Special Feature
s n e e b e h S f o y c a g e L The
unities m m co in
South African popular actor, Jerry Phele and his friends at a local shebeen in Soweto.
T
he apartheid Liquor Act of 1927, which among other restrictions prohibited Black people from selling liquor or entering licensed premises, was responsible for the emergence of shebeens which became local institutions. “Shebeen” is an Irish word that technically means “an unlicensed house selling alcoholic beverages”.
One of South Africa’s finest writers, actors and intellectuals, William ‘Bloke’ Modisane, in his autobiography, Blame Me On History proudly wrote how his mother resorted to running a shebeen to provide the family with a livelihood, which allowed him to go to school.
“My mother accepted her life, and I suppose, so did the other shebeen queens; they chose this life and accommodated the hazards. My mother Many rural and township women saw wanted a better life for her children, a beer-brewing as a business opportunity kind of insurance against poverty by for them to earn a living, support their trying to give me a prestige profession, families and send their children to school. and if necessary would go to jail whilst The women, who came to be called doing it,” Modisane wrote. ‘shebeen queens’, made and sold beer to migrant workers who could not afford His fellow renowned author and to buy the western beer, or who still academic, Es’kia Mphahlele in his preferred the traditional African beer. internationally acclaimed autobiography, Down Second Avenue also reiterates that Despite their illegal status, shebeens “there was no doubt that many women played a unifying role in the community, were able to send their children to school providing a sense of identity and and provide them with better lives on the belonging where patrons could express proceeds of beer-brewing.” themselves culturally, and meet to discuss political and social issues. Patrons Apart from their socio-economic and owners were often arrested by police. role, shebeens have also played an 34
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imperative role in South Africa’s predemocratic dispensation where they served as meeting places for political dissidents and provided an oasis of entertainment and hospitality. They then crossed over from shebeens to mainstream venues such as taverns or township bars and nightclubs where, mostly working class, urban males could unwind and socialise. As shebeens evolved and became permanent features of the townships’ social scene, establishments competed to attract customers by offering live music, dancing and food. Shebeens are now being formalised and are in the process of being legalised too. They are increasingly sophisticated; catering to a younger, trendier generation of black and white patrons, tourists and boast a wide variety of modern comforts like TVs, digital jukeboxes, collections of single-malt Whiskies and an international selection of beers. Some even have adjacent galleries selling local art.
