Special Report Transcript Episode 29, Section 4, Time 20:55

I think it is legitimate for us to ask the Truth Commissioners tonight. Is it your role to force suspected bad guys to eat humble pie, to humiliate them in public? Is it not more important to illicit the truth than to try and force people to say how sorry they are? I have a feeling that commissioners should be very careful not to undermine the credibility of the Truth Commission in the eyes of groups like the IFP, the National Party and the Freedom Front who already called the Commission a witch hunt. But those are feelings and opinions. Let’s get back to the programme. In the 1940s and 50s a colourful vibrant culture and way of life developed in a mixed suburb in Western Johannesburg: Sophiatown. Sophiatown was poor but proud, alive and street smart, and it was not obsessed with race. What made Sophiatown special was exactly what irritated the National Party government. The thought that this way of life could spread through the country scared the apostles of apartheid. The nationalist government destroyed Sophiatown and in an act of supreme insensitivity, or perhaps it was cynicism or arrogance; they created a sterile, Afrikaner working class suburb in its place and called it ‘Triomf.’ Some triumph. Triomf is about to become Sophiatown again. But only a name, the special spirit of old Sophiatown is probably lost forever.

Notes: Max du Preez

References: there are no references for this transcript