Wednesday, 5 February 2020 - Johannesburg, South Africa
Today I do a city tour which includes the township of Soweto.
My guide’s name is Arthur and he drives a Mercedes. I am his only client for the day so I felt a bit like a princess. The place where I am staying in is known as Midrand, it is literally in between Pretoria and Johannesburg city. The land here was previously used for chicken and cattle farming but now it is developing into a small town of its own. The African Union’s Pan African Parliament is located here.
Johannesburg first started developing due to gold found in the area. It is (or perhaps was) known as the city of gold. The cars registered in Johannesburg all end in ‘GP’ which stands for ‘Golden Province’. During the apartheid regime, the government built townships which were only for black people. Some of these townships were located near the mines, so that the black workers could take a train to the mines to work. One of these townships is the largest one here, built in 1932 and known as the southern western township (later, Soweto). Houses were made of zinc and there were public toilets outside the houses. They have their own schools, churches, etc. There are people still living in these townships today but it is slowly developing to brick houses, indoor toilets etc.
First stop was Constitution Hill, which used to be a jail complex. On the way here we passed Sandton city, where the rich and famous live (mostly a white area). Apparently Michael Jackson stayed here before in Michaelangelo Hotel. Then Constitution Hill. In 1892, commissioned by the President of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger, the Johannesburg Gaol transformed from a pretty residential ridge into an intimidating site of suffering. It was used as a fort during the second Boer War, and went back to being a prison from 1900. There is a tunnel which was the entrance to the old fort, and then the entrance to the prison complex. I quote one of the prisoners: “People disappeared into the hillside and the great gates closed behind them”.
I went to Sections 4 and 5 of the Old Fort Prison Complex, commonly known as Number 4 and Number 5. Number 4 was a jail complex specifically for black, Asian and coloured men, and this is the site of the first jail where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. White men have a separate prison up the hill. They were kept in smaller cells, usually on their own (much better living conditions than Number 4). Number 4 was built between 1902-1904, and was torn down in 1983 as it was a health hazard. In 1953, the maximum capacity in Number 4 was about 979 prisoners, but there were more than 2,027 prisoners. Each cell was designed to hold about 30 prisoners, but it often held up to 60. Overcrowding was common, and there were many political prisoners alongside real criminals.
Over the decades, the prison authorities employed various means to enforce power and inflict punishment on the prisoners. In the early 1900s, prisoners who contravened prison rules had their punishments handed down to them by visiting landdrosts (magistrates) which were recorded in the Prison Journal. These punishments included solitary confinement, up to 25 lashes on a flogging frame in full view of the other prisoners or hard labour for up to 21 days. Prisoners were also ordered to wear leg irons for indefinite periods. Later, punishments and beatings were more arbitrary and became a constant feature of prison life.
Toilets were deliberately built in front of the places where the prisoners eat; it is designed to make them lose their appetite and deter them from eating. Some prisoners starved to death in this way 😔. Toilets and showers were in the open; there was no privacy at all. The most extreme form of punishment was to be placed in isolation cells, known as the ‘Emakhulukhuthu’ or the ‘Deep Dark Hole’. Prisoners would spend up to 23 hours in there all alone, 1 hour outside for exercise. Officially it was only for 30 days but some spent over a year inside.
No comments:
Post a Comment