus on a fear they knew wasn’t going away, and some were tired of discussing it.
In more diverse jazz clubs in some of the growing funky mixed parts of Joburg, whites in their twenties and thirties would often talk about change. They weren’t prepared to leave the country but they weren’t prepared to march, speak out, or write articles.
Among these white South Africans, some might venture into Soweto or another township, knew people there, either because they started to develop a friendship or because their maid or gardener lived there and they might have helped them out from time to time, whatever help meant at the time. Quilt? Duty? A genuine lending hand? It could be a lift somewhere, money for school books or uniforms, a letter of some kind or another.
Even for progressives, Soweto wasn’t a regular place to hang out however, with the exception of a radical few who needed to learn more, see more, understand more……
Today, Soweto has paved roads and looks more like a run down part of New York City than the township it was. While there are modern urban remnants, poverty and crime is still prevalent as it is in other parts of Joburg, including a central downtown area called Hillbrow, which we used to go to as teenagers on a Friday night to go ‘clubbing.’ Not safe today, but Soweto seems to be, at least according to many.
Below is a video clip of a market closing in Soweto around six in the evening the day after we arrived.
As for the countless faces of Soweto, look for an upcoming blog post with nothing but amazing faces from various parts of this sprawling suburb…..
Simon Barber Sings Rikiti Tikiti Tin
South African International Marketing Council’s (Brand South Africa) Simon Barber sings Rikiti Tikiti Tin on a blogger bus through South Africa.
I need South Africa more than it needs me
I don’t often take part in chain blog posts, but this one I quite enjoyed and Rafiq tagged me so what else could I do?
To set it straight to start with, I blog about South Africa. South Africa is in Africa and Africa is a moving, culturally rich and incredibly curious continent. So to begin, […]
The Power of Imagery: The Death of Hector Pieterson
Hector Pieterson in the arms of Mbuyisa Nkita Makhubu, his sister, Antoinette Musi, running alongside. Photo by Sam Nzima, 1976.
My good friend Sameer at WITNESS is leading an online conversation in commemoration of today’s 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here’s the question: What image opened your eyes to human rights?
Last week, as part of the We Blog the World tour in South Africa, we visited the Hector Pieterson Museum in Orlando West, Soweto. If you have never cried at a museum before, here’s your spot.
Street behind Hector Pieterson Memorial Museum.
Hector Pieterson was 12-years-old on June 16, 1976 when he joined his fellow students to protest Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in the South African townships. As they were singing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, refusing to stop their approach, police open fired. Today it is known that Hastings Ndlovu was, in fact, the first student gunned down by police, but it was Hector who became the martyr and icon of South Africa’s liberation struggle because he was captured in the above image by photographer Sam Nzima.
Nzima wasn’t the only person to take photographs that day, but he was the only one to get them out without being confiscated by the police. (He stuffed the rolls of film in his socks.) His photographs were immediately published in The World, which led to widespread riots and protests all over South Africa. Hector Pieterson was, largely, South Africa’s Rosa Parks. Just like the Civil Rights Movement in the US didn’t begin with Parks, neither did South Africa’s liberation struggle begin with Pieterson. But both icons mark the tipping point when built-up pressure exploded into movements that would never step back.
I highly highly recommend that one day you make the trip to South Africa and spend at least an entire day in Soweto. There is nothing like being there, surrounded by all its history, for yourself. When we were outside the museum our guide pointed to a woman walking down the pathway. It was Hector’s sister, Antoinette Sithole, the very same person screaming in Sam Nzima’s famous photograph.
Antoinette Sithole walking through Orlando West, Soweto.
It’s amazing to see such history walking around in real life. But … in the meantime, Babak and Ismail have put together a truly incredible map mashup of the events that took place on June 16, 1976. Before you start clicking around on the map, however, I’d recommend that you read through their blog as well as the online book, “I Saw a Nightmare …” Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976 by Helena Pohlandt-McCormick.
Bonus: Check out this video by Ray Lewis of Graeme Addison, a South African journalist who was on the scene at the Soweto uprising of June 16, 1976.
A Witness to the 1976 Soweto Uprising
Graeme Addison, a South African journalist who was on the scene at the Soweto uprising of June 16, 1976, tells us what he saw that day. Graeme speaks from the site of the Hector Pieterson memorial, commemorating one of the students who was killed by South African police that day.
The Soweto uprising is important in South African history because it marked a sharp turn in racial politics. It provided a spark for the black majority within South Africa to resist white rule and was the beginning of an 18-year struggle with the regime. It also applied pressure on the apartheid government from the international community, which condemned the government’s actions and eventually led to crippling economic sanctions.
We also visited the adjoining museum, which depicts in text and video and many dramatic, large black-and-white photographs the events of that day as well as the history and consequences. The museum does not allow photographs or video to be taken, so below is a sample of images taken from that tragic day.
Saffas marching in London – Let them vote
Homecomingrevolution blogged photos from News 24 today about the protest/march held in the UK that I could support and do support.
Here’s one of the photos:
Head over to the HCR Blog for more.
Similar Posts:This march in London I support – the right to vote
Protest against crime in SA to be held in LONDON??
Today is […]
The Watermark High – a musician that gets it
Yesterday I actually used social media to discover a new South African band that is putting themselves out there and sticking with the changing times.
The Watermark High started following me on twitter yesterday.
Luckily I was intrigued by the name of the follower and didn’t disregard them as one of the many twammers out there.
Why […]
First Film
Lesego Mlambo comes from the Braam Fischer section of Soweto and has spent the past year with the Joshua Youth Development Programme run by Metro Evangelical Services, working with the poor in the Johannesburg inner city. As part of his preparation for the Joshua programme, he was sent on an Outward Bound course, which is how we came to meet him in Mountain Sanctuary Park in the Magaliesberg. We went for a hike with him and other young Joshua’s who had been on Outward Bound. Inspired by David Sasaki, we put a camera in his hands. Here’s the result:
Nama Land Sovereignty in the Northern Cape Province
For thousands and thousands of years the Nama people of Southern Africa maintained a nomadic pastoral way of life, tending their flocks of goats and sheep, gathering firewood, and collecting wild honey. Driving along the dirt roads surrounding Richtersveld National park you can still see the same lifestyle, supplemented by some modern conveniences like butane lanterns and plastic tarps.
Nama Iharu oms (huts) in the Richtersveld.
Land sovereignty has been a historic struggle for the Nama people. When Namibia – where the majority of Nama people then lived – was colonized by Germany, the Nama joined forces with the Herero and took up arms against their invaders from 1904 to 1907. This resulted in what today is called the Herero and Namaqua Genocide.
Herero people chained in 1904 by German troops.
According to the 1985 Whitaker Report on Genocide, an estimated 50 – 70% of all Herero people and 50% of all Nama people were killed. On the South African side of the border the Nama people were mostly left to their own as British and Afrikaner explorers searched for diamonds in the Northern Cape province. They continued their nomadic pastoral life with a policy of communal land ownership. Says Wikipedia: “Nama women still dress in Victorian traditional fashion. This style of dress was introduced by missionaries in the 1800s and their influence is still a part of the Nama culture today.”
You can see the influence in a video shot by Ray of a group of Nama youth performing an initiation dance, which marks young girls’ transition to adulthood.
Simon recorded a brilliant piece of audio of Cecilia, the mother of two of the young female dancers, singing a hymn in Nama.
Cecilia
Those British and Afrikaner explorers did in fact find their diamonds. Lots of them. In the 1920’s the South African state-owned mining company Alexkor evicted Nama residents from their diamond-rich land and began operations that would yield hundreds of millions of dollars to help support the country’s Apartheid regime. Since the end of Apartheid in 1994, however, new legislation allows communities to seek compensation for lost land and mineral wealth. The 3,700-strong Nama community launched their claim in 1998. Alexkor spent over a million dollars on legal costs, but in October 2003 the constitutional court ruled that the community was entitled to restitution, as well as to mineral rights. The court rejected their demand for a 90 percent equity stake in Alexkor, however, instead offering a 49% stake and a trust to benefit the Namaqualand community.
The Namaqua community now has more than $40 million coming its way. That is a big chunk of change for a group of 3,700 individuals. We had an opportunity to talk to local community leaders. I asked Leon Ambrosini, mayor of the Richtersveld municipality, how the money would be used, but he only answered in general terms.
My fear is that even with $40 million coming its way and a 49% stake in Alexkor, the quality of life and opportunities for those 3,700 Nama people will not improve much over the next ten years.
“We don’t want to get rich quick. We are solely thinking about the long term future for us and the children who will come after us,” said Floors Strauss, secretary of the Richtersveld Community Property Association, which will manage the $40 million. But I saw little evidence that the right investments are being made for sustainable development.
Nama girl from Port Nolloth.
I asked if there were any plans to build a college or university in the area, but there are none. (The entire province is without tertiary education.) The only specific expense we heard about was a $300 handout to each of the 3,700 represented in the court case. Which brings up some interesting questions: what if the money gets squandered? What if Alexkor becomes less profitable, jobs are lost, and the Nama people are actually worse off ten years from now than they are today? Land restitution in Zimbabwe, for example, is largely responsible for today’s shortage of food there as fleeing White farmers took off without transferring their agricultural skills.
My hope, obviously, is that in Richtersveld the right skills will be transferred to the Nama community so that they can manage their own development as they see fit. But to do so, I believe, will require an investment in education that community leaders don’t seem too concerned about. I’ll be keeping my eye on how things develop.
Extra bonus: Check out Lova’s summary of a fascinating conversation about land sovereignty and economic development in the Malagasy blogosphere. (The deal was later rejected.)
