Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa.  With a population of 3.8 million it is basically a cosmopolitan city.  Walking through the city you would not necessarily guess that you are in South Africa.  By comparison the population of Soweto is 1.3 million, but Soweto is all black and when you walk through it there is no question where you are.  Apartheid had the effect of creating a satellite township for every city.  Soweto is Johannesburg's satellite, although it is growing at a much faster pace and is expected to someday overtake the city, in terms of population.

    My hosts in Soweto are Elliot Mashinini and Mpho Matloga.  They are pictured here at the legs of a large statue of Nelson Mandela, in Mandela Square in Johannesburg. 
    The day after this photo Mpho and I went to the Apartheid Museum.  When you enter the museum you are given a ticket which is arbitrarily stamped either "blankes" or "nie-blankes," which is Afrikaans for "white" or "non-white."  As it turned out Mpho got a "nie-blankes" ticket and I got a "blankes."  As you enter the museum you are immediately separated according to your status, so Mpho and I were suddenly directed to different entrance ways, which felt weird.  When we were later reunited in the museum, Mpho was quite upset and said it had brought back a lot of bad memories for her.  Remember, anyone over the age of 25 grew up under apartheid.  Mpho pointed out that under apartheid she and I could not have walked together in public.  The multi-racial scene pictured above could not have happened.

    This is Nelson Mandela's old house in Soweto.  He has not lived there for a long time, although supposedly about 10 years ago he suddenly showed up and sat in a chair in his old house, greeting visitors as they came through.  No luck this time, though. 
    You might wonder what Mandela was doing during the Soweto uprisings in 1976.  The answer is that he was already imprisoned on Robben Island and had  served 14 years of what was to be a 27 year sentence.  The struggle against apartheid was very long.  When Mandela became president in 1994 he was already an old man of of 76.  Still alive now at 94 years, he is more than twice as old as the average black male in South Africa.   Mandela won a Nobel Peace Prize because he managed to transition South Africa to democracy while avoiding a race-based civil war that many thought was inevitable.

    My next stop on this tour is Moletsane High School in Soweto.  This is one of the schools that participated in the uprising about 40 years ago.  Soweto stands for SOuth WEst TOwnship.  It is the largest township in Africa and is adjacent to the city of Johannesburg.

     The Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976 was a turning point in the anti-apartheid struggle.  What has always been most inspiring to me is that the uprising was completely organized by high school and middle school students.  These students planned a peaceful march through the township of Soweto to protest the requirement that all courses be taught in Afrikaans.  (In a previous post I mentioned that language is the key to understanding South African politics and culture).  Afrikaans was the language of the white apartheid regime.  The requirement that all students be instructed in Afrikaans, rather than their mother tongue (or English), was an example of the restrictions and oppression of apartheid. 

     On June 15th black students met secretly, not even their parents or teachers knew, and decided to “go on strike.”  The next morning thousands of students walked through the streets of Soweto carrying signs and chanting. 
    When the students encountered a police barricade and refused to return to school, the police responded by opening fire on the children.   The number of casualties was in the hundreds.  No one will ever know the exact number because many parents were afraid to even claim the bodies of their dead children.  The police quickly collected and disposed of the corpses.

     One of the first casualties was 13 year old Hector Pieterson.  The image of his body being carried by another student was captured by a photographer and published in newspapers around the world.  It was because of the Soweto uprising that world opinion finally galvanized against the apartheid government.         The  photo at left is from the Hector Pieterson museum in Soweto.  The scattered bricks in the courtyard carry the names of some of the students who were killed that day.

Here is a link to an account of that day from one of the survivors.

     In some ways Ga-Rankuwa, where I have been staying, and Oukasie, the next stop on my tour, form an interesting contrast in townships.  Ga-Rankuwa was the result of forced resettlement.   Oukasie was the result of a squatter camp that refused to resettle.
            Oukasie originally formed in the 1960’s and was a squatter camp for servants and domestic workers who served families in the nearby Afrikaans community of Brits.  During the late 60’s and early 70’s the town grew dramatically due to growing industry and both the white population of Brits and the black population of Oukasie increased.  By 1980 the two communities were essentially adjacent to each other.  In 1985 a meeting was called by the Brits town leaders to inform the black population of Oukasie that they would have to relocate to a new settlement in Bophuthatswana, called Lethlabile.  The nearly 100,000 inhabitants of Oukasie were reluctant to move since there were few opportunities for employment in Bophuthatswana.   An action committee was formed in Oukasie and essentially the population refused to relocate.  The streets were barricaded and the action committee tried to attract international attention to their plight.

The community of Oukasie was cut off.  Residents had no access to electricity, there was no provision for sanitation services and water had to be carried in from great distances.  In addition the apartheid government began a secret campaign of terror and destabilization.  Homes of activist were fire-bombed and many community leaders were arrested.  Some were murdered   There were frequent conflicts with police and rioting in the township.
            Eventually the residents of Oukasie were able to attract international attention and to obtain legal representation to forestall forced removal.   By the late 1980’s the apartheid government was on its last legs and the community was able to persevere until the apartheid regime fell.

     I should mention that I taught in Oukasie in 2003 on a Fulbright teacher exchange.  Of course I have many memories of the township, but two stand out in my mind.  One was a conversation with one of the early activists, Anne Mogkosi.  She told me about being detained by the police who threatened to take away her children if she did not abandon her activism.  I asked her what she did, and I will always remember her response and the look she gave me – as though it were obvious: “I sent my children away to my sister and I continued what I was doing.  I was not going to stop.” 
    The second memory has to do with finding a map of “Brits and Local Areas” in a Brits bookstore.  I was thrilled because, like many townships,  Oukasie is a maze of winding routes.  When I opened the map it clearly showed the town of Brits, but where Oukasie exisited (at this point with a population of several hundred thousand) there was just blank empty space. This was 10 years after independence.

Some notes:  The pictures you see here are current.  Also a couple of interesting links -
Report on Oukasie and attacks on residents by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
An article on Oukasie written during the struggle.

     So what is a township?  In the 1970’s the South African government began moving Blacks away from white areas and into concentrated locations called townships.  The word “apartheid” literally means “apart” in Afrikaans.  In other words, segregation.  Many of these townships were located in a new “independent country,” called Bophuthatswana (there were others as well).  Picture reservations for Native Americans in the U.S. and you get the idea and intent.   Although apartheid ended, the physical relocations remained an accomplished fact.  Most of the schools I will be visiting on this trip are located in townships.  Part of the current struggle in South Africa is to undo the social and economical damage of apartheid while preserving and strengthening these communities.
    As Malebye and I walked through the township he recounted some of the hardships he endured under apartheid, such as being forced to carry a passbook at all times.  To travel to another town, even for work, you had to get permission from the authorities.  They did not want people leaving the townships freely.  To be caught without an authorized passbook meant a beating, or jail, or both.  It is important to remember that apartheid only ended 20 years ago.  Any adult you meet in South Africa grew up under apartheid.  Also important to consider, most Black teachers in South Africa were themselves educated under apartheid.  
    Today Malebye surprises me by saying that in some ways education in Bophutatswana under apartheid was superior to what is now available in many townships.  While there was a lack of resources, there was also greater educational independence and a greater sense of unity and purpose.   Now the lack of resources is still an issue, but all schools must follow the same national curriculum and all students compete on the same national exams.   Picture students studying science in a township, who have no textbooks and no lab equipment, taught by teachers who may have themselves received an inferior education, and yet these students must compete against schools with resources comparable to Ithaca high school. 
    A final note: because of the ravages of HIV/AIDS more than 70% of Black South Africans are under the age of 35.  South Africa is rapidly losing the “veterans” of the fight against apartheid.  Many of the youth currently growing up in townships do not feel the motivation of a unified struggle.  They see poverty, crime and HIV/AIDS as simply the conditions of existence, not the consequences of injustice.  For many of them there is no light at the end of the tunnel, there is just the tunnel.