Going Home - Doris May Lessing [49]
Conditions in the cities of Central Africa exactly mirror those in the Union. Around the ‘white’ centres are African townships and squatters’ camps. These are completely segregated. Africans may not use restaurants, hotels, or bars in the white areas. They have special counters in post offices, banks and public buildings. An African leaving his Reserve must carry a variety of passes—his registration certificate in any case, which is a sort of certificate of identity; then his certificate of residence, of work, and—if he is employed as a servant—he must have a ‘pass’ to go visiting. Thousands of Africans are fined or imprisoned every year for not being in possession of one of these passes.
A few privileged Africans carry a pass exempting them from carrying passes. One of these told me a story of how he had been picked up by the police, since he had left his pass at home, and was taken to the police station where the official said: ‘What! They’ve picked you up? They don’t know yet you’re an old Rhodesian? Off you go.’
It is always a question of grace and favour, the disposition of a particular official. Thus, Salisbury is repressive in the matter of pass offences; whereas in Bulawayo, under the liberal Dr Ashton, things are much better.
Africans were amused in Salisbury when I was there because Colonel Hartley, the Superintendent, had been complaining that Africans were not to be trusted with money, and therefore he could not allow them to act as gatekeepers for the location football matches. The European gatekeepers he appointed having mislaid a sum of money, Colonel Hartley exclaimed from the depths of his paternal heart: ‘How can our people be so irresponsible as to act so, setting such a bad example to these backward natives?’
I quote here a letter to the African Weekly which explains how Africans feel about the curfew regulations:
SIR,
The curfew regulations in all the main urban centres of S. Rhodesia which prohibit an African from passing through town after ten o’clock, sometimes nine o’clock, are bringing untold harm to Africans. They restrict all their movements after dark and virtually put them in a ‘social box’.
What type of social life is the African expected to have in urban areas? He is expected to go and see bioscope in the Welfare halls. Often he has not got the money to pay at the door, and at times he is not very interested because bioscopes are a new thing to him. We like to play (particularly those of us from Nyasaland) our own games, and dances. To do this we want to get together after work—cookboys, houseboys, garden-boys, and general workers—at a central spot and play our own dances. The problem is how will some of us cross the town after ten o’clock so that we return to our rooms on the other side of town. We cannot. In that way the curfew regulations are making it difficult for Africans to enrich their social life and organize the dances they used to partake in before coming to town. The cooks and garden workers who do not reside in urban locations are the ones most affected by this.
The argument that Africans would steal a lot of property if permitted to pass through town at night is groundless. They should be permitted to move on the road and pavement. If someone leaves the road and starts getting on to private premises, that one should be arrested and dealt with severely. Even in Europe, America and anywhere in the world no one is permitted to linger in someone’s premises without permission.
Conversation overheard on a bus:
WHITE CHILD (aged about 12): Is your dad going to let you go to the Kaffir college?
WHITE CHILD (about 15): Nah, I’m going down to the Cape.
LADY (from back seat, leaning forward): My dear children, there have been Africans at the Cape Town University for years.
WHITE CHILD: Nah, the Nats have kicked all the Kaffirs out.
The Land Apportionment Act has been amended to allow Africans and other