Neil Fraser
July 18, 2003
THIS past week has witnessed a genuine outpouring of love and respect for Nelson Mandela on the eve of his 85th birthday here in Johannesburg, around the country and indeed around the world such as I certainly have never seen before.
Thursday's 'Star' newspaper refers to the bridge between Braamfontein and Newtown which crosses the railway yards - 'the river of steel' - as a 'bridge across the world' to be opened on Sunday by the 'man himself who spans the world'. And the 'man who spans the world', Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, spent most of his adult life both before and after his twenty-seven years of incarceration in Johannesburg.
Luli Callinicos' wonderful book "The World that made Mandela" (Walter Sisulu in his introduction says "…this book...vividly represents the rich and dynamic world that was the making of Nelson himself") gives a fascinating insight into the Johannesburg of Nelson Mandela and much of what follows is drawn from her writing with some additional extracts from "Long Walk to Freedom."
Here then are just some of the places in this city that played such a big part in his life! I wonder how many people who call themselves 'Johannesburgers' will know them all!
Nelson Mandela arrived in eGoli, the City of Gold, during 1941 and immediately would have felt the strangulation of the freedom he had enjoyed in his youth in the Transkei.
A racial curfew was operating in the city terms of which "blacks had to be indoors after 9 p.m. The pass law forbade black men to stay in the city for longer than 72 hours unless they carried an officially endorsed 'pass'"
He immediately got a job at Crown Mines, on the southern edge of the city, but it only lasted until it was discovered that he had left his home without the blessing of the regent. He spent some time with a cousin in the George Goch township who introduced him to the city centre.
He describes the city as follows; "Johannesburg in those days was a combination frontier town and modern city. Butchers cut meat on the street next to office buildings. Tents were pitched beside bustling shops and women hung out their washing next to high-rise buildings. " Hmmmm!
He then moved to Alexandra township living in a tin-roofed room at the back of a property in Seventh Avenue and experiencing all the deprivation of urban poverty. It was "no more than a shack, with a dirt floor, no heat, no electricity, no running water. But it was a place of my own and I was happy to have it."
Later he describes life in Alex as "exhilarating and precarious. Its atmosphere was alive, its spirit adventurous, its people resourceful. Although the township did boast some handsome buildings, it could fairly be described as a slum."
He cousin had introduced him to Walter Sisulu whose office in West Street "became a formative meeting place in the lives of dozens of young intellectuals and activists, including Mandela." He actually lived with the Sisulus for some time in Orlando but after his first marriage in 1946, the Mandelas lived with his wife's family in Orlando East for a short while and then at City Deep Mines.
Eventually they were allocated a house in Orlando West - " The house was identical to hundreds of others built on postage-stamp-size plots on dirt roads...It was the very opposite of grand but it was my first true home of my own and I was mightily proud."
He knew Sophiatown well as he was a regular visitor to Dr. Xuma's home, Dr Xuma was President of the ANC from 1940 to 1949. "Sophiatown, a vibrant community...which...despite its poverty brimmed with a rich life and was an incubator of so much that was new and valuable in African life and culture." Sophiatown was razed to the ground by the apartheid government in the 1950s and renamed 'Triomf' - "Triumph".
But his activism meant that he also came to know the steps of the Johannesburg City Hall and later those of the Supreme Court, both scenes of many memorable protests. He was an avid debater in the Bantu Men's Social Centre (B.M.S.C.) the only downtown facility for back people at that time, it later became part of the Johannesburg Traffic Department. From time to time he could be seen in the basement of the Planet Hotel on the border between Fordsburg and Pageview, not to join in the dancing, for it was the most popular venue for ballroom, but to take part in the interminable discussions and meetings which circumscribed this stage of his life. But he did find time to enjoy amateur boxing at the Donaldson Orlando Community Centre training there almost every evening. "I have always believed that exercise is a key not only to physical health but to peace of mind."
Whilst his initial BA was taken though UNISA, he subsequently studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand - "Wits opened a new world to me, a world of ideas and political beliefs and debates, a world where people were passionate about politics, prepared despite their relative privilege, to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the oppressed."
He was a regular patron at Kapitans in Kort Street, still going strong and still providing wonderful curry in decidedly eclectic surroundings. He and Oliver Tambo established their practice in Chancellor House in Fox Street in 1952, not far from Kapitans.
This building remains one of the most disgraceful examples in the city of greed and lack of action - half burned out, illegally squatted in and creating a major health hazard instead of a wonderful, and useful, memory Mandela and tambo were frequent visitors to Kholvad House, an apartment building nearby in Market Street where many of those who were banned were later to meet clandestinely. "Mandela reflected that it was here, at Kholvad House, that the first seeds of non-racialism were sown and a wider concept of the nation came into being." In 1960 when the law firm of Mandela and Tambo was forced to close down due to the State of Emergency, he worked to a large extent from 13 Kholvad House, Ahmed Kathrada's flat.
He would have been one of the Defiance Campaigners who met on 'Red Square' in Fordsburg (today the parking lot of the Oriental Plaza!) and, as a result of his involvement in the Defiance Campaign would have appeared in the Magistrates Court, just opposite his offices, as an accused as well as a defence attorney.
He would no doubt have been at the meeting called by then ANC Secretary Oliver Tambo in 1952 in Darragh Hall near St Mary's Cathedral, which proved to be the founding meeting of the Congress of Democrats.
He was also at Freedom Square off Union Street in Kliptown, Soweto, where the Congress of the People approved the Freedom Charter on the 26th June 1955 - but because he was banned at the time, he hid behind the fence of a neighbouring house to observe the proceedings and slipped away when the police arrived.
Mary Fitzgerald Square, Newtown was another centre for trade union meetings and protest gatherings which would have ben known to him.
He had a number of 'visits' to the Fort. Built in 1895, it was the site of the mass incarceration on the 5 December 1956 of opponents of apartheid and members of the Congress Alliance. The Awaiting Trial Block was used for this purpose. Today the bricks from this building, demolished to make way for the Constitutional Court, actually line the court itself as well as forming the pavers in the Great Africa Steps.
It was here too where black and white 'convicts' were segregated, those who were black were held in the notorious Section 4 or Native's Gaol. "I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of what I thought, because of my conscience."
The Drill Hall described in "Long Walk to Freedom"as "a great barn of a building, with a corrugated iron roof, and considered the only public building large enough to support a trial of so many accused" was used in 1957 before the trial was later relocated to Pretoria 'for security reasons'.
Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia was used as ANC underground headquarters and was a hiding place for a 'blue overalled' Nelson Mandela posing as a gardener.
A few weeks hiding with a family in Market Street and then two months in Wolfie Kodesh's flat in Berea - "I annoyed Wolfie every morning, for I would wake up at five, change into my running clothes and run on the spot for more than an hour."
Today he lives in 13th Avenue Houghton with his wife Graca.
Happy 85th Birthday - Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, statesman of the world, son of Africa. May the bridge that bears your name be ever an icon to remind us and future generations of your life here in Johannesburg.
But above all may it be a permanent reminder of the ideal for which you fought and suffered: "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achive. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die"
CitiDiary - past week highlights
Wednesday evening - the Second Annual Stakeholders meeting of the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA). An impressive gathering of inner city aficionados at the City Hall (still a wonderful venue) heard CEO Graeme Reid review the JDA's 2002/2003 achievements, Chair Stan Nkosi enunciate the newly defined mission and objectives and then Councillor Kenny Fihla, head of the city's planning, finance and economics functions, neatly tie back the rationale for and the work and mission of the JDA into the Joburg 2030 vision. Good party, great food (by Moyo's who are opening in Newtown next week) and the tempo was positively "inner city upbeat".
