Saturday, 3 May 1986: An Apartheid Apologist at a Small Town Library

 5:00 PM, High Over Guest House north of White River, eastern Transvaal

This morning, Louise from SATOUR picked me up at my Kruger Park accommodation and drove me south to Barberton, a small gold mining community in an area of low mountains, a few kilometers northwest of the Swaziland border.  The winding, paved two-lane highway to the town wound around forested hillsides, passing groves of mangos, sugarcane fields, pink wild rose trees in full bloom, sawmills, little towns, and hundreds of brightly dressed black women and men walking along the highway on their way to do Saturday morning shopping.  Almost all stores in South Africa close at 1:00 PM on Saturday and are closed all day on Sunday.   Therefore, it’s necessary to be an early riser on Saturday to get to all the stores on one’s itinerary.  

Barberton is nestled against a mountain side. It’s very clean with oodles of flowered trees lining the streets in the white residential areas.  There were throngs of lacks and almost no whites on the streets in the downtown commercial area.  Blacks are allowed to shop in white stores – the businesses need their patronage. 

Post card showing Barberton in 1922.  Source:  https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/vintage-postcard-south-africa-barberton-mpumalanga-1922/28872349

 

We stopped at the library and spoke with Opal Sturgeon, the librarian.  Like everyone else here, it seems, she quickly got to the subject of black/white politics.  Mind you, we had only stopped to get information about local tourist attractions.  Without any prompting from Yours Truly, she started off with something like, “South Africa isn’t as bad as what you read in the papers, is it?”  And I replied with my standard answer, “No, but I haven’t had the opportunity to visit any black areas yet.” 

Mrs. Sturgeon then launched into a monologue, explaining that, black youths from Soweto (the largest black township in the Johannesburg area) were trucked into this area to intimidate local blacks into staying away from work.  During a recent “stay-away” day, the police provided protection for buses bringing local blacks to and from work.  Opal claimed that local blacks “got down on their knees” and thanked the police and white community for the protection. 

She went on to say that the problems are not black against white but black against black.  “We [whites] have more brotherly love here than in many other countries.”  Opal continued talking about black people:  “Their capacity for productivity is less than ours.  They’re like children.”  She went on to explain that, “The half-educated ones are the problem.”  Another Opal quote:  “This is a class problem, not a black-white problem.”  

Opal told me that Barberton has a library for blacks.  “It’s too far for the children to walk here to get books so we have a library in their area.  Besides, there are too many blacks for this library to accommodate them.” 

I learned that there is also a separate library for Indians and coloureds.  “The coloureds wanted a separate library of their own because they don’t like the Indians, you know, but the local government couldn’t afford to put up yet another library.”   Mrs. Sturgeon admitted that it is expensive for the town to provide all these separate facilities.  She volunteered all this information while I listened attentively and took notes.  Like so many white South Africans, she seemed to be very concerned that I get the political story right.  I didn’t ask her any questions except about tourist attractions.

Mrs. Sturgeon loaded me down with a slew of literature about Barberton and wanted Louise to take me to about six different places.  Fortunately, Louise had to be at a wedding at 3:00 PM and she had driven me about 50 miles to get here.  Great – I was in no mood for a day of sightseeing in this town, no matter how interesting its mining history.

We only had time for one visit:  a Victorian home built at the turn of the century called Bel Haven.  It had been nicely restored with period furniture.  The ceilings and walls were covered with pressed patterned steel imported from England by ship to Durban, then brought north to Barberton by ox cart.  The windows had beautifully-patterned Kimberly glass with blue-colored panels in the corners.  There was even a galvanized zinc bath tub!

Bel Haven, a restored Victorian home in Barberton

 

As I type this, the local dogs are really barking up a storm.  I’ve found that South Africans tend to have BIG dogs which bark a lot.  You can guess why they have them. 

As we left Barberton, I commented to Louise about all the blacks on the road.  They appear to make her nervous.  She doesn’t like to drive through some areas now because of all the reported stone-throwing incidents.  Bear in mind that this is a rural area, not Soweto or some other urban township. 

I asked Louise if she was concerned about settling down in South Africa and raising a family.  She said that this year is bad but hopefully next year will be better.  But as the conversation continued, it came out that she is looking forward to a possible overseas assignment with SATOUR. 

Just seeing all the blacks on the road today to do Saturday shopping reminded that I have failed to see much of the lives of more than 80 percent of the people in this country.  Kruger Park, Bel Haven, and all the other nice tourist attractions are okay but what any tourist here sees is not a true picture of the country.  Of course, tourists never really get a true picture of any country they visit which is the grand fallacy of tourism, cloaked in a plastic façade of pretty sights and entertainment.  But here, that fallacy is even more dramatic.

Does SATOUR, white South Africans, and their government even want me to understand non-white South Africans and their cultures?  Or do they only want me to learn the white point of view regarding non-whites?  I get the impression that they only want me to see blacks doing tribal dances and blacks as servants and laborers.  Please, let’s just stick with the stereotypes!  And how can a white American possibly become acquainted with black people here anyway, much less understand them and their culture?  This will be one of my greater challenges here and I doubt I’ll get much help with it from SATOUR!