Looking back on Botha's South Africa
By Hopewell Radebe
Deputy News Editor, Business Day, Johannesburg

An African adage insists that we speak well of the dead.

This is possibly the reason why President Thabo Mbeki and his predecessor Nelson Mandela chose their words carefully when commenting about the death of the most brutal former "white" South African President Pieter Willem Botha - a staunch advocate of racial segregation and the apartheid system.

No matter how bad we, South Africa's majority African population, may feel about Botha, it is against our culture to sing and dance in the streets celebrating his death.

So, when the news of his death hit the headlines early this week, black families and neighbours spoke in hush tones about the man's true identity.

A day later, I also had difficulty helping my eldest daughter, Thobeka, with her homework, which incidentally was about Botha's social policies.

Lamentable legacy

I chose to start at the beginning of the apartheid system, instead of just answering her question about whether or not Botha was the first president to allow racial integration, although limited to the Indian and so-called coloured [mixed-race] communities through the Tricameral Parliamentary System and still excluding Africans.

Any child's dream of representing the country in any sport can happen

I lamented as I looked at my daughter who has a home in an upmarket suburb south of Johannesburg and attends a government school with all sorts of facilities.

But Botha's legacy continues in the predominantly black areas where schools have insufficient classrooms, no laboratories, libraries and sports facilities.

Nonetheless, her counterparts in those areas, which we left barely four years ago when I was able to afford a better life, appreciate the freedom.

Depending on their parents' abilities, they too can have access to the lifestyle she has.

At least something is being done to ensure they have as much security as people in the affluent suburbs.

More people have access to health, education and shelter than ever before and any child's dream of representing the country in any sport can happen.

Supremacy and security

Botha is the man who turned South Africa into a military state in a bid to sustain white supremacy and security.

He was particularly merciless to the black youth.

His soldiers spent years guarding the grounds of black high schools and tertiary institutions.

They monitored and vetted the literature and made sure nothing hinted at sensitive topics such as socialism, communism or human and equal rights.

Although in theory, we were not required to carry identity documents, our schools had to issue stamped letters with our details, which indicated the principal's permission and knowledge of our destination.

While my daughter has numerous friends from all walks of life and can host a dinner or party without fear of police disrupting the event, we could not mix with other races or even compete against their schools through sport.

No right

A few that got to experience interracial engagement of sort, did so through church institutions such as Catholic schools which were classified multi-racial and were reputed for defying government policies.

We had no right to leisurely walk in town, visit the dams and beaches or go hiking in the nature parks which were reserved for the exclusive use of whites.

Very few places were designated for blacks only and signs were put up for this purpose.

Shopping in town was another dilemma.

Most blacks walked away bloodied and humiliated out of fear that formal complaints were most likely to lead to their incarceration

While whites walked into supermarkets to pick what they wanted, limited numbers of blacks either had to enter the shop from a separate door and give their lists to a white tiller who would shout the items to black servants who collected them and put them in a box.

In most shops, blacks had to peep through a small window and buy the goods. They could not choose the brands and had no right to return or ask for a different brand of an item already handed to them.

They had to put up with bad-tempered sales people who did not fear to jump the counter and give a "troublesome or perky" black buyer a hiding.

Deemed deserving

Police officers did not entertain complaints against white shop owners.

In fact, most blacks walked away bloodied and humiliated out of fear that formal complaints were most likely to lead to their incarceration.

Often police deemed them deserving of these unprovoked beatings and could easily trump up charges of theft, which landed them behind bars.

My daughter's favourite ritual on Sundays is going out to the malls for an after-lunch chocolate ice cream.

Except for a few places in Johannesburg, we were not allowed anywhere near restaurants around the country since our mannerism were seen as questionable or plainly uncivil.

To complicate matters further, black ownership of means of productions and commercial business including restaurants was prohibited or highly regulated and restricted to black residential areas.

But all this has ended - business thrives because it services all customers.

No point harbouring anger

Beaches, dams and national game parks can be utilised by not just the rich but special prices and subsidies are offered to enable the less privileged opportunities to enjoy the country's resources.

I recall that under great domestic and international pressure in the later years of his career, Botha had only nominally loosened some of the government's racial policies directed towards us.

Only on paper did he legalise interracial marriage - which had been banned, and lifted the constitutional prohibition on multiracial political parties.

He also relaxed the Group Areas Act, which barred non-whites from living in certain areas.

However, police continued to enforce some of these by thriving on the ignorance of a largely illiterate black society.

Botha also kept deporting blacks to so-called Homelands - self governing territories for blacks only - which occupied only 13% of the country's land and had no resources.

Maybe the reason our elders have advised against speaking ill of the dead, is that since they will be meeting their creator, there is no point harbouring anger against their mortal remains.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6105746.stm

Published: 2006/11/03 00:05:13 GMT

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