Dressed men told to drop their pants
Naked. Humiliated. Hoping to God time's going to go quickly. Trying to pass off awkwardness with a shrug and wry jokes; big-shot businessmen, professional men, ordinary guys just come for a pass stand around stripped in the waiting-room of the Non-European Affairs Department in Johannesburg each work-day of the week. Hundreds of them, each day.
You want a pass. Right. You go into a structure that looks like a public convenience. It is on the corner of Albert and Polly Streets. You find a blackjack—one of those black-uniformed municipal policemen—sitting on a high stool. He barks at you that you should not be an idiot: can't you join the queue? You join the queue of hundreds of other Africans, and you get counted off.
If you are in the batch that is to see the doctor for a medical certificate, you get a little ticket that permits you to enter the eastern gate to the great building of the city's Non-European Affairs Department. You join another queue that goes in and out of iron railings and right into the building.
Inside you meet white-coated clerks and medical aids who yell you into removing your top clothing, yell you into joining a queue that leads to a green-curtained room, and yell others off from this sacrosanct queue.
In due course you get your turn to step up to the X-ray machine, hug it according to instructions, and your chest gets X-rayed. Then you pass into an inner room where you are curtly told to drop your trousers, all of you in a row.
You may be a dignified businessman, a top-class lawyer, a jeweller, a wood merchant, or anybody. You will find yourself naked. Well, you wanted a permit to work in Johannesburg, didn't you? The official world is not finicky about your embarrassed modesty.
Recently the Non-European Affairs Department issued a new instruction that all Africans who work for themselves, that is, all Africans who don't work for a European, must also be registered. This edict includes some of the elite members of African society: businessmen, doctors, musicians, lawyers, and also those who are still looking for work.
There seems to be an obvious connection with the panic over the Reef's crime wave, for many people have blamed the workless Africans for the crimes, and some of the businessmen are blamed for encouraging thefts and robberies by receiving stolen goods.
Mr John Raditsebe, of 71 Victoria Road, Sophiatown, Johannesburg, is a watchmaker. He has a little shop near the corner of Ray Street. Behind his shop are living quarters. Sometimes he has to work deep into the night to cope with the demand for his services.
Like so many others he had to go and fix his passes. He, too, had to walk the gauntlet of humiliation. ‘This pass, however,’ he says, ‘is so precious that one shuts one's eyes and goes through with the miserable experience.’
And there's Mr W. Lubengu, of Sophiatown, a wood merchant. Mr Rufus Khoza, of the famous Manhattan Brothers, a world-famous singer now. And more and more.
One of the most startling things that have come from this strange business is the verdict of the people affected. Terse, tired: ‘Official contempt!’ that is all they say.
The authorities claim that the humiliation of the mass naked parade is unavoidable. If they tried to give everyone individual attention they wouldn't have time to get through their work.
Pressed further, one official said, ‘What's so wrong with this, after all? Why, during the war, old men, young men had to strip all together. They thought nothing of it.’
But, Mr Official, Mr Non-European Affairs Department, Mr Everybody who thinks things like this are OK, we aren't at war. There's no emergency. We're a civilized country, we keep telling the rest of the world.