Free Are We There Yet? by David Smiedt Page B

white kids who wanted to experience it often put shoe polish on their faces and pretended to be black to get in. This wasn’t because they would have been badly received by the regular clients, it was actually to avoid being targeted as political activists by police who raided the place from time to time.”
    This city thumbs its nose in delight at the simplistic notions that tourists bring with their dollars. From the smart campus of the Vista University, you can make out aloe-lined fairways of the eighteen-hole Soweto golf course. There are bowls clubs, tennis courts and SPCA offices with paddocks for injured horses and a patient line of locals nursing cats down to their last life.
    Ingenuity runs rampant and local entrepreneurs have set up shop around busy intersections with a staggering array of goods and services on offer. One tried to tempt me and Oupa with “the freshest barbecue chicken in town”. This involved selecting the unfortunate live fowl from an overcrowded cage beside an oil drum whose lip was licked by flames from within. Sensing our hesitation, the proprietor attempted to convince us with a poultry liver appetiser. Overcome by a sudden bout of vegetarianism, I politely declined.
    Beside Giblet Joe was a carburettor specialist, and across the road was the Soweto equivalent of a shopping mall. This consisted of a line of freight containers which served as premises housing everything from mobile phone dealerships to hair salons and boutiques. With doors and even display shopfronts cut into the metal walls, many of them were branded with handpainted logos and slogans. Affordable, transportable and impervious to the elements, a number also functioned as cafes and bars.
    Our next stop was a patch of red dirt known as Kliptown Square. Today it is the backdrop for a ragtag street butchery where rusted trestle tables are piled high with flyblown meat and purple entrails. In 1956, however, it drew 2884 delegates from around the country to witness the drawing of the ANC Freedom Charter, the document which forms the basis of South Africa’s new constitution. With police strictly enforcing pass laws and monitoring travel between provinces, reaching Kliptown was a feat in itself. In one notorious incident a group of Indian delegates who did not have the necessary permits to enter the Transvaal bluffed their way out of custody by pretending to be musicians on their way to a wedding. Taking the better than average odds that your average white cop wouldn’t know talentless sitar playing and howling Hindi showtunes from the masterful varieties, they belted out number after number until the cops ushered them along, grateful for the silence.
    When the police eventually swooped late on 26 June 1955, officers painstakingly recorded the details of every delegate. One hundred and fifty-six of the leading activists were arrested and charged with treason. Held in two large cages at Johannesburg’s Fort Prison, they came to represent the democratic doppelgangers of the 159 members of the all-white South African parliament. This mass incarceration proved to be a boon for the resistance leaders as it gave them their first opportunity to openly discuss the Struggle en masse. It was a situation the government had been trying to prevent for years and founding ANC leader Albert Luthuli later reminisced, “The frequent meetings that distance, other occupations, lack of funds and political interference had made difficult, the government now made possible”.
    The trial drew international attention and funds were channelled from around the globe for the plaintiffs’ legal fees, food and clothing. The charges were eventually dismissed and the detainees were released to jubilant scenes. The Freedom Charter had claimed its first victory.
    In 1960 another group of protesters assembled to voice their objections to the pass laws. Their assembly point was the Sharpeville police station near Soweto. The protest