Nicho Ntema’s
Part One
Dlomo Dam | Music | Arts | My Heroes 1984 | SHAYOACT | My Early Years
If this is the Sharpeville you know...
© Ian Berry
YOU KNOW NOTHING! We did not all die before 1960, and did not all die in 1960 and not even in 1984...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & CREDITS
T
his book is not written according to any research methodology. It is my story about Sharpeville on how I’ve been told, heard, seen and read about it throughout the years. I however acknowledge the people I have quoted their original work within this book and generally credit them for digging for these stories. For those who read newspapers and police reports, I also acknowledge you for dedicating your time to cutting and pasting the stories you never experienced. I want to thank my Grandmother; Maloshoane Julia Ntema who trekked north and settled in Top Location, in preparation to being a Sharpeville Ancestor. She is buried at the now full Phelandaba Cemetery, among the many other Sharpeville Ancestors who build this community through painful moments, whereas most actually lived in compounds, hostels and the quarters manning the kitchens of their white masters and rearing their children. I also want to thank my ‘artistic’ Father; Gamakhulu Diniso, who helped me to unleash the powerful me through applying my mind to anything I did. He taught me to be me through allowing me to be me. I also want to thank Nyakane Tsolo and all those who adhered to the call to organise the PAC Pass Protest march in 1960 and helped to put Sharpeville on the global platform. I also want to acknowledge the stupidity of the Apartheid government as well as that young white boy who panicked and fired the first of the already planned fatal shots that afternoon. I want to also thank the current government for ignoring my Sharpeville this much. Without them I would not have developed so much love for this settlement. Everyone else who ever did anything for, against or within Sharpeville is also acknowledged for the good or the bad that made Sharpeville. I therefore acknowledge my personal stance against something that was unpopular and politically incorrect among many. I credit myself for not being a sissy and a conformist or a even political prostitute. I remain.
This book is mainly dedicated to all father-less boys whose mothers were also taken away by young white girls who could not raise their children, and had real, loving and rearing hands out of the mothers that were supposed to have been ours, in exchange for money, mixed sandwiches and old clothes that fueled our survival in the absence of our fathers. Page 1
Nicho Ntema’s
My Name is Mojalefa Nicho Ntema I am:? A father to three boys ? A practising tourism development strategist ? A social upliftment agent and activist ? A former Producer and Presenter on VUT fm 96.9 ? The former Editor and Publisher of Black Bikers Mzansi/Mzansi Bikers ? A former Founder and Executive Member of Nicho Ntema Media cc. ? A former biking industry respected biker and former tester for Yamaha ? An Executive Member of the Sedibeng Interim Regional Tourism Organization ? Founder and conceptualiser of Sharpeville First ? Founder and conceptualiser of Sharpeville First ? Founding Trustee & CE of Friends of Sharpeville Trust
? Founder and Owner f Nicho Ntema Unlimited Services Consultancy Within all these activities I managed to do the following:· · · · · Cover Photo: Nicho Ntema and Mampoi Ntema Circa: 1971
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Addressed the International Students Association of the Vaal Triangle Technikon, on youth empowerment matters. Invited and Spoke on Two-Way [SABC 2] on youth and arts and culture matters. Presented papers at the Gauteng Heritage Colloquium organised and hosted by the Gauteng Department of Arts and Culture. Served as Chairperson of the Sharpeville Youth Development Forum. Subsequently elected Project Co-ordinator of the Vaal Youth Development Forum. Became Deputy Chairperson of the Matsie-Steyn Primary School Governing Body. Became Member of the Sharpeville Local First Project's Consultative Forum. Became Executive Member of the Tourism Chamber within the Lekoa Vaal Economic Development Forum. Became Founding Member of the Puisano Sedibeng Jazz Project. Became Member of the Local Education and Training Unit [Cluster 1 Sharpeville]. Became Executive Member of the [District 7] District Education and Training Council [DETC]. Became Executive Founding Member of Nete Youth Initiatives Became Group Chief Executive of Nete Youth Trading (Pty) Ltd. Became Board Member & Active Shareholder of Nete Youth Trading (Pty) Ltd.
I did all these in my quest to defy Apartheid intentions through Bantu Education and its boundaries and conditions. I must mention that I did not win in that defiance. Certification requirements closed all available avenues for me to make any inroads into anything I waned to pursue. In contrast, a white apprentice is recognised as an engineer due to recognition of prior learning. White boys and girls who write our stories through our help get doctorates for putting up such dissertations and thesis. People who live those lives daily and can even put out better stories and solutions, are judged through their Bantu Education standards, foreign language proficiency, and white judgement. I a have proven for myself that I am free and never got absorbed by selfish, degrading and conditional judgement by our past oppressors and their current measures. I addressed University many students and left them in speechless. I addressed politicians who vowed never to listen to me ever. I have conceptualised thoughts that could have made this country better. I think and Bantu Education did not swallow me. In this instance, Hendrick Verwoerd’s plan failed on me. I FORGOT TO MENTION, I AM AN AUTHOR, WRITER AND THINKER PAR EXCELLENCE WITHOUT MATRIC & NO BAAS IS PAYING ME TO PROVE IT. READ THE BOOK AND SEE... Page 2
Nicho Ntema’s
About the Me First and foremost I am neither an academic nor a historian. I am a storyteller, a thinker and a visionary.
I
am a high school dropout who defied Bantu Education and subjected himself to a hard life of poverty amidst the great thoughts I had and still have. I was born in a rented two room dwelling in Sharpeville, exactly a decade and a month after the 21 March 1960 Sharpeville Massacre. In 1977 I started schooling at Matsie Steyn Lower Primary school as a normal black ‘heavily immunized child’ who lived almost his early childhood life without ever seeing a white man. In 1980 I enrolled myself at the liberating Busang School of the Arts which became Thakaneng Theatre at the Sharpeville Arts and Sports Centre. I also attended music classes at FUBA in Newtown Johannesburg for a year. The formal education system engulfed me through coercion by my parents and society's expectations until I quit in 1989. I dropped out of high school at the age of 19 when I realised the need for proper personal engagement of school going children in careers they needed to follow. Thus I conceptualised, founded and personally funded The DYSEA. This project was funded with the R50 my mother gave me on my 21st Birthday and other cents I collected. The Direction of Youth in Social and Educational Activities [The DYSEA] was a development agency specializing in youth matters affecting young people in transition. That was also coupled with an independent study I undertook on Black Education in South Africa and its effects on the future of this country. Its first project was Careers for Life '91 which I hosted at my recently former school. The Project discontinued due to lack of funding and changes within the education system. In 1992 I was called, with hesitation to work for Shoprite/Checkers as a ticket-writer. I did everything there from writing price tickets to internal advertising and promotions. After running the ticket writing office for full two years, I was angry, disillusioned and resigned to pursue own interests. The social upliftment bug had earlier stung me again in 1993 when I Co-founded Montemo Education Group. Montemo was established to assist the failed matric pupils of 1993 within the greater Vaal Triangle area through a Matric Supplementary Tuition Program [MSTP] I created and got endorsed by the Apartheid's Department of Education and Training [Orange-Vaal District]. This project was introduced to the new and still confused Ms Thandi Chaane [the then Director General; Gauteng Department of Education], who hesitantly never opposed it. The project was discontinued due to the ushering in of the new dispensation and the establishment of the now defunct Gauteng Youth College, a similar concept. In 1995I co-founded The Sharpeville Resource Centre, with Gamakhulu Diniso, which became a Sharpeville based arts and culture facility. Gamakhulu was the founder of Busang School of the Arts and my artistic father. We conceptualised and developed Truth Exhibition. The Centre's March Truth Exhibition ran for full three [3] years and even formed part of the 1998 Human Rights Day commemorations at the Electric Workshop at Newtown Cultural Precinct. It was also seen and documented by members of various international humanitarian bodies and organizations who visited Sharpeville. The centre was officially recognised and also partly funded by the Gauteng Department of Sports Recreation Arts and Culture, and the then Vaal Triangle Technikon. It was also recognized by the University of Central England in Birmingham, England and the transitional Lekoa Vaal Metropolitan Council. The Sharpeville Resource Centre was initially not funded. That prompted the need for self-reliance and sustainability. I then conceptualised and founded Truth Tours International as an internal self-reliance project of the centre that would operate on a commercial and profitable basis. Truth Tours is actually the very first black tours operations company in the Vaal. Truth Tours International became the preferred tour operator of the Lekoa Vaal Metro Council and the Vaal Triangle Technikon through the provision of transport and tourism services during the existence of the Lekoa-Vaal Tilburg Twinning Association; a South African-Netherlands municipality twinning and relations exercise. Truth Tours International and the later called Truth Tourism, was killed by politics and ignorance from the local government departments who ran tourism and the shortsightness of the provincial tourism authority [Gauteng Tourism Authority]. I left the Sharpeville Resource Centre in 1998 to pursue other interests. In 1999 I founded Nicho Ntema Associates. This was a personal initiative aimed at making a difference to the lives of young people in terms of empowerment issues within South Africa's disadvantaged communities. I conceptualised and formulated the visionary Townships Economic Revival Initiative and merged with my brother; Kallie Khampepe who founded the Yizo Ke Tsona Fast Foods brand The Yizo Ke Tsona brand held the township fast food market share for full five years in Sharpeville. In 2000, I launched the Townships Economic Revival Initiative concept and the Make a Mark Foundation [previously called Renaissance and Empowerment Forum] with assistance from Billiton which was formerly known as Gencor and owners of Samancor and later became BHP Billiton we know today. I have since assisted Birdlife South Africa and Gauteng Tourism Authority to establish the Sedibeng Birding Route. This process included my beloved Dlomo Dam within its collection of various birds and introduced me to world of Birding and Avitourism. I am attempting to collect all my thoughts and publish them. This is the third book I am putting together...
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FOREWORD Sad Reality‌ “How sad it is to realise that, after all these years, pain and efforts, Sharpeville will eventually be less remembered because there are those people who feel that its natural and historical significance is not befitting and has to be selfishly sacrificed for today's personal gains and greed.â€? Nicho Ntema, March 2001
First of all. We have to understand where we come from. In terms of Sharpeville, we have to understand that Sharpeville has never been owned or controlled by its inhabitants, since its inception in the 1940's. When Vereeniging Municipality-owned, governed and policed Top Location [a predecessor township to Sharpeville] was demolished, the status quo never changed. The new Sharpe Native Township; later to be called Sharpeville, was established on the land purchased by the same Vereeniging Municipality. Throughout those years, Sharpeville became the property of the exclusively white voters who constituted the apartheid-controlled and based Vereeniging Town Council which extended its footage within Sharpeville by placing its own white superintendents. A stupid and brutal political franchise system was introduced in the 1980's that saw the establishment of the then Lekoa City Council in 1983, which was an extended apartheid puppet system with a black make-up on the surface. This system was soon thwarted by residents, with dire consequences, that resulted in what we know as the 1984 Vaal Uprisings and the subsequent saga of the Sharpeville Six. Since the 1994 elections, Sharpeville has now being turned into a prostitute daily paraded on global platforms like Sarah Baartman and also raped by local opportunists who don't even pay for her services. The commercial and heritage value of Sharpeville has thus never benefitted its inhabitants who remained labour that forever fueled and drove mostly the Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark local economies all their lives, only to come back to Sharpeville to drink, make babies and sleep. To this day, Sharpeville remain an unfenced hostel for apartheid-created labourers, who go out of the township every morning and come back every evening to sleep. In actual fact, Sharpeville is a slave row for all the slaves who drive other people's economies with their minds, sweat and blood. It is a settlement still owned by the authorities, just like in the 1940's, 1960's, and the 1980's era of the Development Boards and the illegitimate now defunct Lekoa City Council. Sharpeville is also a home to the deactivated, disempowered, disengaged, discouraged and degraded human tools. The demeaned, dethroned, devoured, dehumanised, degraded, deposable neglected tools that are activated on a need basis. The decisions are still made from top down, even within the so-called democratic order. Being a Sharpeville resident does not even give one a special privilege on anything related to or affecting Sharpeville. People don't govern, we are governed. Those who own Sharpeville has turned it into a place where children are not allowed to play, as all playgrounds and available land for parks are daily allocated to all forms of churches. This means; Sharpeville people are seen as the worst sinners in the world and the owners are trying to help through promoting religious activity by allocating every available piece of land to every religious applicant, so long he wants to open a church. Sharpeville is no more the land it's situated at nor its location. Sharpeville is 'its acquired heritage and its people'. This has turned the name Sharpeville into a global brand that emerged on the afternoon of Monday the 21st March 1960, just after the brutal killing and maiming of its residents, during the peaceful and legitimate anti-pass protest.
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Nicho Ntema’s
The brutality of this event, recreated Sharpeville as we know it today, though with no benefits to its residents although in any heritage related issue all over the world, there should be beneficiaries. The Jews are exclusive beneficiaries to the Holocaust because it affected them. The Irish living around Belfast and other places affected by their war benefit from the tourism related issues of that war. In Germany, the Berlin residents benefit from the demise of the Berlin Wall and its related history. In Soweto, some Sowetans benefit from their pain related to the 1976 Soweto Uprisings. Even in Alexandra, the residents are reaping benefits from their contribution to the struggle. It is only in Sharpeville where people from outside benefit from Sharpeville's heritage. This is wrong! The direct Sharpeville Massacre victims and their next of kin, who should be legitimate beneficiaries, have been sidelined since the very first fund was established days after the massacre, more than 50 years ago. Those who died are lying at the Sharpeville's Phelandaba Cemetery with ugly and cheap concrete stones put on their graves by the South African Heritage Resources Agency [SAHRA]. They are remembered once a year towards the month of March. Throughout the year their graves are covered by grass and weeds and also trampled on by cows grazing within the grave yard. Those who survived the massacre are annually paraded on the stages during the event. The rest of the community and other bussed-in subjects, are left at the dusty hosting venue to listen to various national musicians who supply quotations to perform, while local artists are told how much they are to earn. Besides the overwhelming Sharpeville's Global Recognition, those who still live or have lived in Sharpeville since the massacre have been continuously trampled on by money mongers and opportunists who know how to exploit and benefit from the pain of others. In simpler terms, Sharpevilleans never benefitted anything from their own day. On Sunday the 21st March 2010, it was 50 years since Sharpeville became a global phenomenon associated with the brutality and evilness of Apartheid, the ugly face of racism and global oppression of indigenous people. This happened because ordinary people, who sacrificed their jobs and other daily chores, heeded a call that was to directly benefit them, should the pass laws be abolished as a result of their protest. The sad part of this saga, is that Sharpevilleans lost their fight that day, with scores of them dead and maimed only to realise that dream turned into reality twenty five years later in 1985. Those who survived and got a chance to carry the new green identity documents for all South Africans, still remained with the physical and psychological scars of that fateful black Monday. Unfortunately, 53 years later, the remaining will still not have tasted the benefits of this sacrifice that has now been turned into an economic platform, with monetary benefits for many in this country and abroad, except them and their other fellow Sharpevilleans. This is unacceptable and inhuman. The many other anniversaries were never observed and commemorated due the oppressive laws of Apartheid that resulted in many clashes between the police and the people during this day's events. Up until the release of Nelson Mandela and the un-banning of political formations and movements in this country, the then known as Sharpeville Day was then freely observed, though as two divided commemorations by the ANC on the other end and the PAC on the other. The 21st March was later declared Human Rights Day by the South African Democratic Government after the 1994 Elections.
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Nicho Ntema’s
This was one of the very few Anniversaries of the Sharpeville Massacre to be freely though controversially observed. Some of the actual survivors of this Massacre possibly commemorated this day for the last time last year. Most will not be there for the 60th Anniversary in 2020 and all of the remaining will not be there at the 70th, 80th, 90th, and the Centenary of this Massacre in 2060. Some of these victims gave birth to retarded children who never had a normal life due to this event. Some have been unable to work since that day and poverty has engulfed their lives and even went on to affect their offsprings. Some have been forced to flee this country and their homes, only to die in exile and come back to be buried. What right do we have to claim that this is truly Human Rights Day, whereas the rights of the people who created this day are the ones infringed and violated? The truth needs to be told that more than 69 people died on Monday the 21st March 1960. It also has to be noted that those buried at Phelandaba Cemetery are not the claimed 69 Victims who were officially declared dead that day. There are other victims who are lying in unmarked and forgotten graves at the Vuka Cemetery. Most died and still die in their homes in far away places they came from. Just imagine the pain of seeing your history being told by people who were never there. This is what is making the pain more severe to the survivors, fifty three years since the massacre happened. Today many books have been written, newspaper articles syndicated throughout the world, songs composed and bands named after Sharpeville. This is because the tragedy that fell on ordinary people that day slipped off their hands and became the benefits of others. From the moment the first bullet hit the first victim, political formations claimed the day. The journalists took photos and wrote the stories but the victims lay bleeding to death on the dusty street, in police vans and later in hospitals. Those who survived felt their pain in silence fearing to be arrested or being killed. For many years that followed, politicians flooded the place around the month of March to campaign for votes using the pain of the victims as their ticket to high office. Journalists, researchers and other opportunists also came down to feast on the beast they didn't kill like hawks. The remaining crumbs would be finished off by the government officials who have become hyenas within this entire process. The survivors will then be left to rot like bones left after that feed by scavengers. For many years I have been seen walking along the graves of the Sharpeville Massacre Victims within the Phelandaba Cemetery in Sharpeville and coming out crying due to the state of these graves. This is an anniversary where the word “Happy� feels like a bullet entering your body. Lest we forget. Extracted from the original Sharpeville First Document; 18 July 2009
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chapter 1 FROM TOP DOWN THE VALLEY
I
would imagine that the day was bright and sunny. The mood was dull as there could be an impromptu raid on the traditional brewing houses. There could also be a visit by the mafia's or 'marashia' [Russians] gangs or maybe a sudden fight among the drunk patrons of a popular watering hole. This is what I think of Top Location. A labour pool situated on the western side of Vereeniging, a town synonymous with the hosting of the 13 May 1902 treaty negotiations which ended the AngloBoer War. The same town that became part of the route of the great trek, thus the Voortrekker Street runs in an out of this town linking the other towns from north to south. My beloved granny; Maleshoane Julia Ntema, was a resident there. She was one of the many people who emigrated from the Free State to look for work and ended up in Vereeniging and thus located at Top Location. I heard lots of stories about Top Location from her though she was fonder of telling stories about her birthplace and her upbringing in Arlington. These included encounters about her schooling in Ficksburg. But my curiosity created a path for me to hear stories about the Chinese community that traded at Top Location as well as the Indians and Coloureds who also lived there. That was in the 1940's. Also within her stories came an encounter that engulfed this part of the world in 1933, which was called Lerwele le lekgubedu [Red Dust]. Unfortunately my granny was not interested in politics or anything related to social issues of the time. She knew that there were men who went to wars during those times but that was never a subject within our conversations. To a certain point that I fell in love with Top Location, for she told me things that were interesting and truly kept all the bad things out of my mind or beyond my reach. Within the midst of raids and other anti-social activities, Top Location had life. There was a school and also a hall for the very vibrant performances. There was love and lots of children were born there and families created like in any other community. Top Location became a home to many but a nightmare to authorities. It was not easily policed. There were lots of squatters. The living conditions were not up to standard. 'Illegal' liquor trading was rife and like in any community, there were lots of social ills. But one day, something happened that would change the face of Top Location forever and even kill the settlement. Legend has it that Makgubedu, the 'queen' of Top Location started the riots that engulfed all other issues including police harassment and living conditions. Top Location erupted one day in 1937 and immediately created what came to be known as the 1937 Vereeniging Riots. There is also a story that within the mayhem, a white policeman was castrated that day. This was to be the end of an era at Top Location. The threat to the white community in Vereeniging was now eminent. Action had to be taken. The presence of blacks within the midst of Vereeniging for was too much for comfort. The Vereeniging Town Council had to act. The riot of that scale had to be managed in case it happened in the future. Top Location did not provide for that. A motion was taken within the council chambers that a portion of the Leeuwkuil Farm had to be purchased to create a new settlement and 'new location' for black people then located at Top Location. This was in part relocating about 16 000 people who lived in "Top Location" in 1941. This was during the days of the United Party that had not as then legislated discrimination, but colour and nationality still played crucial roles in separating people. The council then obtained a piece of land within the Leeuwkuil Farm on the far south-western part of the town. Plans were drawn and the new location for blacks would be planned as a model township taking into account policing and social cohesion issues. Work started and within the immediate plans of a new settlement of blacks within the Leeuwkuil Farm, were a community hall, council owned rental stock houses, free hold stands for those who had properties at Top Location, a community clinic, a police station, a post office and other amenities that would tame the new community. There was a man of Scottish descent named John Lillie Sharpe, who came to South Africa from Glasgow Scotland, as secretary of Stewarts & Lloyds. Sharpe was elected to the Vereeniging Town Council in 1932 and became the Mayor of Vereeniging during the riots in 1937 having held that position since 1934. This man was known to have a soft spot for the natives during his tenure as a local politician thus as part of taming the raging black beast, the new settlement was named after him and came to be known as the Sharpe Native Township.
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Nicho Ntema’s
Although the building of the houses only started in 1942, the Sharpe Native Township would be a settlement to create a totally new society. The township was to be a place where children would play and those who were tenants at Top Location getting their own fenced houses rented from the municipality for a nominal rental. Water was free but 14 houses shared one tap and there were two bathing complexes in the township. The vibe of Top Location will later brought in and housed within the then state-of-theart community hall that became a bioscope theatre. The churches would be placed at a designated square that is the only one of its kind in the world. There was also a multi shop centre at was earmarked to be a civic centre that had a bottle store and bar, a post office, a clinic and a library. Schools were also moved to the new settlement with churches building beautiful schools within vast pieces of land allocated within the plans. There was also a plan for the swimming pool that was later built with the money donated by one of the steel companies in Vereeniging. The Sharpe Native Township was indeed a model township. To this day there is no other settlement in this country that has been planned along the lines of this township. From 1942 people started being moved from Top Location to this valley like settlement. This movement was swift as living conditions in Sharpeville were far better than at Top Location despite the process taking almost 20 years. Within the Leeuwkuil Farm there were already people living there. On the eastern portion towards Vereeniging, there was a pond with a household nearby that was a home to a certain Dlomo and his livestock. On the far south-western side of the Dlomo household there was the Raqhwabedi household that seemed to have lived longer on the farm than Dlomo. Legend has it that they also had their loved ones graves lined along their homesteads. Sharpeville is set within a valley like setting that influenced the coining of the phrase, 'Skotiphola - Ons Phola Hierso' Relaxed ValleyWe Stay Here. This indicated that most people who came to Sharpeville felt at home and indeed felt they were there to stay. By 1946 some of the houses in Sharpeville had their own taps and bathrooms. After the Second World War the Herstigte [Reformed] National Party (HNP) came into power through a coalition with the otherwise insignificant Afrikaner Party in 1948 thus bringing along a legislative process to be known as Apartheid. Within a year the Mixed Marriages Act was instituted; the first of many segregationist laws devised to separate privileged white South Africans from the black African masses. By 1958, with the election of Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa was completely entrenched in the philosophy of Apartheid. A year later the Sharpe Native Township changed its name to Sharpeville along the introduction of another apartheid government's Group Areas Act [Act 21 of 1950] which was part of many Apartheid laws that formed part of the wider Separate Development Policy. By then, of all Top Location residents, Blacks had already settled in Sharpeville, Coloureds were moved to Rus-ter-vaal and Indians to the nearby Roshnee. The Indians were the last ethnic group to leave Top Location with the last batch leaving in 1974. Since then the coloureds and Indians lived close by on the far northern part of Vereeniging. Whites lived within the heart of the town and along the river. Blacks were placed in-between Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark but further separated by the two cemeteries, electric pylons, highways and industries. Sharpeville was even fenced and had only two entrances. They also planted tall bluegum trees on its periphery to indeed contain blacks living there. On top of that, they had an administration office at the entrance to Sharpeville from Vereeniging to control the influx of people into Sharpeville. These people had to be separated so that policing them could be possible and relevant. Black people would be treated differently and more harsher as they had no linkages to the outside world and wanted their country back. The Indians had linkages to India and would therefore create a retaliatory move by India should they be treated like blacks. Coloureds also had lineage to the early settlers and were linked to the Afrikaners through culture and language. So, all these non-white groups had to be separated. This is a process that started way back in 1910, when the two Afrikaner states of Orange River Colony [Oranje Vrij Staat] and Transvaal [Zuid Afrikaansche Republick] were joined with Cape Colony and Natal as the Union of South Africa. The repression of black Africans became entrenched in the constitution of the new union (although perhaps not intentionally) and the foundations of Grand Apartheid were laid. The separate development policy of the National Party was therefore the practical version of this 1910 Union of South Africa constitution. The difference was that Apartheid was more intended to separate blacks from all other groups so as to manage them better. Blacks were further separated among themselves into ethnic groups that were further located to their so-called “Homelands” or “Bantustans”.
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Nicho Ntema’s
Besides all these, people in Sharpeville recreated themselves. The musical bands that were part of Top Location regrouped or merged and the Sharpetown Swingsters was born in 1953. This happened alongside many other things that created a closed community that was to be identified with its intermarriage relations that ridiculed the ethnic divisions propagated by Apartheid. In Sharpeville there were still coloured people who continued to live like they lived at Top Location. The government created some incentives in terms of job opportunities that saw these coloured people moving out of Sharpeville to Rus-ter-vaal, and also making other black people changing their surnames to be classified as coloureds. The Motloungs became Oliphants and so on and so forth. Sharpeville became green with people exercising their freedom to own houses through planting fruit and other trees within their yards. Weddings became events to wait for and attend as they mostly had live bands playing and throughout the years more bands were formed. Soccer and boxing also became the integral part of this community with girls being poached through your popularity as either a boxer, a musician or a soccer player. Apartheid came with even stricter liquor laws that became the integral part of the pass laws. My late friend and mentor, Ntate Nkalimeng Leutsoa; who was the librarian in Sharpeville, told me stories related to these pass laws. He said there were several passes for different people. Black women had their own unique pass book commonly known as 'wasplank' because of its long shape that depicted the usual long piece of wood women used during washing. There also privileges given to certain people based on their standards within the community. Teachers, Priests and other government employees enjoyed certain privileges that included buying liquor during certain times of the week. Liquor was also separated with bottled liquor being labeled whiteman's liquor and not allowed to be consumed by blacks without privileges. The African traditional beer was not allowed to be brewed by Africans themselves, while government built its own breweries to brew this beer. Sharpeville was a recipient of one of these breweries with strategically placed public bars built within the township. Legend has it that the Sharpeville based African Beer Brewery was making so much money that it helped finance the development of Homelands and other townships. Besides all these and the vibrant life at the Sharpeville Men's Hostel that housed migrant labourers from the Bantustans, the policing of people Sharpeville was harsh. The pass laws, group areas act and other apartheid laws made life unbearable for many within this new township, although Sharpeville was not that much political in terms of affiliation or activity. Generally there was immense opposition to the government's policies. The African National Congress (ANC) was working within the law against all forms of racial discrimination in South Africa. By 1956 it had committed itself to a South Africa which "belongs to all." A peaceful demonstration in June that same year, at which the ANC (and other anti-Apartheid groups) approved the Freedom Charter in Kliptown, Soweto, led to the arrest of 156 anti-Apartheid leaders and the 'Treason Trial' which lasted until 1961. By the late 1950’s some of ANC's members had become disillusioned with the 'peaceful' response. Known as 'Africanists' this select group was opposed to a multi-racial future for South Africa. The Africanists followed a philosophy that a racially assertive sense of nationalism was needed to mobilise the masses, and they advocated a strategy of mass action (boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and non-cooperation). The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) was formed in April 1959, with Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe as president. The PAC and ANC did not agree on policy, and it seemed unlikely in 1959 that they would co-operate in any manner.
These difference were to make Sharpeville a step baby of South Africa to this day, besides being more famous, clever and more beautiful than the rest of South African black townships inherited from Apartheid, their father who also did not love them...
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chapter 2 THE UNEXPECTED POLITICAL POWERHOUSE
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ithin the green orchard that Sharpeville was. The vibrant community of footballers, boxers, dancers, musicians, artists, academics and other intelligentsia laid a silent monster that was soon to erupt. The pain and embarrassment brought forth by the Pass and other apartheid laws was soon to be taken to the public arena. The common kicking of doors in the early hours of the morning by the municipal police enforcing apartheid laws was making life unbearable. The very low wages paid to the workers was also a concern from many residents. One may say life was better in Sharpeville, than at the demolished Top Location but things had not changed for the better since the nationalist government came into power. The ANC planned a campaign of demonstrations against the pass laws to start at the beginning of April 1960. The PAC rushed ahead and announced a similar demonstration, to start ten days earlier, effectively hijacking the ANC campaign. The PAC called for "African males in every city and village... to leave their passes at home, join demonstrations and, if arrested, [to] offer no bail, no defence, [and] no fine.� On 16 March 1960 Sobukwe wrote to the commissioner of police, Major General Rademeyer, stating that the PAC would beholding a five-day, non-violent, disciplined, and sustained protest campaign against pass laws, starting on 21 March. At a press conference on 18 March he further stated: "I have appealed to the African people to make sure that this campaign is conducted in a spirit of absolute non-violence, and I am quite certain they will heed my call. If the other side so desires, we will provide them with an opportunity to demonstrate to the world how brutal they can be." The PAC leadership was hopeful of some kind of physical response. On 21 March 1960 at least 180 black Africans were injured (there are claims of as many as 300) and 69 killed when South African police opened fire on approximately 300 demonstrators, who were protesting against the pass laws, at the township of Sharpeville, near Vereeniging in the Transvaal. In similar demonstrations at the police station in Vanderbijlpark, another person was shot. Later that day at Langa, a township outside Cape Town, police baton charged and fired tear gas at the gathered protesters, shooting three and injuring several others. The Sharpeville Massacre, as the event has become known, signalled the start of armed resistance in South Africa, and prompted worldwide condemnation of South Africa's Apartheid policies.
PROBABLY THIS IS HOW MUCH YOU KNOW ABOUT SHARPEVILLE. THE DATE THAT CAME TOBE WHAT WE ARE. THEN YOU KNOW NOTHING. YOU CAN THEN READ THE PAPERS AND SEARCH THE INTERNET ON THE STORY ABOUT THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE. ONE EVEN AMONG MANY THAT MADE AND EVENTUALLY DESTROYED SHARPEVILLE. MY SHARPEVILLE IS THE REAL STORY ABOUT PEOPLE...OUR HERITAGE THAT MAKE SHARPEVILLE. THE FOLLOWING IS THE NICHO NTEMA’S SHARPEVILE...
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