Apartheid history big attraction ahead of Cup

By Omulo Okoth in Johannesburg

It is mid-morning along the busy streets of Hillbrow in downtown Johannesburg. Some middle-aged boys criss-cross the road among thick traffic, making gesticulations to motorists as they sell assorted wares.

Our tour guide, Phillemon Makola, warns that this area, where many illegal foreigners reside, ‘is not a very safe place’. Not a single white man or woman can be seen walking along the streets here. Yet it was the first suburb in Johannesburg to accept inter-racial residence, long before democratic elections of 1994.

Bogus seller

It was at Hillbrow where a certain Kenyan politician was rumoured to have lost a four-star hotel to a bogus seller sometime back.

Hillbrow hosts Africa’s tallest building, the 50-storey Carlton Centre. Not very far is the exclusive Sandton suburb and its equally-leafy, Auckland Park, Illovo and Wanderers. A drive in these suburbs, especially a night out at the Nelson Mandela Square at night, brings visitors to South Africa closer to the likeness of a central European metropolis.

From coffee shops, shopping malls, trendy restaurants, fashion and departmental stores to street planning, Johannesburg is ahead of the rest of Africa by far and popular with white the population – in some still exclusive (but not enforced) areas.

Seventeen kilometres South West Jo’burg, as it is popularly known, we enter Soweto, one of Africa’s most populous and famous townships. Naturally, the first stop is Vilakazi Street in Orlando West, block 8115. This is Nelson Mandela Museum, which used to be their (with Winnie Madizikela) matrimonial home. Only a few blocks down the street is Desmond Tutu’s residence.

This is the only street in the world which has been home to two winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Immaculately kept, the Mandela Museum is a red-tiled bungalow teeming with tourists, posing for pictures as young Sowetans sing the Sizwe Nkosi Sikelela in return for a few coins.

Prefers privacy

In contrast, the Desmond Tutu residence is a no-go zone as the Anglican prelate prefers privacy. Also along this street is the famous Phepeni Senior Secondary School where Hector Pieterson was elevated to martyrdom following the June 16, 1976 massacre of school children. Pieterson had joined fellow students in an uprising against the introduction of Afrikaaner language in all public schools. Police mowed him down, Hastings Ndhlovu and many others with live bullets in a bid to disperse them.

Shortly before the famous street is the Winnie Madizikela-Mandela house which gained international infamy for all the wrong reasons. Stompie Sipei, one of Mandela Xl FC players was tortured to death here for alleged spying.

The house is surrounded by a high perimeter fence, complete with electric wire and many surveillance cameras.

Soweto nestles on artificial hills which were created by dumping sites from the gold mines. It has many faces. One side, Diepkloof Extensions, houses the rich Sowetans. Beautiful bungalows fenced with neatly kept hedges overlook the so-called dormitories or hostels, small houses built for poor workers who were employed in the minefields, who were mainly Zulu. They were not allowed to bring women into these houses.

The Orlando East has an imposing stadium, Orlando Stadium, home of Orlando Pirates football club. Streets are manned by speed cameras while the ordinary Sowetans kill time in Shebeens, local bars where beer and conversation form good preoccupation. The place is relatively safe.

We take the NI four-lane dual carriage way back to Johannesburg, then to the soccer world, the FNB Stadium, a 94,500-seater imposing edifice to the South-west of the city which will host the opening and closing ceremonies of next year’s Fifa World Cup.

Quiet place

Another leap to Pretoria reveals a cleaner, if quieter place. South Africa’s seat of power had a history of whites-only town which Paul Kruger did not imagine would one day allow blacks into their midst.

Kruger must be turning in his grave because this is something he probably never imagined could happen. Kruger House, a milk and cement modest bungalow, is intact, since early 1900s.

The Union Building, with its meticulously-kept gardens, opens up to tourists taking pictures and asking questions.

 

 

Read all about: South Africa Johannesburg Nelson Mandela Soweto Fifa World Cup

 

 

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