Today we spent the day traveling around Johannesburg and Soweto. The story of Johannesburg is the story of gold — no gold, no Jo’burg. First discovered in 1886 on a local Dutch farm, by 1890 it became apparent that the original find was the top of a seam of gold-bearing rock that slanted down into the ground and extended 40 miles! To provide the capital to mine the gold, the financial houses of Europe essentially created an industry that would dominate the market for the next 100 years. Of course, mining that gold required people and by 1896 there were 100,000 people there, including white miners from all over the world and African tribesmen who worked the mines. Many of the settlements at that time were Dutch farmers, but much of the financing came from Great Britain, who also had possessions in the region around the Cape of Good Hope. This led to two so-called Boer Wars and over the years, control of the area shifted between the British and Dutch. What was clear is that more workers were needed and many came from China. Even before the discovery of gold, both Dutch and British colonies created laws that systematically discriminated against non-whites and as Johannesburg continued to grow, efforts were undertaken to reduce the number of Blacks within the city, initially through informal segregation as black townships were built outside the city for Blacks to live. One of these was Soweto (sort of an acronym for South Western Township), initially started in the 1930s. When the Afrikaner Nationalist Party came to power in 1948, apartheid (Afrikaner for “apartness”) was institutionalized with dozens of laws passed that allowed the removal of Blacks from White areas of town where they were put into townships where they were forced to pay rent (they couldn’t own land and many, in fact, had lost homes they owned in the move) to the government for substandard housing, often with no water or electricity. By the way, while the Blacks were disproportionately impacted, some of the laws required physical separation of races, resulting in areas for Whites, Blacks, Indians, and Colored (anyone of color who isn’t Black or Indian). Needless to say, political activism emerged (including the creation of the African National Congress) and many of the battles/massacres where people fought (and either were imprisoned or died) and the activists (e.g. Nelson Mandela) emerged from Soweto. Apartheid officially ended in 1994 and, while some progress has been made, there are still many problems that still exist.
We actually started the day in Johannesburg which is the most populous city in South Africa. It is still rated as the 5th most dangerous city in the world. Some areas, like around the universities, are well kept up and relatively safe. Within the inner city, with the growth of crime, Whites began moving out of the city into northern suburbs like Rosebank which are actually quite prosperous. There are many abandoned buildings that have been shelter for squatters. I was told that if you go there at night, never stop at a streetlight for fear of “smash and grab” attacks. We also visited Constitution Hill, a former incarceration site that included the Old Fort (for Whites), the Women’s Jail, and Number Four (for Blacks and Coloreds). Tens of thousands of people were jailed here (sometimes multiple times) under horrific conditions. Today the old jails are now a living history museum. But today, in a deliberately ironic sense, it is the site of South Africa’s Constitutional Court (more or less like the US Supreme Court). While there is hope in Johannesburg, there is also a lot of skepticism due to the open corruption of the government. When asked what it would take to turn this around, the answer comes back “unity.” Today there are too many political parties, not surprisingly oftentimes tribal in nature, that want to be in charge. Hence, it is hard to recreate the energy and focus that was enjoyed when Nelson Mandela was the President.
From there, we went out to Soweto. As noted, Soweto was started as a township separate from Johannesburg proper. While only starting with less than 5000 people (especially those that were being relocated from the city), incredible unplanned growth occurred with black workers from all over Africa (and beyond) came here to find work. Today the city holds 2 million people with homes ranging from mansions all the way down to makeshift sheet metal shacks with no electricity or running water. It also has the third largest hospital in the world. Soweto was really the center of the anti-apartheid movement and we visited a number of sites that played a key role in that movement including Nelson Mandela’s first house and a memorial to Hector Peterson, an innocent young boy that was killed as a bystander by security forces at the beginning of the student uprising of 1976 (where up to 20,000 students from around the region gathered, 176 were killed, and hundreds were arrested. Young people remain politically active here, trying to hold the government to the housing construction and renovation promises that they made. What struck me is the industry and innovation of many of these people. Everyone seems to have some sort of gig business going and in an amazing “lemonade from lemons” twin cooling towers used for an old coal fired power plant that was forced to close have been painted for advertising and holds a bungee jumping business between the towers! Our last stop of the day was at the Apartheid Museum, an incredibly well done and emotional recounting of the rise and fall of apartheid. With so much video from the time, the stories are quite compelling.
Anyway, we leave Johannesburg with quite conflicted views. On the one hand, there is continuing growth and prosperity in some parts of the city. There are four major malls and three casinos (including in Soweto). On the other hand, some parts of the city are desperately poor, crime ridden, and drowning in drugs and the government is doing little to address the situation. I wish the best for them.
This entry was posted in Africa, South Africa, Travel
I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.
