Crime drives blacks to karate

Press, 8 April 1978, Page 13

Crime drives blacks to karate

By

PETER MOSLEY,

of NZPA-Reuter

White commuters homeward bound to the comforts of the northern suburbs are often startled, as they drive through a ra j ther sleazy section of inner Johannesburg, to hear what sounds like a major riot. Loud, rhythmic war* chants pierce the rushhour din. Anxious glances are cast from a hundred Mercedes, Janguars and BMWs. But it is not the revolution. What they can hear is the sound of blacks practising karate in one of the dozen or so clubs that have sprung up in Johnanesburg. There, as in many other countries, karate is enjoying a boom. “The interest is increasing, especially among blacks,” says Mr George Todd, vice-president of the South African National Amateur Karate Association. He estimates there are already 10,000 black students of the martial art, anl they are catching up fast with the 20,000-odd white students. Were the blacks rehearsing for some sort of kungfu revolution

“No, no, I don’t think that for one moment,” said Mr Todd. “It has nothing to do with the race situation. I think the blacks are taking it up as a means of self-defence.

There is a lot of violent crime in the townships, you know.” Karate clubs in South Africa are either for whites or blacks. “But if a black gets good, he is often invited to train with whites,” Mr Todd said. The national teams that have played teams from Britain and West Germany in the last year were multi-racial, as were the recent national karate championships. Soweto’s crime has begun to spill over into “white” Johannesburg.

Muggings and break-ins are rife, far more so than a year ago. A map based on muggings in the central city area showed that no district was really safe, by day or night.

Increased crime has coincided both with high unemployment among blacks — official figures are not given but unofficial polls indicate the rate is at least 12 per cent —

and with a high rate or school drop-outs. The boycott of black education in Soweto has just ended, but for many former students there will be no return to school — they have joined the ranks of the “tsotsis” (thugs) or are trying to make money through casual jobs. Bloody feuding between rival Zulu factions has also shocked Johannesburg. One feud, its origins dating far back in tribal history, resulted in 20 murders in Soweto and Johannesburg over a twoweek period. Among the victims were six Zulu nightwatchmen guarding Johannesburg office buildings. Now city authorities and police are seeking to bring tribal chiefs up from

Kwazulu (the Zulu homeland) to restore the peace. But if Soweto is having its problems, so are the white suburbs — servant problems. The economic recession, now in its third year, has prompted more budget-conscious white families, faced with rising costs all round, to question their need for domestic servants.

Many have taken the plunge and decided to sack

the maid, enhancing supermarket «ales of a paperback called “Household Management for South Africa’s Modern Woman.” It includes a chapter on “What to do when things go wrong.” The plight of the unwanted maid has been further complicated by pressure groups, some run by liberal white ladies, demanding that live-in domestics be paid a minimum wage of $7O a month. The present wages for maids average about $45 a month.

Now, the swing is to hiring part-time servants. One organisation, the Domestic Workers and Employers Project, is urging householders not simply to sack their maid but

to keep her on at half-pay for a 22-hour week, while still living in the servant quarters. She could then make up her pay by working parttime for others as well.

Soweto, at the same time, has a problem unthinkable in the generally serene and well-maintain-ed white suburbs — it is overflowing with garbage. The (white) senior sanitary official for the township blames lack of environmental consciousness by the million-plus blacks who are crammed into dismal rows of box-like houses.

“They mess everywhere and simply litter," he told an Afrikaans newspaper. It does not help that some factories actually have their drivers dump rubbish in Soweto rather than use approved tips. But the white official feels it is Sowetans themselves who are mostly at fault.

He said it was known that the blacks stole their own, Government-issue dustbins to brew beer in. There was much complaint, he said, when the steel bins were replaced with rubber ones. “They said they flavoured the beer with rubber.”