TEEN-AGER SAYS VIOLENCE FORCED HIM INTO ADULTHOOD

Black student describes how he lives under oppression

SOUTH AFRICA

In the United States, you're still technically a kid when you are 17. But in South Africa, violence forces kids to grow up faster.

In the United States, we complain about things such as sharing a room with our brother or sister, getting a cold or hearing racist remarks on the street.

But in South Africa, some children must live away from their families just because their house is too small and their parents cannot afford a bigger one. Many live in unspeakable conditions, without running water or toilets.

And every day in South Africa, the whites who control the government also control the lives of many blacks who live there.

Children's Express recently talked by telephone with two teen-agers from South Africa to find out about their lives under apartheid, or racial separation. Zola Qengwa and Theona Canster attend the Zonnebloem Nest Senior School in Cape Town, although both live in townships outside the city.

Zola's story:

I stopped being a kid in South Africa when I was 12 years old. Then I was forced to grow up and to see apartheid as the monster it was. . . . I am not a kid anymore, because now I have to look at people as what they are.

(Under apartheid) the white people made the black people think that they were inferior to white people. The black people had to call white people, "Yes, boss. Yes, master." And all those things.

We couldn't share the same toilet with white people. On public toilets they would write, "No black people allowed."

On buses, you would see a bus go by and it would say "whites only." On trains, black people used to stand up on trains and they would have trains for black people and trains for white people.

The black policeman couldn't say or do anything (if a white person committed a crime). He would just watch and call the white policeman to go and arrest that white person. Change since 1985

Life in South Africa for me is sort of OK now. But when I was still a child, it was very difficult to find a school where white people and black people could really be in one class.

It has only changed since 1985, that black and white people were in one class of students. In the townships, you cannot find white people. You will only find black people living.

You will find squatter camps all around South Africa - Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban. Everywhere you find squatter camps.

A squatter camp is a camp where people live who don't have houses . . . they buy tents or make tents.

They don't have toilets. They don't have bottles. They don't have hot water. They don't have cold water. They sleep in these tents and bungalows, (which are) wood shacks.

There are hundreds of them. You'll find that the minimum is about 500 (people) that live in one place.

In some places, you will find people that are dirty. . . . If you live there a month, you will die of sickness, even if you are healthy.

You can't live there because people don't take care. They urinate on the street. They defecate on the street. They do all sorts of things on the street. They slaughter cows and sheep on the street. They buy and sell meat to people.

You will find old men, boys my age, who have never seen a book before. They don't know how to read or write. They don't know what it's like to have a toilet, a bath, a shower. They don't know those things. And those children don't go to school. They are just sent to preschool and primary school. Plight of public schools

It's easy for me (to get an education) because I am in a private school. My mother sent me to a private school. But some schools, like in (my township of) Longa, you'll find at least 80 students in one classroom with one teacher. You won't find enough desks, books, sporting equipment and all those things.

To me . . . school is good. Nothing is wrong. I just find it great. It is not easy to the people who are disadvantaged and who live in places like squatter camps.

A role model in South Africa for many young people is Nelson Mandela. They like him because he was in prison for 27 years. And during that time, the young people of South Africa fought for his freedom.

Recently Mr. Mandela has ended a big strike in South Africa about school fees. Mr. Mandela and (South Africa President F.W.) de Klerk sat down and they spoke about it. And now he has resolved the problem. So the students are looking up to him. Everybody, they are looking up to him.

Before Mr. Mandela was released, there was no violence. There was just gangsters and all those things going on. Before Mr. Mandela went to jail, he was against the IFP (the Inkatha Freedom Party). So when he came out of jail, he told people not to turn to the IFP.

Mr. Mandela recruited the IFP people to the ANC (African National Congress). . . . So, their violence is escalating because the IFP people want the people that went to the ANC back, and the ANC people are killing the IFP people.

The violence does not affect me. I live in Cape Town. Where the violence is very strong is in Pretoria, all over Johannesburg.

There is some violence in Cape Town back in a black township. There are people (there) where if you are not ANC, they want you to join the ANC. And if you don't, they find a means of making you join.

So they have forced me to join a group, a political party. But I don't want to join their party.

Feeling unsafe

There's no place I feel safe from violence. The people all around us, they want peace. But there are some people that just don't want peace in South Africa. They just don't want peace. They are used to brutality. They are like animals, wild animals. They don't stop fighting. I don't know why.

The people fight against each other and hundreds of people die every day, all around South Africa. They die of shooting, they die because their leaders say things on the news that some people don't like. . . . I would tell them to stop this bragging and all these things they do to each other. Just to stop it, and sit down, and just talk about it.

In South Africa they want a vote, a vote for every one. . . . Mr. Mandela says kids at 14 years old should vote, but they are still arguing about that because Mr. de Klerk doesn't think that children that are 14 years old are mature enough to vote for what government they want.

And Mr. Mandela thinks the children of South Africa have fought for his freedom, and they have fought to end the apartheid monster . . . so he wants the children to vote.

President F.W. de Klerk doesn't know what he is doing. . . . At the beginning, he was OK. He promised the people everything. He said he was going to stop apartheid, he was going to get houses, and he was going to do whatever. But he doesn't fulfill his promises.

Looking to Clinton

I think Mr. Bill Clinton must talk to the president of South Africa and tell the people what Bill Clinton wants to do about the situation in South Africa.

(Your) president will advise him what to do, because he is lost. He is lost in the mist.

If the ANC rules (after the elections), I think everybody will be quite happy. . . . Everybody will at least afford to buy food and live in houses and don't starve. And the ANC will try to give houses to the people and jobs.

EDITED BY:Timothy Ward, 15