Saturday Night In Soweto

For the best Indian food in Jo’burg, go to Bismillah. It has bright fluorescent lighting and simple furniture because they’ve put all the finesse and passion into the food. It’s in a typical city street, across from an apartment block and amongst shops and cafes. As we’re walking back to the car [watched by “security” so it won’t be broken into or stolen] our hosts say that during apartheid this was the Indian part of the city, where they were forced to live and where whites came only to buy exotic groceries at the market. The images we used to see were of tin shack settlements in Soweto, but of course the entire city was segregated into go and no-go zones, dependent solely on your genetic heritage.

We get into a discussion about the nuances of apartheid. As Indians they were second-class citizens, whereas the blacks were the machinery for production. So they could go into certain parts of town where blacks couldn’t. They could go to the park, but not sit down on the benches or grass, or use the toilet. As I’m listening to these subtle expressions of control I think about the Nazis, who passed laws in the 1930s banning Jews from riding bicycles, from using public spaces, from owning pets. In modern South Africa our hosts have overstretched themselves to move into a desirable, wealthy suburb as a statement of freedom to both their peers and their former rulers.

Modern South Africa shows its freedom in some surprising ways. Sophiatown was an early township, until the government realised it was on profitable land and moved the entire population out to Soweto, then razed it for their own use. Now, Sophiatown is the name of a township theme restaurant, with corrugated tin roof and period photos of Miriam Makeba and Nelson Mandela during his trial. At night they burn wood in large tin-drum braziers to warm the patio. The waitresses all have t-shirts saying Shabeen Queen.


We drive into Soweto past the mansions of millionaires, then turn the corner to see the old tin shacks. Driving through this city of three million, the juxtaposition of nice houses and corrugated tin shanties is continually played out. While social equality has come quickly, economic equality is taking far longer.

Some walls have “billboards” painted on them. One brightly says:

Dreamlocks Dreadlocks
It’s what yo dreadlocks have been dreaming of

We drive over to the Hector Pieterson Museum, honouring the first child to be killed in the uprising of 1976. The government had decided that if the machinery was to work smoothly, the cogs needed to understand orders correctly, so they passed a law requiring Sowetan schools to teach Afrikaans. (Since teachers didn’t speak Afrikaans how did they expect this to happen?) It mobilised the students and in the first protest march the police opened fire, killing Henry. By the end of the uprising an estimated 600 school children had been killed and 10,000 injured. But the actions of these courageous children started the end of apartheid.


Vilakazi Street is the only street in the world to have the homes of two Nobel Prize winners: Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. We stop at Mandela’s house but it is being renovated, hidden behind plywood panelling. So we walk down the hill to an outdoor restaurant and drink fine Namibean Windhoek beer as night falls. Our driver suggests we go somewhere else and soon we’re in a small, immaculately kept house, where his cousin is getting ready to go out and celebrate her birthday. Meanwhile we will have a party “that will make the roof fall down”. South African and American r’n’b plays as the women get ready and the men mix tumblers of whiskey with passionate political discussion. One says, “South Africa is confused. Of course we all voted for Mandela. Then, of course we all voted for Mbeki. But now we have choice.” Zuma, the heir apparent, has this day gotten off a rape charge and while the men are divided, the hostess is clear. “He raped a woman. What will he do to the country?”

Nelson Mandela's house under renovation. Note the No Guns sign on the bricks.

We get in the cars and head for a shabeen. Some of the men driving are well past any legal limit. Yesterday the newspaper published a survey: 67% said they drive while drunk, 17% never drive when drinking, and 16% don’t know. Under the full moon the golden chains of city lights glint across the hills in every direction to the horizon.

A shabeen is a club that’s inside someone’s home. We pull up to a large, modern two-story house with a generous patio enclosed by clear plastic curtains. Warmly greeted by the doorman, we step through the entrance into a sonic sea of house music pumping through the rooms, not too loud but mixed so that the bass is a pleasant physicalness against my chest. The patio is full of energetic people sitting at tables and dancing to the music. Next to the front door is a sign that says No Gun Zone. Two downstairs rooms are laid out like a restaurant and when people want to dance they just find a space next to their table. On the menu is a pudding called Soweto Uprising, which neatly describes both its history and what we’re enjoying right now.

The seamless mix of music stretches time like someone pulling chewing gum wide apart. There is a bubbling energy and everyone is dressed for Saturday night. A series of images float into focus: a lady in large glasses and a pink poor-boy cap making minute adjustments to it until the angle meets satisfaction. People dancing as naturally as they walk. Men in pastel blue, pink and green t-shirts, circling the rooms as they check out the action. A very large lady in tight yellow clothing enters the door and immediately attracts admirers, who touch her, flatter her, dance beside her. Four women drink and dance, working out moves, having a dance competition, ignoring the men who circle and cut between them.

At 3.30 we leave. The van turns a corner and in front of us several hundred young men fill the street, moving and socialising to music blasting from a car stereo. They are all under 18, too young to get into the shabeens, so they take their party to the street. Thirty-two years ago, these were the youths who decided they wouldn’t take it anymore.