Sowetos struggle

SOWETO, South Africa - The small tourist bus stopped at a bridge in the middle of the Soweto Township, offering us a view of this country's most famous slums.  It felt strange to begin what would become a 3,100-mile journey through a country filled with beauty, wildlife and friendly people in a shantytown where white faces like ours are not often seen.

But no trip to South Africa would be complete without visiting Soweto. This township not only produced two Nobel Peace Prize winners, but it was also the birthplace of revolution that finally brought majority rule to a country long dominated by its white minority.

Before the day was over, our awareness of South Africa's harsh racist past would be raised. As we spent the next 19 days traveling overland from Johannesburg to Cape Town, we would see evidence that though apartheid officially ended in the early 1990s, a de facto separation of people based on race and economics continues to this day.

But on this day, we still had much to learn.
Parts of Soweto - an acronym for South West Townships given to the area near Johannesburg in 1963
- have existed since 1904 when, according to the Lonely Planet Guide, whites moved blacks and Indians away from the city center, using bubonic plague as an excuse for the relocation.
After stopping at the bridge for an overview of the township, our driver, Mandla Dublela, said he would take us to a place few tourists see.

The bus fell silent as we drove on a rough dirt road in a place where tin-roofed, wooden shacks served as homes and small stores. Then we met Bob.

"It is a pleasure and a blessing," he said in greeting as we toured a community center called Mutombo's Joint, named after Congo-born NBA center Dikembe Mutombo, who has done much to help finance youth projects throughout the continent.

Bob, who identified himself only by his first name and as a former professional soccer player, bubbled with enthusiasm as he talked in a rapid-fire manner about the community center and its role in place where some might only see despair.

"Unity is strength and diversity is power."
"Every human being has decency."
"Nothing is impossible. There is a powerful God. If he created me, can he deny my power?"
"There is no pain or hardship I don't know. But struggle sharpens the mind."
"I try to see life through the eyes of a child. A child sees no color."
"If a mother is homeless, the whole nation is homeless. Women empower the whole nation."

Bob uses the small community center to help children and mothers. Parenting classes are taught here. So are after-school arts programs. We were invited to buy crafts from one of the students.
Although inspired by Bob, we were still awed by the poverty as we boarded the little bus and headed to Vilakazi Street, perhaps the only street in the world to have once been home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners: Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.

Mandela's home was a simple brick building, smaller than most Sugar House bungalows. It was filled with posters and plaques celebrating the life of the man called "the prisoner president." He would become the nation's first black African president in 1994.

As we resumed the tour, Dublela began revealing a bit more of his personal history. He was a student in 1976 when a strike by black students protesting the separate and poorer education system designed to teach blacks the white language Afrikaans turned violent.

According to the Web site about.com, "South Africa's government enacted the Bantu Education Act in 1953. . . . The role of this department was to compile a curriculum that suited the 'nature and requirements of the black people.' Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd (who would become prime minister) stated that 'natives [blacks] must be taught from an early age that equality with Europeans [whites] is not for them.' "
In short, the education system was designed so blacks could serve whites.

After some prodding, our driver told us he grew up in Soweto and was involved in the protests. He eventually was exiled to Swaziland, where he lived away from his family because of the role he had played. Why he didn't hate white people like us amazed me.

"We shouldn't dwell too much on the past," Dublela told us. "We need to focus on the future. It is what we speak, preach and eat."
Dublela showed us the place where 12-year-old Hector Pieterson became one of the first casualties of the black student protest and strike in Soweto. South African police shot him during the protest.
A photo by Sam Nzima showing Hector being carried by a fellow student would become the symbol of the start of the long and difficult protest. Few may have known on June 16, 1976, when the violence occurred, but apartheid's days were numbered.

The Hector Pieterson Museum and memorial are about two blocks from Mandela's home. A line of green grass marks the path the bullet took.

According to author Lucille Davie, "the museum follows the chronology of the build-up to June 16th, starting with the way tensions were building amongst Soweto's schoolchildren, with one school after another one going on strike."

The modern building uses photographs and multimedia presentations to provide perspective and background on the conditions that led to the student strikes and the white minority's violent reaction.
The day's last stop took us to the Apartheid Museum, which opened in 2001 and properly bills itself as "the pre-eminent museum in the world dealing with 20th-century South Africa." It is next to an old gold mine, an amusement park, a casino and a horse-racing track.

Walking into the museum after being issued a ticket as a black or a white person quickly made an impression.

Apartheid is defined as "the system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race in South Africa from 1948 to 1991." But the roots of the system can be traced to when the Dutch and British fought over colonizing the country at the end of the 19th century.

The museum's 22 exhibits use interactive films, photographs, text panels and artifacts to take visitors on a historical tour of South Africa, offering valuable insights into what it was like to live under the system.
I ended the day in a contemplative mood, sitting alone on a bench outside the museum waiting for Dublela to drive us to the backpackers' hostel.

The sounds of Muslim prayers, blaring from a distant loudspeaker, mingled with singing birds and the din of a Thursday rush-hour traffic jam. Discrimination based on race, religion, language or economic background, at that moment, seemed like such a strange, unexplainable thing.

By Tom Wharton