FUNDAMENTOS TEÓRICOS DE ESTRATEGIAS COMPETITIVAS

To further tighten measures to keep the “native” out of towns and to control his/her conditions of stay in town acts such as the Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of

Documents Act No. 67 were passed in 1952. This Act made it mandatory for all black men – and later women – to carry reference documents on their person. Dingake (1987: 47)

describes a reference document as:

A multipaged document with my photo on the inside cover...it was a comprehensive document divided into a number of sections detailing one‟s identity, tax payment, residential permit employment address and employer‟s monthly signature…

These documents would serve to control the presence and movement of Africans in towns in a much more stringent way. Africans were to carry these documents all the time as they were expected to produce them as and when the police demanded them. Alexandra, which fell outside the mandate of the NUAA could not escape the reference document since they went to other areas where NUAA was applied on daily basis for employment.

In 1954, the Black Resettlement Act No. 19 which gave government the right to remove Africans from Johannesburg was passed. The following year, approximately 60 000 black people were moved at gunpoint from Johannesburg's Western Areas. Such people were moved to Meadowlands (Beavon 2004: 131). These townships were redesignated white, for example Sophiatown was renamed Triomf (Beinart 1994: 148, Mabin 2005: 19). Since the Act could not yet apply to Alexandra, people from resettled areas continued to flock to it. By the mid-1950s the population of Alexandra was recorded as 100 000 or more (Tourikis 1981, Nauright 1992).

Mme Nthabiseng, whose family moved from Sophiatown a year before the passing of this Act, had this to say about coming to Alexandra:

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In Alexandra actually I came as you know they had to remove, they remove Sophia town you know when it was? ekare ke di 1953 (I think it was in 1953) I don‟t know whether it was 1953 but it was still the fifties, but we were forcibly removed in Sophia town and it became a white area, but came with my parents bona stand seko Alex.(To their stand in Alex)²¹⁹

Moving and resettling in another freehold area was not the only worrying trend for government. The other choice was to shuttle between settlements.

Up to 1948 I was a resident of Sophiatown, I was to be back in 1954 and then back to Alex in 1957 when I ducked the forced removals to Meadowlands. I shuttled between the two townships, because they shared many common features. Their two main differences were at the time: Sophiatown had some street lights whereas Alexandra was unlit...²²⁰

(Dingake 1987: 27)

By March 10, 1956, a report appeared in the Bantu World on the removal of Africans – by the JCC and the Resettlement Board – from several townships such as Pageview, Kliptown including Kensington B, which was part of Alexandra Township. However, in Alexandra the portion of interest to this study, only “condemned houses” were to be removed.

In the same year, the Natives Prohibition of Interdicts and the Natives Urban Areas Amendment Bills were being discussed in parliament. The first Bill, which was later passed as Natives Prohibition of Interdicts Act No. 64 of 1956, disallowed Africans to contest removal through courts. It further disempowered courts by taking away from them the power to stop any removals. The Saturday Star of March 31, 1956 stated this on the Natives

Prohibition of Interdicts Bill:

The main effect of the Bill is to prohibit the courts from preventing the forcible and unlawful removal of an African from any land, building or area, provided that such threatened removal is to be carried out under an order or warrant which an official

219 Interview with mme Nthabiseng, Alexandra,July 30, 2003.

220 Dingake is a political activist who was banished to Robben Island. This book is about his experiences in Sophiatown.

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purports to make or issue under any law whether or not such law in fact authorizes him to do so.

According to the Bantu World of March 1956, the second Bill would give Local authorities overarching powers to expel any African from the city. The position of bommastandi was ambiguous. Some of them would only be affected by this legislation during the day at their places of employment where the NUAA and its amendments would be applicable, but go home to Alexandra where it did not. How did this impact on ability to keep jobs in the cities?

Would there be a link between the unemployability of Alexandra residents that The NEDPL identified in earlier years and the ambiguous position of Alexandra bommastandi. In other words, were some of them unemployable in legal terms in that they were legally disqualified to be in the city where NUAA was effective? Moreover, in 1956 the PUAHB was designated the urban local authority of Johannesburg North as per proclamation No. 241 of the same year. However, this proclamation did not at the time include Alexandra Township.

These developments and processes were in essence writing away the possibility for Alexandra Township bommastandi to remain in Johannesburg on their own terms. They could either be moved to homelands or live in Johannesburg on terms set out by the JCC and the relevant state department. The intention to retribalise the “native” was re-emphasized and taken a step further by Dr H. F. Verwoerd, the successor to Dr. Jansen in the portfolio of Minister of NAD. His plan was to have all Africans ultimately sent to the reserves. As reported World March 1956Dr. Verwoerd stated in his speech in Benoni²²¹:

In South Africa there are places for black and white. Bantu have come to work in white areas. They must not expect the same rights in urban areas as they expect in their own Bantu areas.

This pronouncement emphasised the spatial differentiation based on segregation not only for Johannesburg but for the whole of South Africa. The statement further problematises the Alexandra mmastandi status. If Africans “should not expect the same rights in urban areas”

what then were the rights of bommastandi of Alexandra?

221 A town in the East Rand what is currently referred to as Ekurhuleni.

200 4.6 Ways of life: Life goes on in Alexandra

Agitation for Alexandra‟s removal did not stop life in Alexandra. While concerns such as crime, health and the slum conditions in Alexandra were raised by people agitating for its removal, life went on. New people came in and bought properties, old residents bought different properties, wives and children inherited properties.

At the conference chaired by the Minister of Interior and Public Health H.G.

Lawrence, held in Pretoria on October 23, 1942, the representative from the South African Police, Lt. Col. O.J.P. Horak, provided crime statistics. He stated that between October 1, 1941 and September 30 1942, there were 4 961 Liquor law offences out of a total of 6 896.

These included offences such as 222, 451 and 1 260 motor ordinance AHC regulations and other offences respectively.²²² Also, out of 38 homicide or murder only three were

premeditated. In as far as liquor brewing and selling offences were concerned the AHC argued that liquor brewing offences in Alexandra were no different from those in

Sophiatown, Martindale and Newclare, which fell under the municipality of Johannesburg.

Thus the argument for abolition of Alexandra should not be based on the inability to curb crime such as liquor brewing.²²³

Alexandra was occupied by bommastandi of different backgrounds, from the poor to the better off. However, the proceedings of several conferences whose agendas included discussion of the conditions in Alexandra indicated that the emphasis was largely on the poor.

A closer look at a report that appeared in Libertas revealed that bommastandi were disparate.

Libertas commented on the cinema which at the time operated once a week due to the poverty of inhabitants who could not afford to go to films more than once a week. Such a report however, continued to reveal how preposterous this was as there were other fortunes made out of Alexandra. This would refer to high interest rates that were paid by bommastandi of Alexandra. Citing the findings of the Nicholls Commission Tourikis (1981), refers to high interest rates that bommastandi had to pay on mortgage bonds. He pointed out that

bommastandi had to pay 40% interest to the “European” moneylenders before they could get the loans that they requested.

Most of the residents (this would probably include bommastandi and their tenants) worked in Johannesburg and the East Rand. Libertas (August1942) reported that the average

222 Report on the committee appointed by the Administrator-in-Executive Committee to consider the future of Alexandra Township and the control of the native townships and settlements near Pretoria 1949.

223 Letter Submitted by the AHC to the Minister of the Public Health in reply to the proposal of the JCC to abolish Alexandra in 1940.