http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article1040395.ece/Liberation–A-broken-covenant

Liberation: A broken covenant

April 27, 2011 9:19 PM | By As told to Sipho Masondo

I don’t see the benefits of freedom, but I hope they will come in my lifetime. I love freedom, but for now it means bloody empty promises. I still have to s*** in such a toilet [a “ventilated improved pit” toilet] and have no privacy in my house.

I’m an old man now and I struggle to walk, but I will take the long walk to Freedom Square with you. My sons, Herbert and Joseph, are now married and have moved out. My oldest son, Herbert, has bought a house in Eldorado Park; Joseph bought one in Zola.

I wish they could buy me a house because clearly this government is failing. I don’t know why they have not bought me a house and I’m scared to ask them. I’m old now and will probably go the way of all flesh soon. My heart’s one desire is to move out of this shack into a house.

I was a youngster, about 16, when I arrived here in Kliptown in 1952 from Sophiatown, where the boere had forcibly removed us, dumping us here and in Meadowlands. All the shacks that you see here were not here. This was a football field when I got here. This is where Kaizer Chiefs boss Kaizer Motaung and Chippa Moloi played.

Those were tough days. We were very scared of white people. As youngsters, we were not allowed to be seen in a group of more than three people. I remember the day before the drafting of the Freedom Charter: we were chased by the police and one of my friends, Gabriel Jacobs, disappeared. And I never saw him again until this day.

On June 26 1955 this whole area was abuzz. I was not at the drafting itself; I was with other young guys looking out for the police.

Thank God, when they came and raided us the charter had already been drafted.

There was a tree right here – it’s where it all happened. No one in their wildest dream would have dreamed that this place would be like this today.

But the Kliptown you see today is different. On the other side of the railway line is a modern Kliptown, where there is progress, with the government having spent about R300-million to give the area a face-lift. There is a four-star Holiday Inn, underground parking, shops, good roads and houses. That side is strictly for tourists.

But where we live is rotten. My heart sinks when I cross the railway line. On our side there are streams of dirty and smelly water running around our shacks; there is no electricity. We use communal taps and toilets. We don’t have houses.

In the early ’60s, a friend and I were arrested by the Kliptown police for loitering. We were detained for three weeks. While inside, we were woken up for a cold shower at 4am every day and it was winter. We were made to run barefoot on very rough concrete. If we complained, we were thumped with batons.

In those days, a black person was nothing, to be honest. I remember at [a company] in Maraisburg where I worked there was a manager … he was a dog, he didn’t like black people. He saw us as labourers and not as human beings.

In June 1976 very few people managed to go to work. The whole township was up in smoke. I remember, right here in Kliptown, we found a boy with nails all over his body. Burned tyres were all that remained around his burnt body.

When [Nelson] Mandela was released in 1990 I was very happy because I had last seen him in Kliptown in 1955. Mandela has helped us a lot. Though I’m not free in other ways, I can feel freedom in my blood. My soul is free, and it’s like I’m in a new world.

We are in a democracy, and had it not been for 1994 I don’t know where we would be.

I will still vote for the ANC anyway; after all, I get an old-age grant from them.

The government has done a lot in other places, but nothing here. They must say if they will give us services, or it they won’t. We want water, electricity, houses like everyone else. They shouldn’t run around; we need to know.

We are probably the last set of shacks in Soweto. You will be surprised that some people here still use the bucket system, which the government promised to get rid of in 2007. If they tell us that they will not do anything for us, better still, we will die in peace knowing that they care less about us.”