You’re one pay cheque away from this place 
In July 2016, critic Anna Leszkiewicz wrote a piece in the New Statesman with the headline ‘Does Reggie Yates have the weirdest career in television?’ Thankfully, the thoughtful piece was generous in its praise, charting the broad spectrum of work in my career culminating in my most recent documentaries.
Anna had a good handle on every stage of my varied and eclectic career to date, and how it’s shaped who I am on screen today. In reading the piece, even I had to take a moment. There were so many lessons learned with every turn and none more pertinent to my more recent work than Famous, Rich and in the Slums.
In September 2010, the project was shot as part of Comic Relief, the BBC’s biennial comedy-driven fundraising night. Spending a week living and working in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera, I was made to immerse myself in the issues residents faced daily. The slum was populated entirely by a poverty-struck black community, and seeing as we were in Africa, I couldn’t help but see my own family members reflected in the people around me.
Thankful to find myself back home after what was a difficult and testing project, I never thought I’d be shooting in an African slum again. But being the loudmouth I can’t help but be, I made the universe-baiting mistake to openly announce, ‘I’ll never do anything like that ever again.’ How wrong was I.
The Extreme South Africa series consisted of three films equally challenging in their own unique way. It was 2013 and I was still establishing myself in what was a whole new area for me. I was yet to figure out my rhythm in making documentaries, and was in all honesty running on instinct. I’d go on to find out so much about myself and the filmmaking process predominantly due to the mistakes I’d learn from and never forget.
I realised the importance of having the right team, of challenging contributors on camera, and that putting my thoughts and feelings out there – right or wrong – would only help the film and, in the long term, me as a man. One film in particular brought together the above and so much more. This film would deliver experiences I’d go on to draw from, helping me in the long run to be better on screen. This film was The White Slums. It was the first that went to air in the Extreme South Africa series and pulled no punches in telling the complicated and heart-breaking history of race relations in South Africa.
One of the things I’m most thankful for is just how much looking inward was required to honestly tackle what I was faced with. This film stirred up some unresolved issues with the realities of poverty I’d only really begun to confront in Kenya. Seen as one of the continent’s biggest success stories, South Africa has a recent past that some people would prefer to forget.
I landed in Cape Town and was taken straight to the beach. I’d got off the flight still wearing way too many layers, but I was so excited to see Table Mountain for the first time, I did my best to ignore the heat. Standing beneath one of the continent’s most famous landmarks I was in awe of its natural beauty. I stared and smiled like a proper tourist, but probably should have dropped my winter coat and the stupid grin.
Only twenty years prior, my coat would have been the least of my worries. With Apartheid laws in place, my skin colour alone would have made my presence on the beach illegal. Between 1948 and 1994 South Africa was racially segregated; this institutional discrimination that brutally oppressed black people only ended when Nelson Mandela was elected president.
But twenty years on and some people were convinced the country was still governed by racist policies. What I didn’t expect to find were some of the loudest voices on this issue saying it wasn’t black South Africans who were now oppressed, it was the whites.
Since the African National Congress (ANC) came into power, they have been accused of replacing one kind of racism with another. Some believed that the new government was openly ensuring all available opportunities were now afforded to black South Africans with a view to give them a greater share of the economy.
With the swing of power taking a recent dramatic turn, I expected those years of hatred to force black and white South Africa towards reconciliation. That was the picture painted to my naïve British eyes during the 2010 World Cup. South Africa played host nation and didn’t shy away from the country’s history; it embraced its progress as strength and presented a united country.
Within hours of arriving in Johannesburg it was obvious this wasn’t the case. As we drove into the city, the large plastic screens either side of the motorway did a poor job of masking the endless townships that seemed to go on as far as my eyes could see. Then, getting closer to downtown Jo’burg, the townships disappeared and visible wealth was everywhere.
That was until I arrived at Coronation Park. On the edge of the city sat a place where some of the hardest-hit white South Africans had made their home.
You’re one pay cheque away from this place
Worried about how they might receive me, I was forced to consider who I might be in their eyes. It hadn’t occurred to me until I laid eyes on their living conditions that I appeared to be everything they were battling with. On appearance alone, I probably typified the kind of privileged twenty-first-century young black man they felt was robbing them of valuable opportunities in life.
During Apartheid, the park had been a picnic place exclusively for white middle-class families. I pulled in to the now empty and unkempt public space, and it was obvious Coronation Park had become something totally different. Garden sheds and tents were smashed up against ramshackle single-storey buildings; rows of small wooden boxes were surrounded by a chain link fence clearly marking a huge chunk of the park as living quarters.
This was a tiny village of self-built dwellings. This was a slum, but a slum created exclusively for a white underclass.
Barking dogs and litter filled the walkways between houses. Kids covered in mud playing barefoot in the dirt seemed to be doing so without any supervision. This was poverty and a version of it I’d never seen before.
In the UK, the regular televised charity appeals calling for donations for Africa almost leave you desensitised to the plight of those in need. The pictures I’d grown up confronted by were African children who through no fault of their own were subjected to poverty. Those posters, TV appeals and music videos I’d seen since I was a child myself all featured black kids just like me. Now I was looking at kids living in the same conditions, but these children were white.
I felt ashamed that I’d connected poverty and race. My knowledge of white South Africans didn’t fit this picture and my mind was racing. What I thought I knew died; I’d never seen what was now in front of me. Poverty is poverty and seeing white people living this way didn’t make it any worse than if I’d have found black people in Coronation Park. But the shock of my own expectation, of placing the black experience as synonymous with struggle, upset and embarrassed me and fired me up at the same time.
I met camp leader Irene who’d set up home in the park eight years prior. She believed most people living in the park were there because there just weren’t enough jobs for white people any more. ‘You’re one pay cheque away from this place. Something can happen to you and you’ll end up here.’
Described by Irene as a white squatter camp, she explained that residents could build their own homes and didn’t need to pay to be there. With 287 residents running their homes on generators and no power in sight, the camp had its fair share of fires. Smoke from wood burners and blackened pots holding stew sat outside most doorways.
The way these people were living made me totally forget that a 200-yard walk in any direction would bring me within view of a major and busy road. We were smack bang in the centre of the city and I’d totally begun to forget. My surroundings were suddenly a world away from life beyond the park.
With no proper sanitation and stray animals everywhere, health was a real concern. Repeated attempts to shut the camp down had failed as new people arrived constantly. Mainly Afrikaans speaking and white, Coronation Park was unlike the Africa I knew.
Of course, with both my parents having been born and raised in Ghana, I fancied myself well versed in Africa. I’d travelled there for the first time aged four and several times since, giving me what can only be described in hindsight as a rose-tinted view. My experiences in Ghana led me to see the motherland solely in the context of progress. I’d always stay in Accra (Ghana’s capital city) and get off on the development I’d see. International investment and a growing multicultural community made my pride for Africa something I’d never hide.
Taking every opportunity to get on my soap box about why it’s so special to friends, I became that annoying guy shouting about where everyone should be spending their precious holidays. This broken and segregated version of South Africa wasn’t what I knew Africa to be, this wasn’t what was presented during the World Cup. This wasn’t what I wanted to be exposed to.
We are not the chosen ones
I was introduced to twenty-seven-year-old JD who lived in the camp with his pregnant wife, mother and two children. An artist making a living by selling beautiful photo-like pencil portraits, his quiet yet analytical eye made his take on the situation refreshingly objective. With a fading smile, JD explained his reasons for living in the camp as being, ‘Hit by life, hit to my knees’. Reflecting that so many white South Africans, through no fault of their own, now find themselves on the back foot, he simply stated, ‘We are not the chosen ones.’
With roots in Europe, most white South Africans are called Afrikaners, being direct descendants of the Dutch settlers. During the Apartheid years, this white community separated themselves from the black majority, with many – most – seeing themselves as a superior race. Gaining power and control led to this minority affording themselves only the best education and the best jobs. A super wealthy white elite emerged making the wealth gap synonymous with race.
Then in 1990, the release from prison of Nelson Mandela saw a seismic change. As the leader of the black resistance, alongside his freedom-fighting wife Winnie, the Mandelas changed South Africa forever.
Even with this all being such recent African history, more than 50 per cent of privately owned assets in South Africa are still controlled by the same white minority. The stunning beachfront homes and modern dream mansions I purred over on my drive in, suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
I was working with Sam again as my director, and he and I had found a rhythm. Between knowing when to keep pushing even if we were totally obliterated and when to down tools and rest, we’d previously delivered films we were proud of and had developed a strong shorthand. He still had an unhealthy obsession with pastel colours and short shorts, but by now I’d accepted his fashion choices and he’d accept the insults.
A few days in and my presence in the camp was no longer news; it was common knowledge. Most people didn’t bat an eyelid to Sam and I skulking about the place. I say most people; the kids had found something new to play with and it was us.
We fascinated a small group of boys all under fourteen, none more than the super-inquisitive Winston. I found it hilarious that this white Afrikaner kid had the most West Indian name but had no idea. As soon as he shared it with me, I couldn’t help but to shout it with a broad Jamaican accent, made funnier by the fact that he and his friends adopted the pronunciation too.
After a lot of thought, I decided to stay on site in a tent. I don’t know who I was kidding as I’m definitely not the camping type, but needed to get under the skin of the camp. Showing willing to sleep in Coronation Park I figured could only help gain the trust needed to really understand the place better. To be totally transparent, that willing came with a lot of arm-twisting from Sam, and it worked.
Having only ever camped on screen and never through choice, putting up a tent was like building an entire IKEA kitchen with no instructions. There were poles, forks and things I’d never seen before. It just wasn’t going to happen without help, even if Sam was having the best time filming me struggle.
The boys packed in their game of cricket and decided to give me a hand. As the seemingly random pile of materials started to look like somewhere I could sleep, I got chatting with Winston. Affable but shy, Winston was sweet, handsome and full of questions. It was when I started to quiz him that his voice got smaller with every answer.
Representing nearly one-third of the camp’s inhabitants, children under sixteen are a huge part of Coronation Park. Winston had started his life in a world unlike his nearest neighbours on the other side of the park gates, but I wasn’t sure if he was bothered. As soon as we started speaking, however, he quietly let me know just how aware he was of his lot in life. Totally clear about the way the world saw the camp, Winston was embarrassed about where he lived and said that he wouldn’t want kids from the outside world to know where he was from. His main dislike was the issues with addiction he’d been confronted by. Witnessing regular fights and arguments was his biggest gripe and understandably so as I couldn’t imagine anyone in a rush to call the police to break up disturbances in what was an illegal settlement.
Irene decided to introduce me to one of the few people living in the park with a regular job to go to. Squelching our way through the wet muddy grounds after a day of light rain, we arrived at a wood-walled shack belonging to her son Gerry.
Stocky, broad and all eyebrows, Gerry worked as a welder and shared his home with a young wife and three children. Gerry was young himself and wore a not quite-there beard, unknowingly showing his age. As one of the few working men living on the camp, he had one of the bigger homes with separate rooms and a big-screen TV. Regardless of his employment, his wage wasn’t enough to afford a place outside the park.
The conditions in the ‘house’ weren’t fit for anyone to live in, let alone people trying to raise small children. Gerry and his wife made it as clean and homely as possible, but no matter what they did, the dirt and dust they just couldn’t keep out continually made their children ill.
Afrikaner charities believe a new underclass has formed with whites-only settlements just like Coronation Park across the country. Gerry and his family were a great example of people doing everything in their power to progress but unable to, due to a system they saw as racist.
Working since the age of sixteen, Gerry believed he was doing the best he could for his family, but between his qualifications and the opportunities afforded to the white working class, his potential to climb the ladder at work was minimal. With tears in his eyes, Gerry couldn’t contain his emotions as he expressed his frustration. His family was suffering and no matter what he did or how hard he worked, he saw no change in their future.
Playing the race card was something I’d only heard people that looked like me be accused of. To hear so many white people blame their quality of life and prospects on their skin colour was a first, but it was a belief I’d hear more and more as the days went on.
It was my first morning waking up in the camp. My cheap tent was sweating and I had a pain in my lower back after spending the night laying on a rock. Schoolboy error. I shouted for Sam, who’d apparently had a great night’s sleep. I had a sneaking suspicion he’d snuck off in the middle of the night and had a few hours in a nearby hotel, but he was at least making an effort to make me feel we were in this together.
At the first sign of movement, Winston and the boys rocked my tent. They were like kids on Christmas morning and I was their new toy. It’s always nice to feel in demand, but not at 7am while you’re swearing at a rock for giving you a bruise.
Shaking off the excitable boys and their offers to join them for a pre-breakfast game of cricket, I helped JD start his morning fire for tea. Months away from his fourth child being born, JD knew that once delivered, his little one would be brought to the camp. With Irene on board and the support of the camp, JD felt as if his new child wouldn’t just survive the harsh conditions but be safe in the community it was being welcomed into.
Social housing felt to me like the best way to protect and grow a young family of his size. But with over two million people on the waiting list for rehousing in the city, JD saw a government-assisted roof over their heads as a dream.
Diamond in the rough, in need of some polishing
Heading back to the centre of Johannesburg, I reconnected with an old friend and Jo’burg resident Sizwe. As one of the leading faces on MTV Africa, Sizwe and I met through one of my now best friends, Yemi Bamiro. At the time, Yemi-Bam (as I called him) was the director I’d always be paired with for MTV, and that particular gig saw us covering the European Music Awards in Germany.
We were shooting a crazy sequence with a few hundred dancers having a pillow fight in underwear (it was MTV, don’t ask), while Sizwe was doing the grown-up thing asking really smart questions to some of the biggest names in music. Catching up on his corner of the globe was perfect as I couldn’t think of a better person to give me a breakdown on what it meant to be young, South African and black.
Gerry and Irene had laid out the way they saw the world, but just how different would Sizwe’s take on the country he loves so much be? We hopped into his just-washed Mercedes Benz and I was instantly in a different world. Sizwe was educated, international and successful with a huge job in media. Given his lifestyle, there was no way Sizwe could possibly identify with the lens Gerry viewed the world through. Surely?
As we drove through the shiny apartment buildings and skyscrapers that dominated central Jo’burg, Sizwe pointed out countless developments and the growth of the city. This was a man proud of the changes he saw around him, and an obvious embodiment of the successful black contingent we hear so little about in the West.
Introducing me to the excitement associated with young black success, Sizwe explained how he’d been lumped in with a group now known as the ‘Black Diamonds’. Originally coined to reflect a community growing almost as quickly as their spending power, the Black Diamonds were affluent and influential young black South Africans. It evolved from a word thrown around by marketing types carving out a corner with ever-increasing earnings, but ‘Black Diamond’ is now used almost exclusively as a pejorative term. Laughing off his connection to the label, Sizwe referred to himself as a ‘Diamond in the rough in need of some polishing’. He was proud of his hard-earned success, with or without the title.
But despite the growth of a black middle class, the majority of wealth still remained in the hands of the old white masters. Our drive continued and Sizwe pointed out the armed guards and gates protecting mansions and car collections. These were the homes of the white elite hidden behind high walls and barbed wire.
With a huge gap between the haves and have nots, the ANC introduced the affirmative action policy (AA for short) in an attempt to rebalance wealth and opportunity. Quickly transforming the South African courtroom, AA ushered in a shake-up, ensuring over 60 per cent of the most senior judges in the country were now black. According to Sizwe, in this climate you’re better off if you’re black.
Sizwe believed, as a non-white South African, ‘The odds are stacked in your favour.’ He was adamant that he’d get chosen over his white equivalent when applying for a job. I was shocked. As far as I was concerned, discrimination is disgusting regardless of the victim’s race. South Africa has seen a dramatic change of power and the white minority are now the marginalised.
But was this reverse racism or a long overdue rebalance of a corrupt system? In the current climate, the black population is seeing opportunities in a way they never had done before. Progress is always a positive thing, but I struggle to agree with any progress that is to the detriment of others. I’ve always believed equality is about treating everyone the same, but things were different here.
Known as ‘Boer’ people, this Afrikaans word meaning ‘farmer’ is used to describe the descendants of Dutch settlers. Until the nineties, the ruling Boer treated the black majority as little better than animals. Removing families from their homes by force, the ruling whites created huge ring-fenced compounds with basic buildings to rehouse the black majority. These compounds inevitably grew into what we now know as townships.
The white regime ruthlessly enforced their laws, leaving a stain on the country’s history still felt today. The legacy of those settlements is still visible in the never-ending townships; it touches and arguably impacts on the lives of millions of black people to this day.
I met twenty-eight-year-old Colin, an expert on the history of race relations in South Africa. He schooled me on life in the Alexandra Township, which houses many black people living in poverty. He described growing up in an environment where residents were under constant threat from what they called the ‘Mellow Yellow vans’. These were government-funded vehicles that appeared and scooped people up who were usually never seen again. Colin explained that when they arrived, men, women and children would run for their lives.
Having been under constant threat of violence from authority, these communities’ relations with the powers that be are still incredibly strained. In my mind, segregation was always a word I’d associated with the United States and the fight for equality in the sixties. Colin was educating me on much more recent history. Frightening anecdotes like that of the Mellow Yellow vans were tied to my lifetime as Apartheid didn’t end until the 1990s.
Blacks who broke segregation laws were sent to prison. Colin took me to the Old Fort, one such location that has now become a museum. Even with open cells and unlocked gates, the building remained intimidating and contained an unsettling atmosphere that hung in the air. While awaiting trial, Nelson Mandela was incarcerated at the Old Fort.
Colin broke down what went on during the prison’s functioning years, and I couldn’t help but feel sick. We sat in the central courtyard which was open air and visible from all sides of the prison. This was the area guards used for acts of humiliation. One such degradation was the ‘strip search dance’. Inmates were stripped naked, made to spread their legs and arms then jump. They then had to clap their hands above their head, leaping in the air and making a clicking sound. If no objects were seen to fall from the body, officers would insert a finger or torch inside an inmate’s rectum to ensure nothing was hidden. This humiliation was assigned to those suspected of smuggling and included both men and women.
The brave people fighting to change the system dreaded being caught by the police, as they would invariably receive brutal and inhumane treatment. Freedom fighters were kept in solitary confinement cells no wider than a single mattress. Walking in and lying down on the concrete floor where inmates would have had to sleep, I couldn’t help but feel like I was in a coffin. The tall, thin cells had no furniture and tiny windows.
In one generation, the country had gone from government-sanctioned brutality towards blacks to affirmative action. But being sat in that cell began to weigh on me. The degree of injustice experienced here spoke to the level of anger understandably still fresh in the air. Swimming in the atmosphere of the prison I felt an anger of my own beginning to bubble in me too.
It’s a black government, it’s a black country, they don’t want white people here
Today, black and white South Africans are afforded the same freedoms. Regardless, at the time we were making the film, sixteen million black South Africans were still living in poverty. With that being the case, the leg-up on a systemic level is understandable, but where does that leave the white people living in poverty like those in Coronation Park?
Once part of the privileged minority, Irene, her son Gerry and the rest of the white South Africans living in the camp saw their living conditions as a result of the new system. Nonetheless, Irene believed on some level it was just. Seeing her situation as a direct result of her forefathers’ sins, Irene was resolute: ‘It’s time now for us to pay for what our fathers did.’
When I first met Gerry, I’d got the impression that he was frustrated and felt powerless in the situation he didn’t create but was born into. What I didn’t realise straightaway was just how deep those frustrations went. Seconds into Gerry joining my conversation with Irene, he slipped into a rant that started calmly but quickly escalated.
‘What happened twenty years ago was nothing to do with me,’ he barked, as his mother’s take on the situation annoyed him. Gerry believed his generation had done nothing to deserve their reality. He was frustrated that black workers doing the same job as him could go on to be promoted or gain better jobs in a way that was apparently denied to him. As he became more emotional, Gerry began to raise his voice, harking back nostalgically to the days of Apartheid, saying he felt segregation had made South Africa a better place. Believing there was a better economy and lifestyle for all under segregation, his total disregard for what Apartheid meant to the country’s black population was unfortunately not as surprising to me as I’d have liked it to be.
Wherever I find myself in the world, I try to take people as I find them and focus on the similarities we share rather than the differences. I’ve always harped on in interviews about the idea that people are the key to any issue at the core of my work. What that really means is that if I can’t connect with who I meet, I can’t truly know why they hold the views they do.
My desire in meeting Gerry was to paint a picture of who he was and what mattered to him before getting into his feelings on the state of the country. I had suspected his views might differ from his mother’s or at the very least be one sided due to the extreme nature of his reality.
As his voice got louder still, I felt disappointed that those niggling suspicions sat at the back of my mind on that very first meeting were all being proven. This was a man who held offensive and racist views, but Gerry was also a man so boxed in by his situation he seemed to need someone to blame.
‘But the black people had jobs,’ he snapped, and I had to remind him that some may have been given employment, but none had basic human rights. ‘I can’t say because I wasn’t there’ was Gerry’s way of deflecting the fact that the injustices dealt out during segregation didn’t remotely compare to his situation.
‘It’s a black government, it’s a black country, they don’t want white people here.’ Gerry walked back to his shack cradling his son in his arms. The entire time we went back and forth, he held his child close. Gerry clearly loved his family and the life he held in his arms seemed to be a present and constant reminder of who he was working so hard for. Given his job, his earning power and his prospects, Gerry seemed to have decided that the life he wanted for his children may not happen.
As Gerry stamped off back to his shack, a watching neighbour bumped fists with him in a show of support. It occurred to me in that moment that Gerry might not have been speaking just for himself. Maybe his outlook was more common than I’d realised.
As I stood alone in the aftermath of this conversation, Gerry’s hard and unrelenting views felt increasingly like less of a defence and more of a comfort blanket for his position. Gerry wanted better but might have quietly recognised this was his lot.
To say the people of Coronation Park were stuck there sounds like a cop-out, but this was the inescapable reality. The laws in place might have played a part in why progressing was so difficult, namely affirmative action. With fewer opportunities in the workplace given to white applicants, the chances of Coronation Park growing were high. Putting myself in the shoes of a working-class white man like Gerry, I can see how race resentment could fester and grow. Unfortunately, Gerry was one of many in the same position.
In desperate need of some objectivity and a less heated conversation, I pulled up a tree stump and shared a fire with JD and his family. As ever, their corner of the camp was warm, light-hearted and full of considered thought. I shared my conversation with Gerry and my belief in what fuelled his frustrations. JD cracked a wry smile and in his slow and now familiar delivery he hummed, ‘I ended up here for a reason, nobody comes in here because the country is screwed up, they come in here because they screwed up.’
JD had a point. Everyone in Coronation Park had a story, everyone had a life before the camp. Something must have gone wrong with their lives to have brought them there, but I hadn’t heard anyone speak about their journey. ‘You can’t blame everything on the system,’ JD said, and he was right. This was the first time I’d heard any ownership. Up until this point, nobody I had spoken to had seemed willing to accept the part they’d played in ending up homeless.
The more he spoke the more I needed to know who JD was before he’d arrived at Coronation Park with his family. ‘Even a rich guy can find himself here in two weeks.’ At one point, that’s exactly who JD was. He was in a band he refused to tell me the name of but he was doing well enough to look after his entire family. ‘I was a rock star, I used to sign boobs.’
JD told me that he had everything but was selfish and lost it all in a matter of days. When his music career ended, he struggled to find his feet and began to move from place to place. With a baby on the way and the responsibility of his entire family on his back, JD was living with immense pressure but somehow retained a sense of calm and dignity. I was in awe of the man. I’d never met anyone with such balance and objectivity, especially considering what he was dealing with. If I had to start again literally from nothing, I’m not sure if I could muscle up anywhere near as much resolve. This was the first time I’d seen this kind of strength in the camp, but with so many Afrikaners living in similar conditions, was JD a one-off?
Coronation Park wasn’t the only place where whites living on the breadline had created small camps or communities; it was beginning to happen across the country. I hopped in our comically small hire car and hit the road. The ugly car was tiny and slow and made it look like I was taking my driving test and Sam was my instructor. I crunched through the awful five-speed gearbox while Sam’s long legs got more and more numb the longer we were in the thing. To this day I have no idea why anyone thought a hatchback would be a good idea.
An hour’s crappy driving later, we were out of Johannesburg and had arrived in Pretoria. Once the spiritual heartland of Afrikaner population, the city is now predominantly black. We pulled into an estate made up of several small residential blocks, the biggest of which was no more than three stories tall. The condition of the estate suggested the blocks had been abandoned and recently kicked in and repurposed. They were all in a state of disrepair, but every flat seemed to have signs of life bursting from its windows. Washing lines filled balconies and people sat on short walls talking and smoking, not because they were after a tan, but because they had nowhere to go. Kids played barefoot in the dirt, but unlike Coronation Park, the kids here were black and white.
The illegal settlement was clearly home to both white Afrikaners and black immigrants from all over the continent. So many languages and dialects could be heard the minute we unfolded our bodies from the tiny car.
Young or old and regardless of colour, the residents all shared the same look. It was a strange mix of aggressive, defensive and helpless. A young white man sat biting his nails flanked by a rolled-up tent and duffel bags. Staring me down as I took it all in, a tone was set. Even the children playing in the flowerbeds watched me closely as I walked by. I was a new face and if tent man was anything to go by, new people seemed to be a regular fixture here. The problem was, in an environment like this where clearly trust was in short supply, new faces were greeted with scrutiny, not warmth.
Anyone who made a home here would be living side by side with his or her neighbours in desperation, whether black or white. The place really did feel like the end of the line.
I walked into the block through a set of double doors both defaced and bending out of the doorway. The smashed windows caused me to watch my step, and in paying attention to where I placed each foot, I couldn’t help but notice just how filthy the place was.
Standing at the entrance to a long dark hallway with door after door bolted shut with padlocks and chains, I rapped the wall to the first open flat. A smiling man quickly appeared and introduced himself as Hardis. Gangly and all limbs, the twenty-five-year-old greeted me with a massive boy-like smile and quickly introduced me to his tiny wife Vivian.
I walked into their single-room home and tried to focus on Hardis as my eyes were uncontrollably darting from corner to corner trying to take it all in. The room was rammed with stuff as this was an entire family operating out of a tiny space; the couple shared the space with their two children. The youngest looked no older than one and was flapping about on its back on the bed, the other was a cute little terror who was running about the place. The room showed all the obvious signs of a family who’d outgrown their space. Clothes were overflowing from every corner, while toys, food and all sorts of other stuff took over every surface.
Home for the last four years, the room was safe and all they could afford. What I hadn’t considered was their choice of building, as their room wasn’t picked randomly. Hardis explained that this was a whites-only building. The other blocks were either mixed or all black.
This self-imposed segregation even in poverty was baffling. With a shared sense of struggle being a constant for every resident, I would have expected people to be drawn closer regardless of race. Hardis claimed, ‘They keep to themselves. You leave them alone, they leave you alone.’ The only other place I’d heard people speak in that way about living alongside a different racial group was in prison.
Hardis took me on a walk around the block and I wasn’t ready for what I was about to see. The shared shower and toilet facilities were filthy. The toilet cubicle doors were all broken with no working lights. Showers were full of mould and only pumped out cold water. His toddler ran ahead of us bare foot and Hardis pulled her close, lifting the child from the ground. He pointed out used needles and broken glass; this was no place for children.
We wondered over to a neighbouring block that was much quieter as it had been abandoned. Hardis explained that two months back, a resident lit a fire in their room to keep warm. Falling asleep with no one to keep watch, the fire eventually set the entire building alight. As we walked through the burnt shell, I looked into most rooms, stopping at one when I noticed a sleeping bag.
On the top floor, several of the rooms still riddled with ash and smoke stains had already been reclaimed by new residents moving in. These rooms had no windows and, in some cases, no roof, but some were willing to call the death trap home.
Desperate to find a way out of the estate, Hardis and Vivian were surviving without employment. The only incoming money they saw was coming from the unlicensed shop they ran out of their room’s window selling single cigarettes and sweets. Desperate to find work, Hardis claimed to have handed out over sixty CVs. He believed every job he’d apply for would end up going to his black equivalent due to AA laws.
Feeding the family with whatever was earned via the illegal shop, the family was living hand to mouth. What they fed their children and themselves came down to what they earned, which on the day of my visit, was nothing. Making do with what they had, a tiny single gas burner served as their cooker. Boiling macaroni in a pan, Vivian poured soup into the pasta from a pint glass.
Dinner was macaroni and soup. I watched Vivian dish the meal into plastic bowls for her husband and kids. Taking in the room, the, children … I couldn’t help but think this wasn’t a life. Like anyone, I struggle to witness poverty, but there and then it was so palpable and I hated it.
Poverty clearly wasn’t just a white issue, as at the time of making the film 45 per cent of black South Africans also lived below the breadline. People from both black and white communities were struggling. With the problem being so unavoidable in all corners of the country, why was it not higher on everyone’s agenda? I decided to head back to Coronation Park as one question continued to trouble me. How much did race play a part?
You won’t get white people here
Not long after arriving, I was given a rude awakening as to how different the South African worlds of the haves and have nots actually are. What I was about to witness would challenge my own prejudices and inadequacies, but this moment of clarity started with a conversation outside JD’s tent.
JD and I were chatting as ever and loud music playing from beyond the trees and into the park was unavoidable. Unsure as to who was responsible, he described the music makers as ‘the rich people’.
We climbed a small hill and were suddenly able to see out and into the other side of the park. Beside a stunning lake surrounded by trees was a clearing. A small drive where families could park up and picnic held several parked cars huddled around a barbecue. A group of young guys and girls were having the time of their lives dancing and drinking.
I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed at the assumption I’d made. I admitted to JD that due to his description of the noisemakers as being ‘the rich people’ I was expecting to see young privileged white kids. I was wrong, the group dancing and drinking by the lake were black.
According to JD, they were getting what they deserved as their parents wouldn’t even have been allowed in the park, let alone been free enough to party in public.
This was a group of middle-class kids from Soweto. The famous township was once a shadow of its current state, as today, Soweto has gentrified and attracted the upwardly mobile blacks, some of whom I was watching chug beer and booty pop on a car bonnet.
Cool boxes and food sat outside every car boot as the group of about twenty milled about with drinks and paper plates. It was a party and they were clearly having fun. They were enjoying (as JD put it) their deserved freedom, but what did they think of the residents in Coronation Park? I followed the noise and joined the group.
Drinks flowed and the music was loud. I asserted myself, cornering the chattiest guy to ask him about the camp. His reaction I didn’t see coming at all. He didn’t even believe it existed, let alone less than a hundred yards away. ‘You won’t get white people here.’ I pushed but he refused to accept the level of poverty I’d literally slept in the middle of.
Both JD and Hardis had a dream and that was to find work to feed his family. But unlike JD, Hardis wanted desperately to get his family out of South Africa. He felt strongly that, due to laws like AA, there wasn’t a future for his family in the country where he had been born and raised.
The voice of poor, young white men was loud and clear: they felt the South African system didn’t care. But what did their black equivalent feel about their chances? I took a drive out of town to attend a rally held by a political party known as Economic Freedom Fighters. The EFF were gathering a steady momentum and taking the poor young black contingent by storm.
My squeaky rental car was waved towards a makeshift car park beside a huge field. Men and women in red T-shirts and berets were everywhere. I hopped out of the embarrassing granny car and made my way towards the music and crowds. I jostled my way to the front, where a long strip of tape working as a barrier held the swelling crowd in place as all eyes were on the empty stage while distorted music played loudly.
As I’m sure you can imagine, it didn’t take long before the guy with the London accent and the white dude with the camera began to stand out a little. Suspicion swirled from the elders and, as usual, the kids were the first ones to come up and ask about my tattoos. It was a strange set-up as hundreds of people were literally standing around looking at each other and the stage in anticipation, but for what?
A short sweaty black guy in a red beret took to the mic and in no time had the crowd whipped up and in the palm of his hands. From old women right the way through to their grandchildren, everyone was raising fists while stood side by side screaming ‘Viva EFF viva!’
The party was growing quickly with support swelling particularly in rural townships. The party believed that affirmative action as a law wasn’t doing enough for young poor blacks. Rising up as an alternative to the in-power and well-loved ANC, EFF believed the current government hadn’t gone far enough to ensure more black people had a route out of poverty.
The EFF was calling for a total overhaul in societal structure. One of their more controversial policies relates to the sensitive issue of farmland. Intrinsically connected to the wealth of the Boer people, the EFF wanted white-owned farmland to be taken back. Also calling for nationalisation of lucrative natural mineral mines, the party and its leader were ruffling some serious feathers.
The party had become controversial, as they’d been known to sing a famous Apartheid rebellion song ‘Shoot the Boer, kill the farmer’. Speaking directly to the anger and frustrations of voters who lived in poor townships, the party and their unapologetic attitude to their former oppressors had become national news.
In the opinion of Gerry, the current government might have served the black South African people better, but poverty for the black majority is still rife. Poor black people were still angry and demanding more to be done.
People had been staring and sizing me up, and inevitably they began asking me questions. I found myself getting into a conversation with a few red berets from the party. A young father and I got into it and quickly; his version of South Africa stood out as a totally different world to Gerry’s. He referred to the country’s current state as that of so-called independence. ‘I may be free to sit next to a white person on a bus, but I’ve got no income.’
The similarities were uncanny, these people felt just as marginalised and ignored as Hardis. People at the rally wanted change, and the feeling of militancy was in the air. The excitement reached fever pitch as a silver Mercedes arrived.
Kids ran towards the car screaming and people started to jump around in song. This was what the stage was for, the commander in chief had arrived and he was a star. A woman screamed ‘I want to touch him with my hands’ as she ran by, and I was confused as I thought we were waiting for a politician. We were, but this guy had more than a constituency. He had fans.
Red berets surrounded the man linking arms keeping the crowds back. This was Julius Malema, the leader of the EFF. He’d arrived to give a speech, but it felt like a pop star doing community outreach. If the noise was anything to go by, I’m pretty sure people in the next two towns knew about it. As he made his way to the stage, it was chaos and everyone rushed forward, desperate to touch the man.
He was a hero. The minute Malema touched the mic, the place fell silent. He instructed his followers where to be for the next rally and when he spoke, they listened. As he mused, they cheered. He had his audience in the palm of his hand and had the community galvanised to his cause.
His speech came to a close and, rather than leaving the stage, Malema began to march on the spot. Surrounded by red T-shirts and berets, his team and security did the same. Then it happened, Malema began to sing the song.
This was the first time I’d heard anyone sing the ‘Shoot the Boer, kill the farmer’ song but this wasn’t the version I’d expected. Malema sarcastically sang ‘kiss the farmer’ not kill. The song in its original form had been banned, so it was being sung but not with its original lyrics. But it might as well have been.
Everyone there had joined in singing the song, but I didn’t leave thinking his followers all wanted to kill people they hadn’t met, far from it. One supporter I talked to spoke about wanting to win the battle using knowledge not violence, but with such a divisive song still being sung, what message was that sending to detractors? For a political leader to knowingly sing a hate song couldn’t be good for his cause, regardless of the new words.
As a former member of the ANC, Julius Malema was once tipped to lead the party but ended up forming a new organisation in his own image. Malema and that song have become famous as a point of contention for his opposition as well as for white South Africans, who see the song not only as hate speech but a direct threat.
Back at Coronation Park, Irene explained to me that she believed all EFF supporters wanted to kill Boer people just like her. Failing to understand why the anger in the townships might be as fresh in the present, Irene was resolute. Reminding her that Apartheid was a long time ago but not a lifetime ago, I urged her to understand how many people still alive lived under segregation laws. That level of hate is hard to forget, but forgetting is exactly what Irene expected black South Africans to do.
‘Forgive and forget’ was what she kept repeating, expecting the horrors of the black existence under segregation to be forgotten. I was totally confused by her total disregard for what was hell for millions of black South Africans. What was a seemingly conversational back and forth quickly escalated into a loud dressing down.
Irene had stopped listening and decided I was a ‘stupid man’. She said so several times. ‘That’s why the world is how it is, because they can’t forgive and forget.’ I knew I’d get nowhere so I let her rant. Knowing we’d never agree, I let Irene leave in a huff. To forget the pain of Apartheid would be nothing short of irresponsible as there can only be lessons learned from history. As far as I’m concerned you must never forget, because if you forget, what the hell are you going to learn?
It was time for me to leave the camp for the last time. As I left I gave JD and his mother a hug. As I walked away she called after me and said, ‘Always look to the trees and to the sky, remember us there.’ I’m not the most sentimental person, I have no idea what she meant, but the surreal, sudden and heartfelt request couldn’t have been more perfect.
On this trip to South Africa I didn’t see the rainbow nation I’d hoped to find. Essentially, both black and white people had become victims of Apartheid but in very different ways. JD believed his generation was paying a price for the mistakes of their forefathers, while Irene just wanted everyone to move on. Who am I to say who was right, but one thing I did agree with was one of the last things JD said to me: ‘Change takes time.’
Surrounded by squalor in a slum populated solely by white South Africans, I was confronted by the results of the political and systemic rebalancing of power and opportunity in the country in the most real world, first-hand way. My initial shock at seeing white faces living in abject poverty made me reassess my own preconceptions.
The poor whites were paying a price after decades of oppressing black people. With hangovers of Apartheid still continuing to affect race relations, my personal hang-ups and desire for equality forced me to confront the question, what do I believe to be fair? Fairness for me will always begin with balance. Unfortunately, with some of the most painful years in the country’s history still so recent, that idealistic desire looks a long way off.
Power in South Africa has changed hands from the minority oppressor to the oppressed majority. Ask yourself this question. If you’d watched your family oppressed for generations because of the colour of their skin and suddenly you were in power, what would you do?