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The South Western Townships were developed as a ghetto-like settlement for the increasing Black migrant labour force during Apartheid. During Apartheid it was a no-go area, patrolled by armed police trucks known as Caspers and the scene of many political uprisings and bloodshed. I was 16-years-old the first time I saw Soweto. My cousin Joanne, who at the time was involved on the fringes of several banned movements, opened my eyes to a world I had no idea existed. Government information control denied the existence of any problems whatsoever - Apartheid was a natural law that everyone abided too. With such a high quality of living, and the threat of violence to those who protested, it was all good. To be white. My first visit to Soweto profoundly affected me. I remember being in a somewhat state of shock. It was also the first time that I was introduced to Black people who were not maids or gardeners, but people trying to survive. She took me to a more affluent house owned by a large woman who owned a shebeen. It was small, but jammed with TV sets. We drank tea, and I didn’t know if it was OK to drink from the same cups. Everyone was very friendly. The next place took us through dusty, shit-strewn streets. We visited Rebecca, my cousin’s retired domestic maid who had been with the family for several decades. The house was hot, with only the barest of essentials. Flies were everywhere. I wished I could zap them with lasers from my eyes, like Superman. It was my first contact with poverty. On the way back, we got lost and almost had an accident on the highway. It was 1990, and the walls of Apartheid were falling down. Before immigrating to Canada in 1999, I took a Soweto tour. The crime rate in Joburg was horrific, but here we drove in a kombi with windows open and doors unlocked. We drove past the mine hostels, where thousands of Zulus and Xhosa fought and died in the lead up to the first multiracial elections in 1994. We visited the affluent area of “Beverley Hills”, where the rich lived in brick homes that resembled smaller, white, middle-class neighborhoods. Nelson Mandela’s old home, complete with bullet holes of failed assassination attempts. Desmond Tutu’s home, the only one with electric fencing in the whole of Soweto. And Winnie Mandela’s compound, where her thugs routinely terrorized anyone who fell the wrong side of her elaborate headdresses.

Five years later, I felt it crucial to show this world to Staci, my brother’s Canadian fiance. While we would drive past townships and squatter camps on our way to the coast, it is another experience to get a real glimpse at how the majority of South Africa’s population lives. The tour left from the Hyatt Hotel, and its price left no doubt that it was aimed at international tourists. I still could not get over how family and friends thought it would be dangerous. In 1999, I learnt that while Johannesburg suffered with the highest murder rate in the world, Soweto was exceptionally safe for foreigners. The Soweto-born and bred guides on both trips explained why. Unlike Joburg, parts of Soweto are self-policed, and the people have zero tolerance for tsostis (gangsters) who harass or victimize tourists bringing in valuable income for the local economy. Unlike the judicial system that is slow and somewhat ineffective against violent crime, the kangaroo courts of Soweto are not above sentencing someone to a quick and violent death for breaking the law. Whereas Johannesburg requires all doors to be locked and windows rolled up, Soweto is quite the opposite. The first thing Staci noticed was that houses did not have high walls, gates and bars on the windows. I immediately saw the improvements that had taken place in the last five years. More tarred roads, electricity, shops and street lights. It seemed less like a township and more like a town. There were still litter filled squatter camps, but they seemed smaller, more benign. We drove much the same route as I had done previously, and some kids lined the streets for handouts. The guide admonished them, and said a real effort had been made to get children to stop begging. They are no longer disadvantaged at birth as their parents were. These children can get an education, find jobs, contribute to society. The government announced that by 2005 they would no longer award any contracts to any company that did not meet racial employment quotas. For a Black person with education and ambition, modern South Africa is an amazing opportunity for growth. I noticed throughout the trip how differently Black people carried themselves upright and proud, even as waiters. The subservient, fearful gait they carried in my youth belonged to the elderly, and the past.

Soweto’s Baragwaneth used to be the biggest hospital in the southern hemisphere. With the recent addition of the Chris Hani wing, it is now the biggest hospital in the world. International doctors arrive for an experience that mirrors the worst of war. Most recently, Baragwaneth is the center of the worst AIDS epidemic on the planet. AIDS is decimating Southern Africa. Over a thousand people are dying every week in Soweto alone. “The people don’t want to take responsibility,” says our guide Jacob. The fact that Black men, accustomed to tribal traditions of male superiority refuse to wear condoms is literally killing them. We drove past the funeral homes of Soweto, which used to have a dozen burials a weekend, but now cannot meet the demand. At 60% unemployment, this is one business booming in Soweto. AIDS awareness billboards were throughout the city, and I could not help feel that the new generation of upwardly mobile Black population’s commitment to change and commerce will save them from old values that are literally dying.

Our next stop was a squatter camp, where a local walked us down a street to give us a taste of how squatters lived. His scripted speech was recited by heart, as he told us how 7000 people share 10 toilets, and homes have no electricity or running water. We walked down a dusty path between shacks, staring at children as if they were zoo exhibits. There are two arguments here: Firstly, that these tours have created human zoos where foreigners can gawk at the poor, taking pictures of starving children before being whisked away back to their modern hotel bars. The second is that this exposure benefits both groups, by heightening awareness of the situation and bringing in valuable income. The squatter guide took us into a hot, overcrowded shack, no more than six square feet and populated by a family of four. The zoo parallel occurred to me, especially looking at children looking at us through wire fences. We were harassed by trinklet operators, and urged for tips even though Jacob told us that we should not pay any as the guides are paid by tourism companies. The overall experience felt like a curry that has problems digesting. Following the now mandatory drive-by past the Tutu residence and Winnie Mandela fort, and the rapidly tourist-ized ex-residence of Nelson himself (Winnie has tried to set up pubs and shops alongside the house, to the objections of just about everyone in Soweto), we drove through and increasingly middle-class suburbia until reaching the Apartheid Museum. Opened in 2002, it is one of the finest museums I have ever visited - a multimedia experience detailing the history of Apartheid. Tracing the birth and death of its racist ideology, the museum features graphic images of violence, all the while maintaining a surprising measure of objectivity that would make it digestible even to hard-line Afrikaners. Buses of Black kids arrived, some having driven from other provinces. These kids were young enough to have missed Apartheid, and the museum would show them how lucky they are to have the opportunities they do. Although I can understand why Whites are reluctant to visit the Museum (only one of my friends had been to see it), it was more a lesson in history than a museum of blame and guilt. The only other museum that had a similar effect on me was the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. The parallel of a gross injustice that is a crime against humanity is obvious.

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