Word: johannesburgers
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Shock waves from the worst racial violence in South Africa's history (TIME, June 28) reverberated through that tense country last week. While heavily armed police stood guard around the smoldering ruins of Soweto-a satellite township for nearly 1 million blacks on the outskirts of Johannesburg-sporadic rioting broke out in neighboring ghettos and in black suburbs near Pretoria. In both cities, whites rushed to buy arms and ammunition for protection against the so-called swart gevaar (black peril) -although at no time were any white communities threatened...
...riots in Soweto, which were touched off by compulsory teaching in the Afrikaans language in schools, last week's violence was provoked largely by harsh police tactics, including firing pointblank into crowds. Soweto itself was largely quiet, although trains, taxis and buses taking black workers to and from Johannesburg were occasionally stoned. To avoid further trouble, schools in the township were shut down until July...
...Afrikaans but to take even tougher law-and-order measures. Before leaving for West Germany, he appointed Petrus Malan Cillie, a white Transvaal judge, to launch a judicial inquiry into the riots. Both white and black newspapers found the action insensitive and called for a multiracial commission. Asked the Johannesburg Star in an editorial: "Is it possible for a white investigator, no matter how distinguished, to see the grievances and subsequent disturbances in the same perspectives as they were seen through black eyes...
...hundreds of distraught Sowetonians last week began the grim task of identifying and claiming the bodies of their loved ones. "Her body had many bullet holes," sobbed one black mother after identifying her 18-year-old daughter. One family, searching for their ten-year-old son, waited in the Johannesburg morgue from 6 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon, only to be told to come back the next day, when more bodies would be brought in. Headmasters at Soweto schools asked for permission to hold a mass funeral for the dead Soweto schoolchildren on July 3. Even that...
Most residents are doomed to obscure jobs in Johannesburg, where they must face apartheid constantly and always carry the "reference book" that Soweto-born Poet Mtshali calls "the document of my existence." These passbooks−which must be produced, on threat of jail, whenever a policeman demands one−include photographs, place of residence, employer, taxes paid and special curfew privileges if any. The average black salary in Johannesburg is $140 a month, only slightly more than the cost of living for a family of five in the box houses of Soweto. Average white salaries, in contrast, are at least...