Wednesday, 5 February 2020 - Johannesburg, South Africa
Funnily, Hillbrow is walking distance from the High Court, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Chambers and Gandhi Square. I would have thought that these places were safe but who knows. There was some sort of protest going on outside the High Court. Unfortunately the entrance of the High Court is just beside the road so the protest was causing traffic congestion. Luckily our court complex in KL is quite far away from the main road so when there are protests it does not cause traffic disruptions.
From the High Court to Gandhi Square. There was a statue of Gandhi here; apparently because he always walked in this area to go to the law courts on the old government square. He kept offices near the law courts from 1993-1910. He returned to India in 1914 after 21 years in South Africa. He defended those accused of non-violent resistance to discrimination in the courts. He himself stood trial here for political offences and was sentenced to his first term of imprisonment in 1908. From their birthplace in Johannesburg, Gandhi’s ideas of Satyagraha (passive resistance or “soul force”) spread across the world.
So that was the city of Johannesburg; next, to the township of Soweto. On the way we passed another upper class city known as Gold Reef City. You could see remnants of the gold mines of yesteryears in the distance all around Johannesburg. The city of gold 😁. We also passed a mall called Maponye Mall. According to Arthur, this was the first mall to be built by a black man in South Africa especially for the people of Soweto.
In Soweto, first to the Apartheid Museum. I didn’t enter the museum, just took photographs from outside. See how cultured I am! (🙄) There are 2 Nobel Peace Prize winners originating from Soweto - Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu (Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church). This I find to be quite cool and something to be really proud of. Also passed the Baragwanath Hospital which is apparently the 3rd biggest hospital in the world. It was formerly used for British soldiers during the Boer Wars. It covered really a huge area!
Then to Nelson Mandela’s house at 8115 Vilakazi Street, Orlando West, Soweto. The house was built in 1945 as part of a Johannesburg City tender for new houses in Orlando. Nelson Mandela moved here in 1946 with his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko Mase and his first son. They divorced in 1957, and from 1958 he was joined in the house by his second wife, Winnie Mandela. Nelson Mandela was to spend little time here in the ensuing years, as his role in political activities became all-consuming and he was forced underground (1961), living a life on the run until his arrest and imprisonment in 1962, and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. In 1963, the south western townships, of which Orlando west is part, was officially named Soweto.
Nelson Mandela returned to this house for a brief 11 days after his release from Robben Island in 1990. He then moved to Beverly Hills, Soweto, before finally moving to his present house in Houghton. His wife Winnie Mandela their children continued to occupy the house until after Mandela was released from prison. It had been burnt twice (remnants of blackened bricks at the top part of the house) and been shot at (2 bullet holes in the wall) by the police, and Winnie Mandela used to shoot back. How cool!
Then we just walked around Soweto. Although most townships are not considered safe due to high crime rates (reminds me of the favelas in Rio), Soweto is pretty safe thanks to the fame of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu which brought a lot of publicity, tourists, journalists, etc so it has become more developed than the other townships. Other townships include Tamesi, Alexandra and Diepsloot (the most dangerous place in Johannesburg and possibly in South Africa).
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