As a young boy I used to catch a bus home from school. The journey took a little over an hour and took me past District Six, an area that had once been one of the most vibrant multi-racial communities in South Africa. The priest in District Six, John da Costa, had been a family friend and we occasionally visited, including at New Year for its famous Cape Carnival. Hardly any white people would go to the carnival.
In 1966, the government declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act 1950, with forced removals of all “non-white” people from the area, starting in 1968. By 1971 much of District Six had been bulldozed.
On one particular day, as my bus sped from the affluent suburb where I was at school to another affluent suburb where we lived, an eight or nine mile journey, we passed a row of boarded-up, derelict shops on the edge of District Six. In one doorway an old black man in rags lay on the ground trying to fend off vicious blows and kicks from two young white men. The beating, which I saw for at most two or three seconds, was merciless.
My bus continued on its way. I never mentioned what I had seen to anyone until I was about 30 years old. But it had a lasting impact on me. Even today I can close my eyes and see that assault. That momentary snapshot told me that there was something seriously wrong with the society I was living in. At the time, as an 11-year-old, I did not have the language nor the awareness to analyse the power dynamic and abuse that was being perpetrated. All I knew was that something was wrong. The violence was sickening and even today I get distressed when witnessing any violence.
Today I can intellectualise what was happening. The victim was black. He was homeless and poor. He was weak and powerless. The perpetrators were white, young and strong. They might have been policemen. The victim had no recourse to justice. Had he filed a report at the local police station, at best he would have been laughed at. More likely he would have received another beating.
I don’t know what happened to that man, who he was, or how and when he died. But I know that some of the things I have done in my life to oppose apartheid, racism, ageism and violence has been driven by an abhorrence of injustice, violence, abuse and exploitation originating from those two or three seconds as my bus rushed by.
Today children in our communities will be having similar awakenings. It won’t be the forced removals of entire population groups and unrestrained violence. But they see and are affected by parents having to go to food banks. They see their mother going without meals as she struggles to feed her family. Homeless families live in unsuitable temporary accommodation, forced to move from one address to another, sometimes away from family, friends and schools.
Children see their parents struggling to heat their homes. Days out, treats and holidays are just what other children enjoy. Excuses are made not to go to a party or other events and not ever being able to invite friends round to play or for a sleepover is the norm.
How will they react in the long term? How will it affect them in later life? The love of a parent might sustain them and they might be inspired by their parents’ struggle. Alternatively, they might become resentful and angry. Life in the UK has become more unfair. The welfare state, the education system, and life in general is failing them.
There is a human cost to injustice, poverty and homelessness, paid for years to come. While the injustices of apartheid were obvious, so too are the injustices in today’s Britain where the rich continue to get richer and increasing numbers are abandoned to relative poverty.
South Africa had aspirations to do better than apartheid but has been failed by the new political elite. Meanwhile, UK politicians have abandoned children and young people, a generation that is being scarred by the violence of poverty every bit as real as that experienced by that old man back in District Six.
Andy Winter is a former councillor who worked in social care and homelessness services for 40 years
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