June 22, 2005
By Lucille Davie
NOT many people these days would refer to Kliptown as "a picturesque place". But for Sam Takolia and Rashid Jada, who were both born in the Soweto suburb, it certainly was.
Kliptown's main thoroughfare, Union Street, used to be lined with bluegum trees, while Main Street boasted a row of oaks. Further south were the Sans Souci Bioscope and the Hotel New Yorker, among scattered brick houses and green fields.
"Kliptown has been good to us," Takolia says. "We had a wonderful upbringing here - I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Takolia is a third-generation and Jada a fourth-generation hardware and building supplier. Their stores along Union Street, the hub of Kliptown's shopping area, have been used for decades by Sowetans. The sons of both men are already behind the counters, ready to take over from their fathers.
Shanty town
Today a suburb of up to 45 000 people living in dilapidated brick houses and backyard shanties, Kliptown dates back to 1903. Like people in Sophiatown and Alexandra, Kliptown residents once owned their properties. In the 1980s, however, their houses were expropriated by the West Rand Administration Board and they became tenants in their own homes.
They subsequently made illegal additions to their houses, renting out these rooms. Others took over their backyards, erecting tin shanties, and the township became overcrowded and squalid.
It was largely created from resettling Indian, black and coloured communities from Newtown in the early 1900s, on to two farms, Klipspruit and Klipriviersoog. Because Kliptown fell outside the municipal boundaries (it is about 25 kilometres from the city centre), it developed an independent spirit. It was the city's first multi-racial community (later Sophiatown developed this cosmopolitan character), and was a natural rallying point for opponents of apartheid to meet in secret, decades later.
Marriages took place between Indians and coloureds to allow Indians, who were prohibited from buying property in the suburb, to purchase plots. Whites also settled in the area and married local black women. Chinese traders found their way to Kliptown.
Takolia says the cosmopolitan community lived together amicably. This is lost in the rest of Soweto, but still exists in the township.
Kliptown became famous when, in 1955, thousands of Congress of the People delegates converged on a dusty soccer field to agree on a draft Freedom Charter. The congress was a coalition of various anti-apartheid organisations. The final draft of the charter was read out and ratified by delegates in a two-day meeting.
Mixed community
Takolia, a short, grey-haired, sprightly man of 64, remembers the active Jewish and Afrikaans members of the community. "Kliptown used to be a big dairy farming area," he says.
Louis Nel, of Nel's Dairy, owned one such farm. Present-day Eldorado Park, says Takolia, was occupied exclusively by white farmers on small holdings, where there were good pastures.
Jewish traders were abundant, and were the predecessors of today's Metro Cash & Carry and Lubners Furnishers.
"There was a big Jewish community here," says Takolia. "Most of the land was owned by Jews."
When his grandfather came to Kliptown in the 1930s, he rented a piece of land on Union Street from a Mr Tannenbaum, who allowed him to build an iron shanty on the property.
Illegal building
Takolia remembers that in 1961 one of the bluegum trees fell on the store, damaging the shop front. Permission to rebuild was denied by the bureaucrats of the apartheid government.
"But we took a chance. Mr Stoltz was the building inspector, and he said to my grandfather, 'On Friday when I leave here, you can build, and when I come on Monday, I don't know anything about this.'"
They repaired the shop front, at the same time adding an extra 5m to one side of the store. "We had an amicable relationship with the guys in Joburg."
Over the years the Takolia and Jada families built homes adjoining the backs of their stores, and several generations of children were born there. Mohamed Takolia, now 30, is the fourth-generation Takolia who is being groomed to take over the hardware store from his semi-retired father. He, like his dad, was born in the house behind the Union Street shop.
Takolia remembers the row of shops on the other side of the two hardware stores: a chemist, a furniture shop, the ABC Café and several doctors' rooms. One of these doctors was the first black female doctor in Kliptown, known only as Dr Mary. Beyond the shops was bare veld; nowadays this is the rundown residential area of Kliptown.
1976 riots
The 1976 unrest that was sparked in Soweto and spread around the country, had profound effects on the two families. Takolia says his father wrote off R1-million in outstanding accounts. At that time Takolias was a stationery and clothing store, but this event led to the switch to hardware and building supplier several months later.
He tells of his daughter, who was three or four years old. She became frightened by the marching school children and police shooting. Takolia responded by wrapping her in a blanket. At that stage the family was living in a house on the other side of the railway line, immediately west of Union Street. They abandoned that house, never to return. For a week the Takolias lived with different families. They subsequently moved to Lenasia, as did the Jada family, where both still live.
1955 meeting
Both patriarchs remember the historic 1955 meeting, held on 26 and 27 June. The Freedom Charter was signed a year later by Chief Albert Luthuli, then president of the ANC.
Jada, elegant in a white beard, was seven when that meeting was held on the soccer field behind the shop. ANC leaders Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela were family friends and Sisulu hid on the Jada's roof during the meeting. Sisulu and Mandela were both restricted by banning orders and should not have been at the meeting.
Takolia, who was 12 at the time, remembers that the soccer field was hemmed with hessian cloth, to create a makeshift wall. "People converged on the field - walking, by donkey carts - from far and wide." His family sold sandwiches and tea, made by his mother.
He remembers that political meetings used to be held in his family's house, and he used to be tea boy. His father had a generator and, in a town with no electricity, their house was the only one with lighting.
New square
In 2002 a winner was chosen for the design of a new square, incorporating the dusty soccer field, which was declared a national heritage site in 1997. The complex has risen steadily over the past 18 months, in the form of two long north and south blocks, with symbolic squares being constructed between the two structures.
The site of the new square, with the soccer field in the foreground
The new square is to be called the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication and will be unveiled on 26 June 2005 by President Thabo Mbeki.
Jada's and Takolias have been relocated to new homes, around the corner in Klip Valley Road. The two owners have been allowed to buy their plots of land; other shopkeepers will become tenants.
Both express satisfaction with their plots, and are grateful to the Johannesburg Development Agency for them. Jada's is already open for business, although building continues. It is a large warehouse structure, with double volume space to house the vast collection of timber and other building hardware.
Takolia is operating from a steel container on the pavement of Klip Valley Road, opposite the new taxi rank, while the large, new shop is being constructed.
Their Union Street shops are to remain standing as they are the oldest shops in the street. Jada's will be restored to its original design and will become a museum; recent renovations to Takolias will be demolished and it will be used to house hawkers' stalls.
Their old stores are now just hollowed-out shells, but are tucked neatly into the large new structure that is nearing completion. Walking through their old shops, the two men point to where the storerooms used to be, where the kitchens of their attached houses were, where the bedrooms were. Jada's store retains its pressed-steel ceiling and a wall of patterned tiles.
Takolia points out the wooden window through which Mandela once climbed to escape the police.
When asked whether there was any competition between the two identical businesses, Takolia says there was friendly bargaining of a rand or two. However, the two men, who have been "neighbours for donkey years", have remained the "best of friends".
"We have learnt one thing from living in Kliptown: we don't let money be our God, but rather our moral obligations. We live a simple life," Takolia concludes.
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