A Note To The Apartheid Apologist

 

The problem with researching history and digging up the past you never know what you may find and stumble on. I hated history at school. I saw no point in learning about JvR and the rest of them. So for all my years at school and post matric, history was a no go area for me.

About two years ago I developed a renewed interest after I was introduced to an alternative history, the history we were not taught at school and the stories that were not included in the school curriculum of the day. In addition I read the book The Lie of 1652 by Patric Mellet. This further reinforced my belief in how horribly the historic story was skewed to make colonialism and other evils look so beautiful. I also started researching the history of sport in South Africa, specifically the history of cricket. Now I must say right up front that my experience in doing research is very little. But what I have found thus far has made my head spin and quite honestly caused me to ask many a question.

The focus of my research was concentrated on where I grew up and the effect the Group Areas Act had on us as a family and as a broader community.

The Group Areas Act was promulgated in 1950 as part of the draconian Apartheid Laws. What it basically allowed was forced removal of any person of color from an area that was deemed as “desirable for white occupation”. Across the entire country this law was applied with impunity and often in the most brutal manner.

We lived in a little hamlet between “the” Strand and Somerset West known as Van Der Stel. It was nicknamed “the halfway” because it fell almost exactly between the two bigger towns. I must have been around five or six years old when the notice came that we had to vacate the house we lived in. we were given a piece of land with an old farmhouse on it not far from Van Der Stel in Firgrove. It was a terrible house. It was dark and dingy and plain bloody horrible. If my timing is to be accurate, we moved there somewhere around 1967/68. The measure I would use is the fact that we were living when the Tulbach earthquake struck in 69. During that time my dad bought the plots in Kuils River in what was known as “the Pan”. So somewhere around 1970 we moved to KR.

There are two memories that still remain with me.

We went to the beach in the Strand one day. The whole family, to our favorite place at the jetty. The newly painted “This Beach is reserved for Whites only” boards had just been erected. My dad had to protect us from the big burly policeman that chased us off the beautiful what sanded beach in the cruelest possible way. 

Then there was the day my mom and I took the train from Van Der Stel to Cape Town and wrongfully got into a train carriage that was reserved for “whites only”. The confrontation was painful.

The cruelty with which the laws were enforced and the actions of the enforcers left deep deep scars that to this day hurt when the memories are awakened.

So here is my point. And I am unapologetic in my view. While we can agree that what this government is doing or has done in the recent past is nothing short of criminal, there is nothing on the face of this earth that was worse than institutionalized Apartheid. And to constantly make the comparison and say things were better than, is tantamount to condoning what they did. Merely calling it a “crime against humanity” is almost not enough. It was a lot worse. So if you want to be an apartheid apologist, there is no place for you in my frame of reference.

About the picture.

I took the picture a little under a year ago. It shows the remnants of the bolts that was used to hold up the head high metal partition that served to separate whites from non-whites on the pedestrian bridge at Kuils River station. Every single public building across the country had to have some sort of separation built. This bridge perfectly illustrates just how downright stupid the laws were. Once one got off the bridge, you were free to mix as you pleased.