My Life Growing Up White During Apartheid in South Africa

by Philip Hummel

Overview

This book is a short collection of memories about being white and living in South Africa during Apartheid. I wrote this book for the reader to easily understand what it was like to live in this environment.

It is not a history lesson, but some personal experiences that I went through living in South Africa at the time. Living through apartheid I never even realized that it even existed, because we were brought up to believe that it was normal. Life was paradise for me and hell for others! Many of us did not know or care, and even if we did try to change the system, it would have resulted in prison or death.

We believed that changing apartheid would have caused the country to fall into the hands of the communists, and many white people were fearful that black rule would have destroyed South Africa and their lives.

The other side of the coin is that I can't comprehend what the lives of most blacks was like, which was excruciatingly difficult, something that I didn't personally experience.

Our history books never taught us anything good about blacks. I can't remember ever learning anything positive that blacks did. What I did learn was that they were lazy, uneducated, dangerous, and drank a lot.

"Stay away from them, and if they bother you call the police."

There were serious injustices in South Africa, and many black people suffered under the Apartheid Regime.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781456718008
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	01/21/2011
Pages:	100
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.24(d)

Read an Excerpt

My Life Growing up White during Apartheid in South Africa

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By Philip Hummel

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Philip Hummel
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-1800-8

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Chapter One

What was Apartheid?

Apartheid was a system of legal racial separation which dominated the Republic of South Africa from 1948 until 1993. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness." The mechanisms of apartheid were set in place long before 1948, and South Africa continues to deal with the repercussions. Under apartheid, various races were separated into different regions, and discrimination against people of color was not only acceptable, but legally entrenched, with whites having priority housing, jobs, education, and political power. Although South Africa was heavily criticized for the system, it was not until 1991 that the legal system of apartheid began to break down, and in 1993 was thrown out altogether with the election of Nelson Mandela as the first democratically elected president of South Africa in 1994.

The country was colonized by the English and Dutch in the 17th century. There was English domination over the Dutch descendents (known as Boers or Afrikaners). The discovery of diamonds in these lands around 1900 resulted in an English invasion. Following independence from England, an uneasy power-sharing between the two groups held sway until the 1940's, when the Afrikaner National Party was able to gain a strong majority. Strategists in the National Party invented apartheid as a means to cement their control over the economic and social system. Initially, the aim of apartheid was to maintain white domination while extending racial separation.

With the enactment of apartheid laws in 1948, racial discrimination was institutionalized. Race laws touched every aspect of social life, including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of black jobs. In 1950, the Population Registration Act required that all South Africans be racially classified into one of three categories: white, black (African), or coloured (of mixed decent). The coloured category included major subgroups of Indians and Asians.

Classification into these categories was based on appearance , social acceptance, and descent. A white person was defined as in appearance obviously a white person, or generally accepted as a white person. A person could not be considered white if one of his or her parents were black. A black person would be accepted as a member of an African tribe or race, and a coloured person is one that is not black or white. All blacks were required to carry 'pass books' containing fingerprints, a photo, and information on access to white areas.

Starting in the 60's, a plan of 'Grand Apartheid' was set up, emphasizing territorial separation and police repression.

The penalties imposed on political protest, even non-violent protest, were severe. During the states of emergency, which continued intermittently until 1989, anyone could be detained without a hearing by a low-level police official for up to six months. Thousands of individuals died in custody, frequently after gruesome acts of torture. Those who were tried were sentenced to death, banished, or imprisoned for life, like Nelson Mandela.

Who are the Blacks

The Bantu group is the biggest, about 50 million people in Africa speak Bantu. There are about 200 different languages spoken, mostly Swahili and Zulu. Most of the Bantu speaking people came wandering from the north, and settled down in South Africa during the last 500 years. The original black population in South Africa were the bushmen, who belong to the Khoisan people. They speak a very special language with a lot of clicks.

Some of them are made with the tongue and can sound like a wet kiss. There are two groups of black languages in South Africa, Bantu languages and then the ones spoken by Khoisan people.

Who are the Coloureds and Indians?

The term 'Cape Coloureds' refers to the modern-day descendants of slave laborers imported into South Africa by Dutch settlers, as well as to other groups of mixed ancestry originating in the present-day of the Western Cape. They are the predominant population group found in the Western Cape Province. Their population size is roughly 4 million. Most Cape Coloureds' mother tongue is Afrikaans, as a result of their cultural development in the Dutch and Afrikaans-speaking areas of South Africa, but a minority are English speaking. Slaves of Malay ancestry were brought from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Madagascar. From these diverse origins they gradually developed into a group the coloured people (African and European origin) that was subsequently classified as a single major ethnical group under the Apartheid regime. In many cases the slaves were imported to be concubines and wives for single male Dutch settlers. People from India and the islands within the Indian Ocean region were also taken to the Cape and sold into slavery by the Dutch settlers. The Indian slaves were almost invariably given Christian names but their places of origin were indicated in the records of sales and other documents, so that it was possible to get an idea of the ratio of slaves from different regions. These slaves were dispersed, and lost their cultural Indian identity in the course of time, hence being labeled Cape Coloureds. Much racial mixture has occurred over the generations, between the Europeans, Indians, Malays, and various Black tribes.

Technically, the term Cape Coloured referred to a subset of Coloured South Africans, with subjective criteria having been used by the Apartheid bureaucracy to determine whether a person was a Cape Coloured, or belonged to one of a number of other related "Coloured" subgroups such as the Cape Malays or "Other Coloureds". The term "Coloured" was used to distinguish people of mixed ancestry, paler South Africans of European descent, and the darker black South Africans. There were often exceptions to this generalization, and consequently Apartheid classifications often led to tragic-comic consequences, with some paler family members being classified as white and others coloured. This contentious classification had in the past no consistent meaning among South Africans – opinion, more than anything else, dictated who was classified as Cape Coloured. You can clearly understand the paranoia of the government and the insanity it created.

Who are the Whites?

South Africa's white population descendants were largely from the colonial immigrants of the late 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. They were of Dutch, German, French Huguenot and British origins. Linguistically, divided into Afrikaans and English speaking groups, and also many small communities that had immigrated over the last century.

Religions

In terms of religious affiliation, about two-thirds of South Africans are Christian, mainly Protestant. They belong to a variety of churches, including many that combine Christian and traditional African beliefs. Many non-Christians espouse these traditional beliefs. Other significant religions are Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism.

Born in Upington

I was born on June 8, 1955 in Upington, South Africa a small town on the Orange River. My dad and his three brothers ran a large department store called 'Hummel Brothers'. None of their wives worked as many women didn't those days, especially White Jewish Women. They were supported by their husbands which was the custom during those times. Many women attended social functions, and did no housework.

In Upington I had a black nanny Anna, who would look after me. She would feed me, take me for walks, and basically brought me up as her own child. Anna had a room that was behind our house and I don't remember ever seeing a bath or shower in her room. I was even carried on her back the way Africans carried their children. We loved our nannies!

We not only had Anna but also another domestic servant, her name was Troy who helped with cleaning, cooking, and other domestic chores. All white male adults were addressed as 'Baas' or boss by all blacks. I was referred to as 'Klein Baas' or small boss by all blacks, as were all other small white male children.

Educational Field trip

I started kindergarten in Upington. My kindergarten teacher thought we should go on a field trip and see chickens getting slaughtered, teaching us to understand where the meat came from. I still remember the blades, blood, smell, and feathers everywhere.

I thank her for turning me into a vegetarian which I still am today, and the health benefits that go along with it!

Upington was in the country and very much like the deep south of the United States. Black people lived in the township outside the town and never came into the town unless they were working for whites, or had a very good reason.

The Police were not people you ever messed with, and you never said or did anything against the government in public. They had the power to kill you especially if you were black. Police wore light blue uniforms with a brown leather gun belt worn diagonally across their shoulder, and a cap that often reminded me of the SS of Nazi Germany. Life in Upington at the time was paradise for my family. I had uncles, aunts, and many cousins. We had a "braaifleis" (barbeques) almost every weekend and had many family gatherings. My dad was a big shot in the town because of his store, and he received a great deal of respect. Many people visited our house. Life for us was paradise but life for blacks was very difficult. There were some whites who would let their domestic servants sleep on the kitchen floor, having no regard for them as human beings. I also saw an article where a farmer would pay his black laborers with glasses of wine, and eventually got them addicted so that all they would care about was the wine.

As a child I would see black prisoners doing yard work around the town. They were guarded by a white policeman with a rifle and a whip, and a black policeman with a spear.

Black police were not allowed to carry guns and were loathed by other blacks as traitors. The police would arrest blacks for any reason and imprison them for as long as they needed them. A system of free labor was created! Yes, life was pretty great if you were white. Even though our servants worked in our houses and knew everything about our lives and families. We knew nothing about their personal lives or families. Most whites didn't care about their happiness or sadness. We expected them to be happy if we were happy and sad if we were sad. My family treated our servants with extreme human dignity. Some whites, did not consider black people human, and treated them very badly. If the police caught any blacks walking around the town for no reason they were picked up, often beat up badly, and imprisoned. Blacks were very careful to be extremely polite to whites, especially to the police.

Moving to Cape Town

Around 1962 my dad decided he wanted to leave Upington and move to Cape Town, a beautiful city 500 miles south on the Atlantic Ocean. A large company called " The OK Bazaars" wanted the Hummel Brothers building for their new store, or they were going to build their own. Hummel brothers knew it was time to get out so they sold their building, and our family was off to beautiful Cape Town with all our things and our loveable fox terrier, Scampy.

We drove down and sent all the rest of our stuff by train.

In Cape Town, English was the spoken language where as in Upington it was Afrikaans (similar to Dutch). Cape Town was less conservative. I use these words carefully, because this does not mean blacks were more welcome. My dad loved walking near the ocean so we eventually settled into a three bedroom apartment called Westridge in Mouille Point, an exquisite area on the coast, 100 yards from the ocean. There was an old lighthouse in Mouille Point. I used to like climbing to the top and look at the ocean. The lighthouse keeper would let me and a few friends go up to the top, about six floors. Mouille Point was directly across from Robben Island. As a young child I loved going down to the beach with my dog Scampy. There were plenty of rocks filled with fish, octopus, crabs, and many other sea creatures.

Scampy the Rat Catcher

Scampy was a fox terrier and they were bred for hunting rats. He loved going with me for walks on the beach.

Scampy hated going into water. One day while on the beach a big rat ran out from pieces of wood on the beach. Scampy immediately took off after the rat. The rat sensing the dog was after him ran across the rocks and dove into the water. Scampy hated water but he hated rats more, so in he dove after the rat. He eventually caught and killed the rat. He scrambled back onto the rocks with my help, not quite sure why he had just dived into the icy cold water. He was a great hunter for a small dog.

He was with us for fifteen years, and he died when I was seventeen years old . I loved that dog, and still remember how he enriched my life

Whites only on the beaches

The only blacks that were allowed on the beaches were domestic servants looking after white children, city workers, or ice cream venders. If any black person dared to venture onto a "Whites Only Beach" they were taking their lives into their hands, and would have been arrested. Blacks had their own beaches but they were far away from white areas. I loved the beaches in Cape Town, they were so beautiful! The blue cold Atlantic Ocean was like being in a dream, and you could see large ships passing by the beach, sailing around the southern part of Africa. I loved this area as a child.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from My Life Growing up White during Apartheid in South Africa by Philip Hummel Copyright © 2011 by Philip Hummel. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction....................1
What was Apartheid....................4
Who are the Blacks....................6
Who are the Coloureds and Indians....................7
Who are the Whites....................9
Religions....................9
Born in Upington....................10
Educational Field trip....................13
Moving to Cape Town....................15
Scampy the Rat Catcher....................18
Whites only on the beaches....................18
Seeing Robben Island Everyday....................19
Black Body Builder Photo in my School Bag....................20
Camps Bay High School....................21
The School Inspector....................22
Mandela on Robben Island....................23
My Uncle David....................24
The 'Homelands' (A way to make blacks non citizens in their own country)....................27
Education....................28
Serving a Black Man in a Restaurant....................29
Getting Banned and Black Beauty....................30
TV in South Africa....................32
Marnie my Malay friend....................34
Marriage, Relationships and the Immorality Act....................35
Transportation....................36
Music from the United States and South Africa....................38
Sports in South Africa and my Uncle Abe....................40
The South African Police....................42
Absolute fear of the police....................43
Being Black in White South Africa....................45
Children begging for Food on the Railway Tracks....................46
Black and White Housing....................46
The word 'Kaffir'....................48
The Hated Pass Laws....................49
Crazy Rules of Apartheid....................51
Mixed Racial Parties in Cape Town....................52
My Friend Neil Almost Got us Killed....................53
Jews, Religion, and Apartheid....................54
The Army....................59
Angry Enough to Kill....................62
Afrikaners Talking About Blacks in the Army....................63
English Speakers Were Called 'Soutpiel'....................63
Training for War....................64
Horse School....................65
To the Border and War....................66
Cruelty on the Train....................67
Farmer Killed by Terrorists....................68
Going into Angola....................69
Dead Cubans....................71
We Blow Up a House....................72
A Man With no Shoes....................73
A 'Prehistoric' Village in Angola....................74
Veggie Butcher....................74
Entering a Deserted Village in Angola....................75
We Owe our Lives to our Captain....................75
The Rape....................76
Brutality in Angola....................77
Leaving Angola....................78
Smuggling a Rifle Out....................79
A Shiny Parker Pen....................80
Going Home, Back to the Base, More Training....................80
Going Home and Payback....................81
Back Home....................82
My Decision to Leave....................83
Leaving Never to Return....................84
Epilogue....................87
About the Author....................89