A day in Soweto

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I couldn't leave South Africa without visiting Soweto.

Since 1980, when a wave of uprisings was in the news, Soweto has been in my mind.

Those events even inspired my first decent song (words and music) for my teenage band (the evidence currently resides in a green folder in my mothers attic, along with the rest of my erstwhile musical career).

Soweto is big. In fact it is big enough to have its own suburbs.
Driving in to the centre on a dual carriageway we passed a shopping mall and an enormous minibus station.

It is ordinary. My first reaction was surprise at the ordinariness of the surroundings.
Paved roads, brick buildings, football pitches, streets.

It is even mildly prosperous with lots of well-dressed black people driving their cars and doing their thing.

It is called a township, although it is unlike any of the other townships I have seen.

The eye-catching ones usually consist of corrugated iron and wood shacks erected haphazardly on the edge of town.

In Soweto we had to make a special trip to visit a shanty town where these conditions existed. The majority of people live in perfectly acceptable houses and these days there are even some substantial properties erected by successful residents who didn't want to move out.

So, as a destination in itself Soweto is just a little bit dull.

What makes it interesting is the knowledge that on these streets people were standing up for themselves against oppression and some were dying in the process.


The centre of town sits in the shadow of the 2 huge cooling towers belonging to an electricity generating station.

There was no electrification in Soweto in those days, all the electricity was exported to affluent white areas.

The towers have now been painted One in a jazzy reflection of local soul and energy, the other an advert for a bank.

A short walk from here is Nelson Mandelas first house, a modest 4 room affair.

It is now a museum filled with honorary doctorates and other memorabilia including a pair of boots Nelson had worn while in exile.

He left them behind when he returned to South Africa and they were saved and cared for by an admirer until his release from prison 30-odd years later.

He lived there with his first wife, Evelyn, until their divorce and later with Winnie, his beautiful activist but not as yet scandalous second wife.

She rarely saw him because he spent most of this time on the run and so was not there to witness the repeated fire bombing of his home by the police.

Outside the house is a neat sandwich bar where you can get a hollowed out quarter loaf filled with chips and salad for 50p.

Just down the road is Desmond Tutu's house, making this the only street in the world where two Nobel peace prize winners both lived.

Actually the first ever black man to win a Nobel prize was John Luthili, a former president of the ANC but I don't know if he also lived in Soweto.


The struggle against apartheid had been going on for years but perhaps the most famous episode occurred in June 1976 when the government issued a pedantic new law that all school lessons must henceforth be taught in the Afrikaans language.

This was the last straw for the already politicised youth of Soweto, few of whom could speak Afrikaans, and protest marches turned into chaos when the police opened fire on them.

A 14-year old boy called Hector Pieterson was shot. His dead or dying body was picked up by a neighbour who ran from the scene with Hectors distraught sister alongside him.

This image was caught by a cameraman and became the iconic world-wide image of the Soweto uprisings and, by extension, of the fight against apartheid.

The neighbour was so traumatised by the events that he left town the next day and has never been heard of again.

I stood on the street corner where this happened. There is a simple monument, now damaged.


The story of apartheid deserves a museum, and there is a good one, situated halfway between Soweto and Johannesburg.

As this is modern history the story is told largely through newsreel and interview footage.

It is fascinating to hear the Afrikaner architects of the system espousing views that are frankly outrageous to modern ears.

It took me three hours to work through from the melting pot origins of gold rush Johannesburg to the unfinished reconciliation display via riots, beatings, sabotage, murder, informants, torture, assassination, sanctions, and detention.

Once Nelson Mandela walked out of Robben Island prison in 1990 there could be no turning back.


Finally, in case anybody is interested in the thoughts of a zitty 16-year old who bought Marxism Today and Record Mirror , here are some of the words to my song, entitled Soweto.

(to a mild reggae rhythm)

All that is wanted is freedom
All that are wanted are rights
Soon as they try to tell them
Police are ordered to shoot on sight.

Ooh-ooh Soweto
Ooh-ooh Soweto.

Living in corrugated iron shacks
Living in great white mansions
Only searching for liberty
But they come out on a manhunt.

Ooh-ooh Soweto
Ooh-ooh Soweto.


I thank you.

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