Friday 23 February, Day 27, 2018 – Johannesburg

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Friday 23 February Day 27, 2018 – Johannesburg



As we were going to breakfast Wesaw lots of activity with 2 Nomad trucks already left and the 2^nd 2 just about to leave. We said our final goodbyes to Yvonne and Johan and went into breakfast to have lovely fruit, yoghurt, eggs & bacon and coffee.



We were picked up at 9.00am for our all-day tour around Johannesburg and Soweto. Tom had already visited Soweto but for convenience, he would stay the whole tour rather than come back at lunch time (1100R and for me, 800 Rand for Tom – exchange 9.8 R per AUD).



We met 4 other travellers for the tour at Constitution Hill, 2 from Mumbai and 2 from Belgium. After the guide buying us tickets we watched a 15 minute video on the history of the site.



Constitution Hillis located downtown on the eastern edge of Braamfontein the site of the notorious Old Fort prison complex. In a similar vein to the Apartheid Museum the South African Constitutional Court set around the infamous Fort prison was a fascinating place – part courtroom, part museum and part art gallery.



We learned of the horrific treatment of blacks in this over crowded, dirty gaol which closed in the 1970s. There was extended isolation treatment in dark cold cells for prison ‘crimes’ such as wanting more than a 15 second shower every week, if you could get under the cold water instead of the prison gang leaders. They were given little food and typhoid was rife. Stripping, whipping etc etc – all horrible treatment, and the world didn’t know it was happening.



The new court room is built from old bricks from part of the old prisons which were demolished. This was to remind all that the history is part of the future but ‘we must move on and prosper and learn from our mistakes’. There is even some long, wide stairs which join the new court room with the old prison. There were strong symbols of ‘the new way’ throughout Constitution Hill. When we sat in the court room, the low narrow windows only showed the legs of people walking past to not show the colour of their skin as this was not important and all are equal in the new court system and the new Constitution of South Africa.



We then drove through the CBD of Johannesburg.



Johannesburg has a population of nearly 10 million people, half of which live in Soweto and adjacent suburbs. The majority of the population is formed by South Africa's black residents who mostly live in Soweto, while white residents amount to 1,333,790 (although the number is likely to be higher). There are also around 300,000 residents of other descent. Unlike other South African cities, no language group dominates, although English is the established lingua franca.



The city is the economic hub of South Africa, and increasingly for the rest of Africa. Although estimates vary, about 10% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP is generated in Johannesburg. Yet the city's wealth is unequally distributed among its inhabitants causing the city to have, within its own borders, living conditions varying from first world standards to third world conditions. The contrast between rich and poor has led to one of the highest crime rates in the world. The more affluent tend to live in houses with a high level of security by western standards, whilst the less affluent live in less desirable housing conditions.



Mine dumps can also be seen throughout the city and are a reminder of the city's legacy of gold mining. These dumps are fast disappearing as new gold extraction techniques have made it profitable for mining companies to reprocess these dumps.



For a panoramic view of the city we visited the Top of Africa tower which is at the top of the 222m Carlton Centre which is the tallest building in Africa, but not the tallest structure. Both the Hillbrow (270m) and Sentech (234m) towers in Johannesburg are taller than the Carlton. It was very easy to spot these 2 towers almost anywhere in Johannesburg.



We drove through the west side of the CBD, Fordsburg which is the formerly-Indian part of central Joburg and has some Indian and Pakistani restaurants, shops and markets We also drove over the Nelson Mandella bridge. We also drove through Santon where Santon City was opened in 1973, followed by Rosebank Mall in 1976, and Eastgate in 1979. Santon is the gold centre of the city where all the global companies have their offices and is the financial centre of South Africa.



A separate city from the late 1970s until the 1990s, Soweto is now part of Johannesburg. Originally an acronym for "South-Western Townships", Soweto originated as a collection of settlements on the outskirts of Johannesburg, populated mostly by native African workers from the gold mining industry. Soweto, although eventually incorporated into Johannesburg, had been separated as a residential area for blacks, who were not permitted to live in Johannesburg proper.



Lenasia is predominantly populated by English-speaking South Africans of Indian descent. These areas were designated as non-white areas in accordance with the segregationist policies of the South African government known as apartheid. Vilakazi Street (we noted the road infrastructure and signage are excellent), is famous for including the homes of 2 Nobel Prize winners, Nelson Mandella and Desmond Tutu. We stopped at both houses.



We also saw the massive Maponya Mall where the Sowetan middle classes entertain themselves with retail and movies! This is the largest mall in the southern hemisphere.



The most amazing and interesting visit we made was to the Apartheid Museum. A very moving and informative trip through South Africa's turbulent past and present which included the 20^th century history of South Africa. We were there for just over 2 hours and we could have spent double that time. It had extensive photography depicting the history before, during and after Apartheid, movies, artifacts and interactive displays to engross we-visitors. The complex is owned by Gold Reef City Casino and was opened in November 2001. We experienced the racial segregation that occurred during Apartheid by separating them by racial appearance classified by the width of the nose, the kinks in hair, skin pigmentation, and size of lips. This was more horrific facts to take in as history of the country.







We also learned that the region surrounding Johannesburg was originally inhabited by San people, my favourite race we visited in Botswana. By the 13th century, groups of Bantu-speaking people started moving southwards from central Africa and encroached on the indigenous San population. By the mid-18th century, the broader region was largely settled by various Sotheo-Tswana communities (one linguistic branch of Bantu-speakers), whose villages, towns, chiefdoms and kingdoms stretched from what is now Botswana in the west, to present day Lesotho in the south, to the present day Pedi areas of the Northern Province.



The Sotho–Tswana practised farming and extensively mined and smelted metals that were available in the area. Many Sotho–Tswana towns and villages in the areas around Johannesburg were destroyed and their people driven away during the wars emanating from Zululand.



In the late 19^th century the value of control of the land increased, tensions developed between the Boer government in Pretoria and the British, culminating in the Jameson Raid that ended in the fiasco at Doornjop in January 1896 and the Second Boer War (1899–1902) that saw British forces occupy the city on 30 May 1900 after a series of battles to the south-west of its then-limits, near present-day Krugersdorp.



Major building developments took place in the 1930s, after South Africa went off the gold standard. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the apartheid government constructed the massive agglomeration of townships that became known as Soweto. This was a very interesting history on the how Apartheid was born by the British Empire.







To add to the story of the struggle for equality, we visited the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto. This is a large museum located two blocks away from where the 14 yo Hector Pieterson was shot and killed. The museum is named in his honour. It became one of the first museums in Soweto when it opened on 16 June 2002. You may remember the photo of the shot Hector being carried by his brother during the peaceful protest in Soweto, which was published globally in the 1970s which exposed Apartheid to the world.



The total cost of the Hector Pieterson Museum project was Rand 23.2 million, which was covered by a 16 million rand donation by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and 7.2 million rand donation from the Johannesburg City Council.



The museum covered the events leading up to, and during, the anti-Afrikaans Soweto Uprising.



One of our stops in Soweto included the Regina Mundi Church (meaning "Queen of the World"), is the largest Roman Catholic church in South Africa. Due to the role it played as a place of gathering for the people of Soweto in the years before, during, and after the anti-apartheid struggle, it is often referred to as "the people's church" or "the people's cathedral".







Our guide was a local of the church and was an absolute character, telling jokes and getting us to stand where famous people stood, such as Nelson Mandela, the Clintons and many others.



The church is located in the middle of Soweto, in Rockville, in the neighbourhood of Moroka; it was built in 1964, replacing Moroka's former parish church. While the A-shaped exterior of the building is quite ordinary in design, its main feature is the vast interior, that can accommodate as many as 5000-7000 people. The stained-glass windows are decorated with scenes of Mary’s life and were donated by Poland in 1998. The smaller windows depict the Soweto uprise through to environmental images of today.



One of the most prominent artifacts in the church is the painting entitled “The Madonna and Child of Soweto”, mostly referred to as "The Black Madonna", depicting a black Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus (also black). The painting was then bought by a benefactor and donated to the church. A highly symbolic element of the painting is a large eye right under the Black Madonna. According to journalist Mpho Lukoto of newspaper The Star, the pupil of the eye represents the township of Soweto; two forks directed towards the pupil from the sides represent the violence that was used against the people of Soweto during the apartheid era, and the cross in the centre of the pupil represents the Church that illuminates the people with hope.



After the end of apartheid, a large park was built before the church, with a fountain and memorials, including a "peace pole" donated to the church by Japanese Christians. The church is still a popular place for the people of Soweto and it has also become a prominent tourist attraction in the area.







Our guide for the day was from Soweto so he spoke with passion but calmly and with a conviction that “we must move on but remember the past but not be controlled by the past”.



We came back to the hotel at 7.30pm mentally tired and stimulated. An incredible day.



We were fortune enough to have our lovely attendant at the hotel to cook us a burger dinner. As all the Nomad trucks had departed that morning and the next tours were not leaving for 24 hours, we were the only guests. We confirmed our 6.30am transport with the resident driver, to take us to the airport for our next adventure, 17 days in Madagascar.

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Photos

Apartheid Museum Joburg
Terrible statement