Read Online Are We There Yet? by David Smiedt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Smiedt
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and suffering wrought by apartheid, the museum chronicles its downfall without gloating. Equal reverence is given to both Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, the protagonists in a revolution that was bloodless despite the scale and savagery of the oppression which prompted it. The simple black and white sketch of the agreement for the nationâs first democratic elections is on display alongside aerial photographs of serpentine black queues at polling stations. Photos of a beaming Madiba sharing a joke with the Afrikaner he replaced as the countryâs leader sit alongside ballot sheets stacked with parties once banned.
Despite a stomach-churning sense of guilt that my family and I had participated in this system by not opposing it, the sense of joy and justice created by the museumâs commemoration of the transition to majority rule is infectious. Formulated to be a cathartic experience for all who visit, its motto is Walk Away Free. Which I might have been able to do were I not Jewish. Having suffered through scores of racial persecution campaigns, did it not make us doubly guilty that we not only remained silent but reaped the privileges of this one?
Oupa interrupted my self-indulgent hypothesising by declaring that I was ânow ready for Sowetoâ. In the apartheid era, you didnât see it until you were in it. From a distance the city was a vast smudge of smoke created by hundreds of thousands of oil lamps, kerosene stoves and cooking fires. Soweto wasnât electrified until 1988 and then only through the efforts of Mayor David Tebehadi who had to travel to the United States to privately secure the necessary loans.
Soweto came into being as the result of two distinct factors. Firstly, in the lead-up to World War II, African labourer-tenants were evicted from rapidly mechanising white farms and driven from overcrowded, drought-stricken reserves in search of work and a better life in the city. Secondly, at the same time, coalmining and the manufacturing industries expanded rapidly to stand alongside gold as a major employer. So rampant was the growth that between 1938 and 1945 the number of employees in the coal industry increased by 50 per cent, while the ranks of those in manufacturing swelled by 60 per cent. By the end of 1946, Johannesburgâs black population had risen by 100 per cent in a decade.
While industry was glad to harvest the labour that this influx provided, it paid little regard to the housing needs it prompted. The city authorities shared the apathy. The solution they came up with to deal with this crisis involved issuing innumerable licences permitting householders to take in subtenants.
This was to prove as effective as a rice-paper condom. Areas such as Pimville â today a suburb of Soweto â became so overpopulated that sixty-three water taps were used by fifteen thousand people and one in five children did not live to see their fifth birthday.
So deplorable were conditions in these slums that many Africans moved out and began setting up homes on any vacant piece of land they could find. The thought of burgeoning black communities living where they chose under their own rules appalled municipal authorities and prompted the belated implementation of low-cost housing programs. Uptake was initially slow as squatting was cheaper than living in one of the council-built dwellings and camps could be set up nearer to places of employment, which in turn cut down on transport costs.
Eventually, however, the state succeeded in crushing the squatter communities by force and pushed them into vast estates where they could be more effectively subjugated. And so the loose conglomerate of shanty suburbs, native locations and council bungalows became a city.
This process was hastened by mining magnate Ernest Oppenheimer who in 1954 arranged a R6 million loan to build 24,000 houses in five years. Some say his generosity was inspired by sympathy for the poverty which haunted the
Despite a stomach-churning sense of guilt that my family and I had participated in this system by not opposing it, the sense of joy and justice created by the museumâs commemoration of the transition to majority rule is infectious. Formulated to be a cathartic experience for all who visit, its motto is Walk Away Free. Which I might have been able to do were I not Jewish. Having suffered through scores of racial persecution campaigns, did it not make us doubly guilty that we not only remained silent but reaped the privileges of this one?
Oupa interrupted my self-indulgent hypothesising by declaring that I was ânow ready for Sowetoâ. In the apartheid era, you didnât see it until you were in it. From a distance the city was a vast smudge of smoke created by hundreds of thousands of oil lamps, kerosene stoves and cooking fires. Soweto wasnât electrified until 1988 and then only through the efforts of Mayor David Tebehadi who had to travel to the United States to privately secure the necessary loans.
Soweto came into being as the result of two distinct factors. Firstly, in the lead-up to World War II, African labourer-tenants were evicted from rapidly mechanising white farms and driven from overcrowded, drought-stricken reserves in search of work and a better life in the city. Secondly, at the same time, coalmining and the manufacturing industries expanded rapidly to stand alongside gold as a major employer. So rampant was the growth that between 1938 and 1945 the number of employees in the coal industry increased by 50 per cent, while the ranks of those in manufacturing swelled by 60 per cent. By the end of 1946, Johannesburgâs black population had risen by 100 per cent in a decade.
While industry was glad to harvest the labour that this influx provided, it paid little regard to the housing needs it prompted. The city authorities shared the apathy. The solution they came up with to deal with this crisis involved issuing innumerable licences permitting householders to take in subtenants.
This was to prove as effective as a rice-paper condom. Areas such as Pimville â today a suburb of Soweto â became so overpopulated that sixty-three water taps were used by fifteen thousand people and one in five children did not live to see their fifth birthday.
So deplorable were conditions in these slums that many Africans moved out and began setting up homes on any vacant piece of land they could find. The thought of burgeoning black communities living where they chose under their own rules appalled municipal authorities and prompted the belated implementation of low-cost housing programs. Uptake was initially slow as squatting was cheaper than living in one of the council-built dwellings and camps could be set up nearer to places of employment, which in turn cut down on transport costs.
Eventually, however, the state succeeded in crushing the squatter communities by force and pushed them into vast estates where they could be more effectively subjugated. And so the loose conglomerate of shanty suburbs, native locations and council bungalows became a city.
This process was hastened by mining magnate Ernest Oppenheimer who in 1954 arranged a R6 million loan to build 24,000 houses in five years. Some say his generosity was inspired by sympathy for the poverty which haunted the
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