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Published: July 27th 2010
Themba in Sisulu Square
Our guide Themba. In the background is a monument on the location where the ANC wrote the Freedom Charter in 1956. The monument was constructed in 2006 to acknowledge that the new South African constitution was based on this document.We arrived in Johannesburg on Sunday morning. We spent Sunday getting acclimated then on Monday we took a tour to some interesting fossil beds called
“The Cradle of Humankind.” The best part of the tour, however, was the stories told by our tour guide Themba. He started out by taking the time during the drive to tell us about the end of Apartheid from his point of view. To say he is grateful to Nelson Mandela is an understatement. I have read about Mr. Mandela’s role in negotiating with the Apartheid regime but Themba emphasized his role in convincing black South Africans to accept whites in the society rather than throwing them out like Zimbabwe did.
Then I asked him to tell us about himself. He said he was born in and grew up in Soweto. He attended a Catholic school but the curriculum was controlled by the government and they intentionally undereducated blacks because an educated person is more likely to revolt.
He then told us about his involvement in the 1976 Soweto Student Uprising. Up until 1974, the children had been doing all their studies in English. At that time, the government mandated they all switch immediately to Afrikaans (which many did not know). After two years of negotiating, the law was about to be implemented so on June 16, 1976, the students began a non-violent protest and march to the Ministry of Education. The police stopped them and offered to deliver the protest letter if the students dispersed but the students refused. So the police sent in the attack dogs; many high school age children were badly bitten but 16 dogs were killed. The children were so angry they charged the police and the police opened fire on the unarmed children. At least one child was killed that day and over 1000 were killed as the uprising continued for several years.
Later, Themba was working as a financial advisor for Barclay’s Bank and the apartheid laws were not enforced at work because Barclay’s was a British firm. But under pressure from the international community, Barclay’s pulled out so the government set up the First National Bank in its place and they strongly enforced the apartheid laws. Instead of desks next to each other, partitions were installed so they could not see members of the other color. And intercoms were installed so that only official communication could take place. It sounded like the laws were especially strict about the opposite gender and color…white men could not talk with black women nor black men with white women.
Finally, over lunch, Themba told us about joining the ANC Freedom Fighters. He was sent to Zaire for training which, according to Themba, also included much brainwashing. After training, he was sent back to South Africa with instructions to not go home but to go to another city and get a job at a particular power plant. After a year spent learning all of the weak points, he switched to the night shift. Then he was giving a suitcase full of high explosives which he planted and detonated. He said he had hoped that no one would be in the building but people were in the building and they were killed. He was arrested and taken to prison where he was tortured to get more information. He said his bones were broken and he does walk with a limp. He was so badly tortured he was taken to the hospital to recover and after that he was released. At that point, he just wanted to return to a normal life but the ANC considered him a traitor for not wanting to continue as a Freedom Fighter. He told us that when he started training as a tour guide, he was required to undergo a year of counseling so he could tell us his story without breaking down crying. “The counseling really helped” he said.
He summed up his feelings when he said “There was a time when I never imagined being able to ride in a car with white people. Today, I could invite the four of you to my house for dinner and no one cares. Twenty years ago, if you came to my house, you would have been deported and I would have been sent to jail.”
Most of us have an academic understanding of Apartheid but hearing first hand accounts of it makes the grim reality come alive.
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mary blakney
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people
Hi I just read your blog and hope that as time goes on you will find more and more people with life stories. There must be so many out there. Mary