Tour of Soweto, Part III: Freedom Tower and Walter Sisulu Square

 

Following a walk through the Hector Pieterson Museum, we hopped in the car and drove to Kliptown, a bustling downtown area of Soweto complete with street vendors selling everything from fruits and vegetables to live chickens and even haircuts. A large, two-winged modern building dominates the area and it's V-shape creates an enormous brick-paved courtyard between the two wings. The building houses a conference center, museum, retail space, commercial offices and the Soweto Hotel, a 48-room 4-star hotel. At one end of the building, where the V-shape meets, is the Walter Sisulu monument. Walter Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activitst and member of the African National Congress (ANC) along with Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. Like Mandela, Sisulu spent 26 years in prison, mostly on Robben Island off the coast from Capetown, for treason. Consisting of 10 concrete "freedom" columns - 5 are made of black concrete with white aggregate and 5 are made of white concrete with black aggregate - the monument represents the new South Africa where black and white people stand together in harmony. Although I didn't see it at night, apparently the columns are illuminated in the colors of the South African flag.

In the center of the courtyard between the V-shaped modern buildings sits a cone-shaped brick "smokestack," a monument to the Freedom Charter of 1955. The open-air structure contains a large marble circle, divided into 10 pie-shaped pieces inscribed with the 10 pillars of the Freedom Charter. Here's the history of the Freedom Charter: In 1955 the ANC sent out 50,000 volunteers into townships and the countryside to collect 'freedom demands' from the people of South Africa. The results were synthesized into a final document by ANC leaders and was officially adopted by roughly 3,000 delegates on June 25, 1955 at a congress of people on this site in Kliptown. Shortly after the delegates shouted their approval of all 10 pillars, the meeting was broken up by police. Nelson Mandela, one of the delegates, only escaped the police by disguising himself as a milkman!

The 1955 Freedom Charter:

"We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know that South Africa belongs to all who live it it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all of the people; that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race sex or belief; and therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter; and we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won." The 10 pillars of the Freedom Charter:

The People Shall Govern!
All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!
The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth!
The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!
All Shall be Equal Before the Law!
All Shall Enjoy Human Rights!
There Shall be Work and Security
The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!
There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!
There Shall be Peace and Friendship!

This Freedom Charter was obviously ignored by the minority whites in power and for the next 35 years the Apartheid government became more and more strict, instituting policies that further divided people based on their race. After the fall of Apartheid in 1990, the new Constitution of South Africa included in its text many of the demands called for in the Freedom Charter, particularly regarding equality of race and language.