“We just can’t go on in this way,” said South Africa’s President De Klerk three decades ago as the toils apartheid were bringing his country to its knees. After years of brutally segregating black and white people, De Klerk announced in 1990 that the system would be abandoned […]
Just a short distance from the hustle and bustle of Hillbrow – perhaps Johannesburg’s most notorious, crime-ridden central city suburb – there is an air of calm on Constitutional Hill. So-called because the South Africa Constitutional Court has been here since 2003, visitors are greeted by a smart […]
Approaching Soweto today, it’s hard to think of this sprawling township on the edge of Johannesburg as a where the beginning of the end of apartheid was triggered after scenes of brutal racial oppression were witnessed on TV news bulletins around the world. My first impressions of the […]
From the window of my hotel room, I had a ring-side seat of a harbour – South Africa’s busiest – bustling with activity. Cranes were hoisting large containers off ships, ready for onward travel by road and rail and loud beeping sounds reverberated across the bay as vehicles […]
Past In The Present 