Johannesburg and Soweto

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I decided to spend the day exploring a bit more of Johannesburg. Although I love the South African countryside and animals I felt I should learn something of the history of the country. I booked a tour that would cover the city centre, the Apartheid Museum and Soweto.
Johannesburg is a large city covering more than 2,500 km sq. It was founded after the discovery of gold in the area by Australian prospector George Harrison in 1886. Thousands of diggers rushed to the area and those who had the wealth to finance underground mines did so on a large scale. By 1889 Johannesburg was the largest city in South Africa, and the most multicultural, with white and black fortune seekers alike being drawn by the promise of gold. These fortune seekers were treated with mistrust by the Boers, the Transvaal government and the president, Paul Kruger. Kruger passed laws restricting voting rights to the Boers and controlling the freedoms of the black population.
After the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 the British took control and developed the mining industry. Black workers flocked to the mines and large squatter camps formed around the city throughout the Second World War. In 1948 the National Party gained control of the government and apartheid was institutionalised.
As we drove around the city centre we could see evidence of apartheid. A couple of shopkeepers ahve retained their 'non-white' status labels as a reminder of the past. I found the city a strange place to drive around. In the mid-1990s many businesses left the city centre and moved to the northern suburbs leaving the area mostly abandoned. I was shocked by the number of buildings, including posh hotels, that now lie empty or are home to squatters.
We drove past Gandhi Square and caught a glimpse of the building he used to rent rooms in when he worked as a lawyer in South Africa. We drove past the beautiful town hall, also disused and abandoned. I started to get frustrated that the entire tour seemed to be taking place from inside the car. I know Johannesburg has a reputation for high crime rates but never-the-less it seems silly to take photos of buildings through a car window as though one were on safari. In addition to not being able to get out of the car to see anything, there really didn't seem to be all that much to see! We drove past ordinary shopping streets and I was disconcerted to see how segregated the general public were. I saw white people, black people, Asian people, but none of them were mixing. I didn't see a single mixed race couple or group of friends. I have never before been so aware of the colour of my skin and I felt uneasy with the whole thing. It just seemed unnatural.
We drove past Nelson Mandela's house with strict security on the gate so we decided not to pop in and say hello. We dropped the other girl off as she had an errand to run and the driver and I continued on to the Apartheid Museum. The tour guide showed me in and gave me the map and I walked towards the museum before being pointed into the 'non-white' entrance by the guard as my ticket proclaimed me as black. The museum was interesting if rather depressing. The Apartheid rule was horrifically unjust and meted out harsh punishments, and I just find it so hard to believe this was all still happening in my lifetime. It's just incredible.
I spent a little over two hours in the museum and then returned to the car park to find my guide and go for lunch. My driver was absolutely horrified that I didn't want to go to McDonalds and I had to insist I was vegetarian three times before he'd actually believe me. People here simply do not understand the not eating meat. My guide actually said he first heard the word 'vegetarian' in 1999 and hasn't really met any of us before! (Obviously we are a rare species in Africa!) He drove me to a supermarket and I ate in the car as we set off to collect the other girl and drive on to Soweto. We had to wait for a while and I again observed the people on the street, never mixing across the racial divide. It is almost as if though segregation is not a part of the law it remains almost through habit. I suppose it is less than 20 years since apartheid ended. It will take longer for the effects of it to wane. I hope in time South Africa will have a united cultural identity but for now it does appear rather fractured.
We drove on to Soweto, the South Western Townships. The idea of the townships came about becasue of the massive squatter camps and temporary houses of the migrant workers surrounding Johannesburg. The white middle class felt threatened by the huge numbers of black workers encroaching on the city. Using the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1904 as an excuse the Johannesburg City Council moved 1,358 Indians and 600 Africans from a Jo'burg slum to Klipspruit, an area 18 kilometres from the city centre. Soweto, as it was officially named in 1961, grew steadily mostly through the forced removal of 'blacks' and 'coloureds' from areas where white businesses wished to expand.
Soweto is now home to anywhere between 2 and 4 million people. Although many areas are still very poor others have become well off neighbourhoods. One of the most important things that happened after the end of apartheid for the people of Soweto is that they were given the right to own their property. Our tour guide pointed out that since then it has become a huge status symbol and source of pride for people to live in elegant homes. I saw that many houses have been extended and redecorated in many individual styles and some areas are really quite beautiful.
The poverty does remain though. I saw a few examples of the old corragated sheet metal shacks generally now rented out by Sowetans to people, many of whom are refugees or illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe. I also saw many typical signs of poverty, people selling second hand clothes in the street, barefoot children with ragged clothes, people sleeping out by the roadside. I also saw things that are rather unique. My tour guide said it is possible to do anything by the side of the road in Soweto and it appears to be true. I saw open air roadside fruit stalls, engineers, barbers, beauty parlours, a bookshop, a tailors... anything a person could need. I was somewhat bemused by a large queue of people waiting for 'walkie-talkies' as my guide described them. 'Walkie-talkies' it turns out are a chicken's head and feet with a good handful of intestines as well. My guide assured me that they are simply delicious but I was very definite in my refusal when he offered to get me some to try.
We paused briefly in Vilkazi Street which may be the only street in the world to boast two Nobel peace prize winners. Nelson Mandela no longer lives in Soweto and his house has been turned into a museum. 200 metres from Mandela's house Archbishop Desmond Tutu still lives in his house on Vilkazi Street.
We drove to Hector Pieterson Square and finally got out of the car. I thought it silly to view buildings through a car window, but it seems rude to view people the same way. I wanted to see Soweto as it is an important part of South Africa's history but I didn't want to do it in this way. I didn't want to be one of many white tourists sitting in a taxi cruising residential neighbourhoods and taking photographs of people going about their daily lives.
It was nice to get out at Hector Pieterson Square. We viewed the memorial and then visited the museum. The museum focuses on the events of 16th June 1976. On that day students from schools in Soweto organised a peaceful protest against the use of Afrikaans in schools. All lessons had previously been taught in English and the sudden change impacted negatively on the students' education. The students marched through the streets of Soweto. When they refused to disperse police threw tear gas into the crowd and during the resulting chaos the police opened fire and a 13-year-old boy, Hector Pieterson, was shot dead. The students threw stones and torched buildings and the police continued to use gunfire. A few policemen were killed and it is estimated that almost 200 teenage protestors perished in the fighting. Perhaps the most poignant monument is a courtyard in the museum bearing a small plaque naming each person who died in the protest. Many of the plaques simply say 'unknown' because in many cases the parents were too scared to come forward and identify the bodies.
We returned to our taxi, having to ask to be let out after the staff closed the museum while the two of us were still inside. The guide took us to see one of the squatter camps outside Soweto. My companian was keen to go, but I refused to accompany her. I just don't see how a squatter camp is a tourist attraction. I think the tour guide thought I was scared about going in but I just felt uncomfortable. It felt wrong to go and stare at those people. I didn't know any of them, I hadn't been invited and wasn't there for any real reason. I wondered what the tour guide expected me to do. Stare at their poverty and feel glad I don't have to live like that, or guilty that I have a more comfortable life? I sat in the car and watched a group of kids playing football with an old plastic bottle and felt angry that I was being forced to sit there and watch. My tour guide kept chatting happily as if there wasn't horrific poverty sitting just outside the window. I wanted to yell that he could drive me to the nearest Toy R Us to buy the kids a proper football but did he really think this was my idea of a sightseeing tour? They were ordinary human beings not exhibits in a museum. I was relieved when the other girl came back and we could leave. I saw her giving a tip to the man who'd shown her around and then instantly felt worse because maybe these 'sightseeing' trips are how some of those people make a little money for themselves.
I left feeling like a pretty lousy sort of person and feeling rather disappointed about the day in general. Although I have learnt a little more about South African history I was hoping to get a better insight into the country as it is today. I was hoping to get a feel of the city and find out more about people's lives in this huge, diverse, complicated city and instead I feel like I have been looking through a pane of glass (or a car window more accurately), not touching, not feeling, not experiencing and definitely not connecting.

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