The Wonderfood Museum is a unique museum in Penang that features oversized replicas of traditional Malaysian dishes, art and historical information. There are larger-than-life delicacies on display from across Asia.
South Africa: Gauteng – Exploring Johannesburg
Johannesburg is South Africa's largest and fastest-growing city and is built on a history of racial division that achieved its most dramatic form in the twentieth century policy of strict separation known as apartheid.
For our final full day in South Africa, I booked us on an intensive 8-hour tour with Moafrika Tours that would give us a hit-and-run taste of Johannesburg.
Our tour van collected us at 8:00 and was already packed with our fellow tourists.
The first stop was Constitution Hill, which is located in the Braamfontein district of Johannesburg and is where the Constitutional Court of South Africa sits.
CONSTITUTION HILL
Our main reason for being here was not the court itself but the old fort.
The hill was formerly the site of a fort which was later used as a prison. The Old Fort Prison complex is known as Number Four. The original prison was built to house white male prisoners in 1892. The Old Fort was built around this prison by Paul Kruger from 1896 to 1899 to protect the South African Republic from the threat of British invasion. Later, Boer military leaders of the Anglo-Boer War were imprisoned here by the British. The Old Fort prison was later extended to include “native” cells, called Section 4 and Section 5, and, in 1907, a women’s section was added, the Women’s Gaol. An awaiting-trial block was constructed in the 1920s. Both political activists who opposed apartheid and common criminals were held at this prison. Many of South Africa’s leading political activists, including Winnie Mandela; Mahatma Gandhi; Albertina Sisulu; Fatima Meer and Nelson Mandela were detained here.
Our guide for the tour took us around the museum, showing us the large holding cells, where prisoners were held in solitary confinement and the shared area where they exercised and ate. We were also told some personal stories of some of those who were detained within those walls and the horrors of their imprisonment. It was the injustice of being there for standing up for your rights to be equal and respected, and to be given a fair chance in life. As usual, visiting such a place put everyone in a solemn mood.
Outside the walls of the prison, we stood in front of the Constitution Court, which is the highest court in the country when it comes to the interpretation, protection, and enforcement of the Constitution. Interestingly there was a group of middle-aged to elderly women who had been sleeping on the steps of the court building for some time. They were there seeking adjudication on reparation payments from the apartheid era. Money had been assigned for the purpose of reparation it was just slow in being given out! No one had attempted to move these ladies on, in fact, they seemed to be free to use the facilities of the courthouse. When Karen went to the toilet, she found one of them stripped off naked and washing in a sink.
There was not too much security inside the courthouse, and we were permitted to enter the main chamber with our guide and sit on the seats set aside for the members of the public who attend the court when it is in session. Our guide then went on to tell us about the role of the court, important decisions it has made and some of the key tenets of the South African constitution. Interesting stuff.
THE APARTHEID MUSEUM
The next stop on our tour was the Apartheid Museum. We were given around an hour to explore the museum, which truth be told was not enough time you easily spend a whole day here. The experience starts right from the ticket booth where you are randomly assigned cards that segregates you into ‘white’ and ‘coloured’. This is done randomly and not by racial designation. Depending on our assignment you get a different experience entering the museum. Sadly, no photography is allowed inside the museum, I suspect due to copyrights on the material inside. The first exhibits look at the system of race classification which is one of the pillars of apartheid. From 1950 South Africans were classified on the basis of their ‘race’ into one of four groups: ‘native’, ‘coloured’, ‘Asian’ or ‘white’. By 1966, 11 million people had been classified under the Population Registration Act of 1950.
The roots of segregation go back to the foundation of the Republic of South Africa in 1910. The black majority (and white women) were entirely excluded from any political participation. Segregation was an official policy of the Union of South Africa. Other areas of the museum examine the social and political forces that gave birth to apartheid, such as the poor white problem and Afrikaner nationalism. Apartheid was formally enacted in 1948 and by 1971, 148 apartheid laws had been enacted affecting every aspect of people’s lives.
There were of course uprisings against this oppression, and some of these turned violent. During 1959 and 1960, violence broke out in several South African cities. In March 1960 police fired upon a crowd protesting against the pass laws in Sharpeville, killing at least 69 people and injuring many others. The 1960s saw the creation of ‘Homelands’. Every black South African was assigned to a Homeland, which was followed by forced relocation and their land taken from them and sold to white farmers.
A new generation of leaders rose amongst the black communities, men like Steve Biko, who was murdered in detention in 1977. More and more leaders were detained and executed, a total of 131, but more died through brutal treatment in prison and their deaths were recorded as suicide. In 1976 students began mass protests across the country, which resulted in 1000 dying in confrontations with the police.
The 1980s saw an increased uprising against apartheid, which eventually forced the white government to start to compromise. n 1988 Nelson Mandela, who was still in prison, issued an invitation to the government to negotiate an end to apartheid. By early 1989 the non-racial mass democratic movement had swelled and returned to the streets. Then in August 1989 F W de Klerk replaced the hardline P W Botha as president. Within months he had decided the only way forward was to release Nelson Mandela and to legalise the ANC, PAC, SACP and other political organisations.
By 1990 the country stood on the brink of change, but this brought with it more resistance on both sides. More people died in political violence from 1990 to 1994 than from 1948 to 1990. The largest bomb in South African history was detonated by right-wing Afrikaners in the centre of Johannesburg on 24 April 1994, killing nine and injuring 92.
Something had to change and both sides began to work on a new Bill of Rights. On April 27, 1994, the first democratic election where all South Africans could vote occurred and Nelson Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president.
We were profoundly moved as we moved around the museum. There were powerful images everywhere in photographs and videos of the oppression of apartheid and the struggle of those who were caught in its web. It was powerful and at times overwhelming.
An hour to see all this was not enough time to take it all in, but in a way any more time there would have been taxing.
SOWETO
From the Apartheid Museum we travelled to the place where much of the horror and hope of a new future was centred, the township of Soweto. During the Apartheid era, the prospect of coming here would have been daunting and most likely dangerous. Today, it is a community much like any other, but there are still people here struggling with poverty and living in temporary housing, which I think many of us might refer to as ‘slums’. This is where we were headed first. It was only a short visit. We were met by a young man who took us a few metres inside the streets of this town within the town. It was much like other housing areas we’d seen in Africa and India, with small ramshackle structures made of wood and corrugated iron. People were going about their business doing their best to ignore us. Of course, the local children had not signed up for such social niceties and came up to us. Our visit was only around 10 minutes, so we didn’t get to see the belly of the beast. It was a very sanitised exposure to the failings to bring everyone up with the rising tide of freedom and the promised prosperity that was expected to come from it. This country is plagued with corruption and poor government.
We continued our tour through Soweto and passed the former homes of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu on Vilakazi Street, the only street in the world to have produced two Nobel Prize winners. Sadly, we didn’t have time to visit these, but we did a short stop at the Soweto Towers. These are two massive cooling towers that belonged to the now-decommissioned Orlando Power Station that have become an iconic landmark in Soweto. They have been decorated with brightly coloured motifs that really make them stand out in the otherwise low-rise city.
HECTOR PIETERSON MONUMENT AND MUSEUM
The last stop on our tour was another museum, the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in the Orlando township of Soweto. This township is named after the man who created it and became its mayor in 1931, Edwin Orlando Leake, and not through some weird twinning with the home of Disney in Florida, USA.
Zolile Hector Pieterson was a 13-year-old South African schoolboy who was shot and killed at the age of twelve during the Soweto uprising when the police opened fire on black students protesting the enforcement of teaching in Afrikaans. An iconic photograph by Sam Nzima of the mortally wounded Pieterson being carried by another Soweto resident while his sister ran next to them was published around the world. The anniversary of his death is designated Youth Day.
The Hector Pieterson Museum sits two blocks from where he was shot and killed. Outside the museum is a memorial to him, a symbol of those who lost their lives, especially the children, during the 1976 Soweto Uprising. The museum houses a large collection of photographs, videos and testimonies of those dark days surrounding the uprising, It was another powerful reminder of the cruelty imposed on the black and coloured communities in South Africa during Apartheid.
This is where our tour ended. It had been a long and often emotional day exploring the history and social impact of Apartheid and racism in South Africa. It is a beautiful country that has a difficult past and an uncertain future.
Best time to visit Johannesburg
The best time to visit Johannesburg is from March to May and from September to November. March to May is the autumn season in Johannesburg, which means the airfares and hotel prices drop after a busy summer, and makes space for a visiting the city in a budget.
Where to stay
MINT HOTEL 84 ON KATHERINE
We stayed at the MINT Hotel on Katherine. It is very convenient for accessing the Sandton shopping malls and the train to Oliver Tambo International airport. We walked from the hotel to mall a couple of times and the area feels very safe.
SATYAGRAHA
The historical icon, who pioneered the philosophy of nonviolent resistance as the leader of India’s independence movement in the first half of the 20th century, stayed at what is now The Satyagraha House in Johannesburg for a year between 1908 and 1909.
Mohandas Gandhi practised a simple lifestyle of meditation, vegetarian food and philosophical discussion at The Satyagraha House. Today, guests there can experience a similar way of life. Alcohol cannot be consumed in public spaces and none of the eight guestrooms has a TV, although there is Wi-Fi for anyone desperate for a sneaky Netflix session on their phone or tablet.
LEBO’S SOWETO BACKPACKERS
The historical icon, who pioneered the philosophy of nonviolent resistance as the leader of India’s independence movement in the first half of the 20th century, stayed at what is now The Satyagraha House in Johannesburg for a year between 1908 and 1909.
Mohandas Gandhi practised a simple lifestyle of meditation, vegetarian food and philosophical discussion at The Satyagraha House. Today, guests there can experience a similar way of life. Alcohol cannot be consumed in public spaces and none of the eight guestrooms has a TV, although there is Wi-Fi for anyone desperate for a sneaky Netflix session on their phone or tablet.
