The Black Sash Die Swart Serp
In the middle of April Father David Russell final result of the grand ideology, call it baas- of King Williams Town began trying to skap or apartheid, separate development or survive on R5 a month, the average pension multi-nationalism. They are all that matters paid to black people in South Africa. During when we reach down lo fundamentals. They the month of June he intends to live on the are the means to whatever end white South rations, worth R2.58 a month, issued to des Africa visualises for its own prosperity. There titute people in Dimbaza. Women in Dimbaza can be no justification. may be paid R2.50 a month in maintenance Mrs. Molovhedzi is a determined woman, grants. When they receive this money the ra capable of wresting a livelihood for herself and tions they were previously receiving are with survival for her children even from the under drawn. Dimbaza is a town in the Ciskei home privileged, competitive jungle of a black, urban land, established under government policy for environment in South Africa — if she were the resettlement of "superfluous" people from permitted to do so. But even the most deter the so-called white area of the Republic. mined woman can do nothing to further her In this magazine we publish letters from one own welfare in the remote resettlement areas "superfluous" widow, Masakona Molovhedzi of the homelands. Mrs. Molovhedzi is not who was "resettled" in her homeland north of living there in poverty because of uncontroll Louis Trichard in January this year. Up lo able economic factors. She is there in poverty January 1972 she had been supporting herself because she was intentionally put there. To and her three small children by working, albeit promise her citizenship of a mythical, landless, unlawfully, in Johannesburg. Now she is desti unconsolidated State does not compensate her tute. Her baby is ill because "I cannot get the for the fact that she has no daily bread. milk I used to buy her in Johannesburg. The doctor says it is because of the milk I am now Her hunger is the truth about South Africa. giving her here." Yet she has no part in contemporary dialogue, no part in current political calculations. Her eldest daughter, if she survives to adult hood, may never he able to go to school again No amount of window dressing or double because there is no money for her exercise talk can disguise the fact that her life has books. There is no future for any of them. been deliberately, ruthlessly destroyed in the interests of those who have all the authority This is the ultimate political reality of South and all the temporal power. Africa. Verligtes, Verkraraptes, Brakpan, Oudtshoorn, boerehaat, foreign investment, In this country there seems to he absolutely non-racial sport, economic fluctuations, -— all no recognition whatsoever that there are actu the subjects which command newspaper col ally people on the receiving end of legislation umns and dominate discussions in Country piously put through Parliament in the name Clubs and boardrooms mean nothing when of ideology — human beings who have the measured against the story of this one widow most indescribable suffering imposed upon and her three little daughters. They arc the them from which they have no escape.
The Black Sash, June, 1972 Die Swart Serp, Junie 1972