Gangs, councillors and the apartheid state: The Newclare Squatters Movements of 1952
Date
1989-10-23
Authors
Van Tonder, Deon
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Abstract
They were bloody clashes but ... in the context of the
time and the circumstances in that part of the world,
they were relatively minor. Fighting was an absolutely
common feature there every weekend without exception...
Periodically these became more serious... instead of one or
two murders, there'd be say, half a dozen, perhaps even
more. But the violence was not exceptional.. .This was the
normal feature of life in Sophiatown and particularly in
Newclare...Newclare was a yery tough area and like any
slum ... you accept that there is violence constantly ... One
must ... [also] ... remember that rioting and fighting was
a form of amusement ... Young people stiff with boredom (1).
This was the judgement of W.J.P. Carr, former Manager of the Non-
European Affairs Department of the Johannesburg City Council, when
asked about the violence in Newclare during the 1940s and 50s. Yet,
in 1952, this "relatively minor" type of clash erupted into one of
the largest suburbian squatter movements that Johannesburg has ever
experienced. Not only did some 300 African families move across the
railway line to Northern Newclare to squat on Council-owned land, but
they remained there for seven months while the Johannesburg City
Council and the Central Government deliberated on ways of removing
them.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 23 October 1989. Not to be quoted without the Author's permission.
Keywords
Slums. South Africa, South Africa. Ethnic relations, Johannesburg (South Africa). Ethnic relations