Pass

... those questions. We also bring you a short documentary on the black people of the Karoo who have pretended for decades to be coloured to escape the pass laws and now want their African heritage back. But we start with the dramatic day in George in the Southern Cape. ...

And when I started working outside and I saw how the men were being caught for Pass books, how black men struggled I decided to play Coloured to be able to live.

the last fifteen years and worked for one employer for ten years, or be 15 years in the area. // So the number of people who could qualify to have a pass that entitled them to be in the urban areas were limited, very strictly ...

But there’s no way in which you could have lived through the last 40 years of apartheid and not know of the pass laws and not know of forced removals and not know of race classification and not know of group areas and also not know of what that did to communities and to individuals’ lives.

... I did the job very well, I found it very interesting in that there were all sorts of strange messages which people were leaving that I was asked to pass on to other people and it was fairly clear to me therefore that this was an unusual military unit with unusual significance. ...

In fact you are not the only one who killed there are others, it’s still going on. Right now if you go down the road you’re not sure if you’ll pass safely. All we want is peace and to live ...

... say Hey! You mustn’t say I’m your child. I’m a child of South Africa. I’m a child of South Africa, not yours, because I am fighting for the pass ...

... how was I going to live with myself with it?’ So that even during basics I was starting to collect information which I thought I might be able to pass on to someone at a later ...

We are aware too of the anguish through which you have had to pass over so many years and in a way, although we’re still going to hear your testimony, it is wonderful that you had been vindicated.

is 714 6254. We would love to hear from you. Next week we’ll show you a special documentary on one of the most shameful practices of our past, the pass laws. And before we go, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, if you are watching. We miss you, please get back soon. Good bye to you all, until next Sunday ...

I just remember shaking. I don’t think I actually felt anything, I don’t think you did either. It wasn’t a time to feel things. I just remember sitting there shaking really and just letting the time pass.

... themselves coloured. In the Karoo they called this ‘om jou baadjie om te draai,’ to turn your jacket inside out. There were many advantages to passing as coloured. coloured people did not have to carry pass books and there were more jobs available. But with freedom comes dignity. Many of the ...

the late 1700s the white settlers in South Africa forced slaves to carry identity books so they could control their movement. In some way or another pass books had existed since then, but when the National Party came to power in 1948 and formalized the ideology of apartheid they needed more ...

... policemen. // Your callousness, your coldness and insensitivity shows us the kind of leaders that the South African government chose. // No compassion. // We have a fascinating piece on black people from the Karoo who have spent many years trying to pass as coloureds and now want their old ...

In the fifties women were suddenly also required to carry a pass and had to qualify for permits in their own right. They were no longer seen as part of their husband’s household.

... this week. It is just one of the many side chapters in the history of the former government’s disastrous homeland policies. // Mathebe mountain pass, a pile of stones, this is how the Bafokeng remind themselves of victory in battle over the Bahurutshe in the late 1700s. Yet conflict between ...

... and they stopped there and one of them just come out, climb on top of the car and use a torch to light us. And, in few seconds I saw one of them passing through the car lights and after few seconds he came out. They were all having guns, all of them. And they were shooting to us. And, we were ...