Word: soweto
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
...only relief from blackness and oppression is Soweto's social life. Community halls provide television, a relatively new feature in South Africa, but since programs are allwhite, they generate little interest. Instead, Soweto families prefer to visit a beer garden for "Bantu beer" (made of slightly fermented maize), or a shebeen (speakeasy) for stronger drink and the sensuous local music called patha patha. The shebeens, which sprang up because black men could not be served hard liquor legally, are still unlawful, but police tolerate them as pressure valves...
Actually there are not enough police available to supervise the shebeens or control the populace. Thugs known as tsotsis prowl the streets, particularly on payday, to mug hapless passersby. With murders running at the rate of 1,000 a year, the all-black Soweto urban council (which advises on Soweto affairs for the all-white Johannesburg city council) has called for vigilante patrols...
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...
Upper-class blacks, surveys indicate, are largely content with life in Soweto. Those less well off are not, and their discontent increases as their age goes down. Ominously, more than 55% of Sowetoians are under...