A pinnacle of resilience against the then young apartheid machine, its demolishment crushed the dreams of over 65,000 but reignited the fight against dominion and oppression.
Image: DeepAI
On Sunday, February 9, South Africa commemorated 70 years since the residents of Sophiatown were forcefully removed from their homes by the apartheid government.
The destruction of Sophiatown in 1955, a district on the edge of the city of Johannesburg that was a poor, multi-racial and vibrant cultural hub, filled with artistic expression in different forms, still haunts many people to this day.
It served to become a pinnacle of resilience against the then young apartheid machine, as its demolishment crushed the dreams of over 65,000, but reignited the fight against dominion and oppression.
As the nation grapples with conspiracies about discrimination against white people due to the Expropriation Act spewed by the richest country in the world, those who have actually felt the sting of forced removal and displacement have wounds that have neither scarred nor scabbed over but are still aching and disturbed by the constant attempt to rewrite history.
Donato Mattera, poet and author wrote in his biography "Sophiatown": "We gave way, there was nothing we could do, although the bitterness stung in us, and in the earth around us."
An abhorrent miscarriage of justice, descendants of the area whose pain has reverberated over the decade want the government to do right by them.
"My family was one of these families. My mother often recounts the story of the day armed men showed up at their home in Sophiatown and forced them (she was five-years-old then) onto the back of a truck with all their belongings.
"The ironically named Meadowlands was to be their new home. There were no schools, or trees or clinics or parks. Just rows and rows of newly constructed asbestos-roof houses. And as you can imagine ... No compensation," said Rise Mzansi national chairperson, Vuyiswa Ramokgopa wrote on X.
Another person on the micro-blogging platform has a similar recounting of this dark past.
"My mother narrated this day with such trauma and pain because she was 21, recently moved in with husband and pregnant with her first born. They were taken to Noordgesig. Eventually, they settled in Naledi but would walk to Langlaagte/Mayfair for work in the coming years."
Tagging AfriForum, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, activist Palesa Moroenyane added: "And my family, the Khashanes, Molokwanes, Mogapis and Machetes were amongst those families so YES, the expropriation of land was first introduced by the Europeans who changed their identity to Afrikaners post 1994.
"Until the 1990s, white South Africans of European descent ruled South Africa, enforcing the brutal system of apartheid against the country's black majority."
She went on to say that white Afrikaners want to maintain their position of privilege, and that expropriation of land threatens their comfort.
"There is no genocide taking place in South Africa. All these nonsensical allegations are the efforts to push back the land reform agenda in the country."
IOL