An attempt at deconstructing “The Township”

Townships are such a difficult thing to understand or even attempt to explain, really. The thing is they’re not the same as “the projects” in the states, and if you try to understand them through that lens you’re bound to encounter many misunderstandings. From what I can understand, the most essential difference between segregation in the US and apartheid in South Africa was the sheer extent of oppression. While the US had segregationist policies implemented in things like water fountains and schooling, the equivalent of these policies were only considered acts of “petty apartheid” in South Africa’s book. The US never implemented the policy of territorial segregation that South Africa did under apartheid. Although this seems like a minute distinction in two stories of massive oppressive it actually makes a huge difference, both in historical terms, and in terms of effects on contemporary lifestyles. The difference is, while blacks in the US were forced into places like projects and slums because they were excluded from the economic opportunities to grant them purchasing power, blacks (including Coloureds and Indians) in South Africa were forced into townships by law.

So what does this mean for South Africa today, you ask? It means that the townships are very confusing places, and areas of astounding socioeconomic diversity. You could be living in an informal settlement (effectively a tin shack), or you could be living in a house like that of the family with which I stayed, where they certainly possess the purchasing power to live outside of townships but decide not to. Furthermore, there is often very little spatial division between these two extremes; for example, there was only a one-street-separation between the house I lived in and the informal settlement housing. This disparity was extremely baffling to me upon my arrival to Langa Township and inspired some of the very first questions I asked my homestay brother, Odwa. He explained that people tend to stay in townships because of the community and camaraderie that lies within, irrespective of the amount of personal wealth one possesses. He added that the townships also provide a certain extent of free amenities such as water and electricity, which makes staying in the township more convenient on a very basic level. What this cracks down to is that there’s, perhaps, not as much of an ultimate goal to “move on up to the east side”, or to the suburbs, as would be the equivalent here. Although complex, to me it seems to exemplify the African concept of “ubuntu”, or humanity, in which the value of our neighbors and communities is emphasized over our own personal goals and desires.