Section C: the Black Facilitator's Story
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SECTION C: THE BLACK FACILITATOR’S STORY In this section, I offer Tshidi’s story as rendered for the purposes of this research. Between January 2005 and March 2006, I followed Schurink’s (1989) approach to produce this rich source of an authentic African experience of South African society and one of its institutions, a marginal gold mine. SECTION C – Chapter 4 Chapter 4 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY TSHIDI KNOPKIRI119 4.1 FROM OLD LOCATION STREET, MOHLAKENG I was born on 24 November 1961120 and brought up in the Randfontein area, at Mohlakeng Township.121 This location122 was developed on the farm Vergenoeg (“ver genoeg van die Baas af”).123 It had to be far from the white town so that we would not disturb the whities and destroy their peace of mind. Mohlakeng was on the other side of a coloured township with the very sophisticated name Toekomsrus (“hulle het gerus net langs die dorp”).124 This township was developed for the second-class people of the old South Africa, the coloureds.125 That is where my life started in 1961 – in Randfontein, right in the heart of the gold- mining area of the old Transvaal.126 I was born in the same year that the Republic of South Africa got its independence from Great Britain. We are from a divided history, even the very townships, like Mohlakeng. If you critically observed them, you would see they were divided into tribal areas in line with the “divide 119 “Tshidi Knopkiri” is the pseudonym chosen by the participant. “Knopkiri” is a walking stick that is cut from any hardy nearby tree. The knob that serves as handle makes the stick a weapon at the same time. 120 Tshidi’s identity number reflects his date of birth as 24 December, which could be the result of the previous government’s neglect of the administration and registration of black births. The error has never been rectified. 121 Mohlakeng Township is 30 km west of Johannesburg, South Africa. In Sotho, “Mohlakeng” means “place of the reeds” and refers to a stream with thick natural vegetation along which the township developed. 122 Black townships were referred to as “locations” in those days. 123 Far enough from the white boss. 124 “Toekomsrus” is Afrikaans for “future place of rest”, and Tshidi interpreted this to mean the coloureds had a place to rest right next to the white town. 125 A separate Indian community was established at Azaadville, some 8 km from Mohlakeng (Hamman, 2004). 126 One of the four provinces of South Africa before 1994. 97 SECTION C – Chapter 4 and rule” principle of section 10(1A) of the Group Areas Act.127 White people always had the best facilities and services. 4.2 MY FAMILY My grandfather was a farmer in the Mafikeng-Lichtenburg area of the old Transvaal and lost his property when the whites just took some land for themselves. We had cattle and land where the old people planted their own mealies and produced their own food. A painful part of our history, but a claim has been registered128 to get our land back. The most painful part of my life was growing up without knowing where my mother was. What I know is that I had a mother, who divorced my father, and a younger brother born in 1963 and that is all. My brother stayed with my mother and he was later employed by Savuka Mine at Carletonville, not far from here. I grew up in a Setswana family with a stepmother and my biological father. They did not allow us to ask too many questions as children.129 I just had to accept it. The Mohlakeng community was a very rigid community with many cultures and a secretive type of life because of the different cultural beliefs and customs. My father was working for L Suzman, a tobacco company based in Randfontein, before it relocated to Krugersdorp. My stepmother was working as a domestic worker for white people. Today they are both still alive. My father met his second wife at Mohlakeng after Madubulaville,130 the old location, was demolished. My father was originally from 127 The Group Areas Act (41 of 1950), which regulated where black people could not live or own land, was abolished in 1986. 128 The Land Restitution Act (22 of 1994), allows for the registration of claims, their investigation and a formal legal process for giving effect to valid claims. 129 Tshidi has no personal pictures, memos or memorabilia from his early childhood. 130 “Madubula” refers to the place where a baboon that lived under the stage of the city hall was shot (Hamman, 2004). 98 SECTION C – Chapter 4 Mafikeng in the North West Province,131 the then Bophuthatswana,132 and my stepmother was from Botswana. I am the second born of four children, two boys, two girls, and our family lived in Mohlakeng where I was raised by both parents. I had a normal life as a young boy. Our toys were “draadkarre”,133 hand-made from the wire hangers you get from the drycleaners, shoe polish tins as wheels and the streets as your playing ground. The swimming pool at Mohlakeng was not there in my days as a kid and the soccer stadium was later developed with the further upgrading of our township. Even television was only introduced in the late 1970s, but we never missed those luxuries as kids. We never had any pets and I schooled at Randfontein. All my life’s activities are centred in Randfontein. 4.3 PRIMARY SCHOOL DAYS UNDER BANTU EDUCATION I attended Malerato134 Primary School, a government school135 in Mohlakeng. That’s how the system was organised, so one didn’t even notice the difference in terms of right or wrong, what is bad or good, but we enjoyed those days as kids. We did not know better. We attended primary school barefoot and only with basic school uniforms. Raining or snowing, we would go to school; having no shoes or whatever was no excuse. You just had to go to school. We attended school in all weather conditions and we coped well with that. 131 The North West Province is one of the nine provinces of post-apartheid South Africa and borders on Gauteng to the east and Botswana to the west. 132 Bophuthatswana was declared a self-governing Tswana state by the apartheid government. 133 “Draadkarre” is Afrikaans for toy cars, the size of shoeboxes, with long wires extending from the cars that served as steering wheels for the “drivers”. 134 “Malerato” is a Setswana word for love, motherly love. 135 The apartheid government provided free primary education, strictly organised along the different language or cultural lines. 99 SECTION C – Chapter 4 We were easily “shambokked”136 at school. The most important disciplinary thing those days was that you couldn’t just stay away from school. When your parents were gone to work, you would even be afraid to meet your neighbour because he or she would question you on why you were there that time of the day. We were so disciplined to attend school that you would not abscond without a good reason. In our culture, you respect each and every parent and adult that you come across. In our closely linked community you would avoid doing things that are wrong in front of whoever is a person older than you. It is not only a Setswana cultural thing, or for those speaking Setswana, but whoever is an African, also the isiZulu and the isiXhosa people. 137 From Sub A to Standard 2, the first four years of schooling, we had separate schools for Xhosa people and another for Zulus. From Standard 3 onwards there were three non- segregated high schools. That is we could attend the same school as isiXhosa and isiZulu people. We were only separated for classes in our vernacular, when the Xhosas were taught Xhosa grammar and the Basetswanas138 were taught Setswana grammar. But during English, Afrikaans and Biology we would be integrated into one class. At Malerato Primary School, all classes were in Setswana and it was known as a Setswana school. At Malerato we were still little boys and young, learning by parrot learning so to say. During Afrikaans lessons you would just do those Afrikaans recitations, singing them. The medium of instruction at Malerato was Setswana,139 as we were taught in our vernacular. Small children couldn’t be forced to speak English or Afrikaans. At high school the medium of instruction could be English and Afrikaans. 136 “Shambokked” refers to corporal punishment. 137 Setswana, isiZulu, and isiXhosa are three of the 11 official languages of South Africa. 138 The people who speak Setswana. 139 The educational debate on the use of the vernacular in primary schools is still not concluded in South Africa. 100 SECTION C – Chapter 4 4.4 SENIOR PRIMARY SCHOOL DAYS During the 1976 clashes in Soweto140 (by the way, the name Soweto has been derived from “southwestern townships”) I attended Weselle Senior Primary School, named after the Methodist missionary,141 John Wesley. When you graduate to Standard 3, you are in the second phase of primary school life. Now you will be doing Setswana as well as a little bit of English. Weselle was regarded as an integrated Setswana school and offered classes for students from Standard 3 to Standard 6, or Form 2. Life was still easy-going for us as kids. We had nothing to worry about. We played our games as boys in the veld and in the streets of our township.