Word: soweto
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...Constructive engagement" relies on several premises. The first, that no internal resistance movement seriously threatens the stability of the South African regime, is probably a fair assessment. No ideology of mass violence has ever captured the spirit of the Black South Africans; uprisings such as the Soweto riots of 1976 have generally been tragic, isolated incidents. Journalists in that country also report that resistance efforts such as the African National Congress have lost much of their past potency. Only time can prove the merit of the judgment, but armed insurrection in the near future seems unlikely...
...under his leadership have proven largely insignificant, more a paean to his political rhetoric than an indication of substantive change. His regime has accomplished reform, of course, but the reform was simply the natural outgrowth of the progressive posture much of the nation took after the 1976 outburst in Soweto. The five years since then have shown that the system of white supremacy could survive intact without radical change...
...Soweto, the sprawling black township which houses most of Johannesburg's Blacks, suffers from the world's highest crime rate. "Most of Soweto is not fit for humans," declares Fanyana Mazibuko, a banned former Soweto school teacher. It is a dismal place. The government-operated tourist bus drives past rows of uniform dirty gray row houses. Outhouses, made out of strips of corrugated metal, squat behind most of them: 80 per cent of Soweto's homes lack electricity and running water. Barbed wire surrounds a school and many of the homes...
After explaining that the government set the bread or poverty line at 175 rands a month (one rand equals about $1.05), the driver said that Soweto's street cleaners earn 144 rands per month. The tour stopped at a factory for handicapped workers, where crippled and deformed men and women knit fishnet bags, clean foam, and weave tapestries on primitive looms. The chubby white director refused to divulge wages. "I never ask anybody what he makes, so I never discuss these matters," she snapped. One employee said he received 14 rands in July; another said he had been paid eight...
...tour proceeds to Soweto's most fashionable neighborhood, dubbed "Beverly Hills" by Sowetans. The driver points out the homes of prominent Blacks. The residence of one businessman contains 18 rooms and employs three servants. But even Beverly Hills lacks sidewalks and has an alley strewn with garbage. Zuko Tofile, who works for the U.S. government-run American Cultural Center, explains that frustration prevails among the Black middle and upper classes. No Black, no matter how wealthy, can live in a white suburb. The most affluent Blacks still must face poverty and despair every day. And they often are beaten...