Opening of the NEW MAGISTRATE COURT in Durban, South Africa.
Some years ago the Nat Apartheid Government built a new multi storey Magistrate Court in Durban. The brief to the design Architects was to incorporate complete separation of Whites and Non-Whites in all areas in the building.
The chief architect was Mr Poole. His firm Chick, Barthelemou and Poole were the Architects of the magnificent Durban City Hall. Archiect Mr Poole Jnr. told me Pretoria had been most generous in compliments to him for designing the "PERFECT" apartheid building in the world. UNIQUE, I say,
The Whites' entrance was from the South and the Non-Whites' entrance from North. Both the entrances were almost in the middle of this super structure.
The genius of the Apartheid design was achieved by the design of the corridors.
NO CORRIDORS BISECTED EACH OTHER. Goes up and down. Linked by stairs.
Also when one enters the building from North side he/she is isolated from persons entering from South.
The court room itself was properly divided.
The Building was ceremoniously opened by the Minister of Justice, Mr C R Swart.
At that time more Attorneys (Solicitors) were white, and almost all Advocates (Counsels, SC's, QC's)
were whites. The criminal accused' and litigants were mainly non-whites with only some white retailers as litigants.
After Swart's opening the Courts should function.
But the situation was CONFUSION COMPOUNDED.
The non white accused could not locate his white attorney, the attorney could sight his Advocate and the other way round, the white prosecutor is looking for an accused just like when one who looks for a needle in a haystack.
The Magistrate feels frustrated, poor guy.
After a few days the NonWhite entrance was shut, and all Whites and Non-Whites entered the building from the South entrance.
J V Desai requested the Mayor of Durban, Mr Dereck Waterson, to support him to declare the Durban Magistrate Court an International Monument to Apartheid.
The Mayor wrote that he had no right to say what he said. Mayor continued:
Your community has caste system, burn widows, smell with curry, poverty etc.
I will not support you.
J V Desai replied him YOUR COMMUNITY in 54 BC., the conquerer of England told his Roman emperor that your Society had only the eldest son to marry, and his wife sexually shared with all the brothers, and all the kids are described as kids of the eldest. Your community had no music until Elgar about only three hundred years ago while my community had scientific music from before the reign of Emperor Ashoka, more than TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. My community had social and marriage rules and law while
your community shared one woman by ALL brothers in 54 BC. (See Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars Bk,5)
Written by J V Desai on 21st January 2014.
JV you have your figures on the pulse of what drove apartheid alive. Divide and conquer. Incidentally the spirit still lives on among us as new generation. Trying hard to work it for ourselves, among ourselves spurring out objectivity and survive on fear to trust new and competent people, taking us back to root cause of apartheid-we are superior. Incidentally, and for a short time, money appears to bond both together. With money you can buy services of anyone. Race denied people access to ways of self improvement, so some race remained in abject poverty while others prospers. It was not out of incompetence but out of a system designed to favour one class against the other
ReplyDeleteHow do we move away from this satisfactorily without causing more tremors among the newer generation but making sure answers are permanent. Your invaluable experience becomes handy JV, for us to move from where we are on wards. Humanity has no shame to repeat ugly history and we owe it to humanity to change today for the better of the future. What lesson has the world learnt from apartheid? how sure are we that either by default or design this will not recur? I thank you for your dedication and having been a connection between the Mahatma Gandhis and the Martin Luthers and our generation. The battle is far from over in my view. Each generation moves so far and we have to persist on. I am happy to read from your blogs and salivate at the ideas of the past wrong revelations. Andrew M Manyevere (Alberta Canada)