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The Independent
20-07-2025
- The Independent
Why you should visit – and stay in – Johannesburg's Soweto
Most days in Soweto you'll see tourist buses rolling through the streets. People peer out of the windows at local neighbourhoods, stop off to visit Nelson Mandela 's home, and possibly browse a few stalls on Vilakazi Street. And it's no wonder the visitors keep coming. This township in Johannesburg, home to roughly a third of the population of the city, holds huge cultural and historical significance. Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Walter Sisulu and Zeph Mothopeng all lived here. It was where South Africa' s Freedom Charter was signed in 1955; it helped foster the Black Consciousness Movement in the 1970s; and was the site of the bloody Soweto uprising in 1976, a major turning point in the fight against apartheid. But after an hour or two, most of which is confined to the inside of a bus, these tourists will leave the suburbs and trundle back to Johannesburg city – then likely head out to Kruger National Park for a safari, perhaps fly down to Durban for a beach break, or maybe make their way to Cape Town to drive out to the beautiful Winelands. Far fewer travellers will spend a full day in the township, and take the time to walk the streets, meet the communities that have grown here and dine at the restaurants where locals eat their meals. Fewer still will decide to stay a night. But to do so is to miss the heart and soul of Soweto. This is why Lebo's Backpackers decided to do things differently. Set up roughly 15 years ago by Lebo Malepa, who had grown up in Soweto and wanted to encourage a type of tourism that was beneficial to the community, the guest house allows visitors to stay within the township and experience the culture of Soweto while mingling with locals and learning about day-to-day life. Rather than pressing their nose against a coach window, guests can cycle or walk around the neighbourhoods, chat to the people who live there, eat at neighbourhood restaurants and then stay in comfortable rooms at the guest house or camp on the well equipped site on the premises. For many, Soweto conjures up images of crime and poverty, and while it is true that both are significant issues, there is far more to these neighbourhoods. An acronym for South Western Township, Soweto first existed as a settlement at the start of the 20th century – although it was in the 1930s that the first township of Orlando was created as the white government hardened its segregationist stance and forced Black people out of the city and suburbs. As its residents battled against the cruelty of apartheid, Soweto became a symbol of resistance and the struggle for democracy. The Soweto of today is very different to that of the 1970s when the world watched protests on the streets and the brutal repression by police. In fact, some have even bemoaned the gentrification of the township. While there are unpaved roads, rundown hostels and homes with rusted corrugated roofs in neighbourhoods where running water and electricity is sporadic or non-existent, there's also a growing middle class who live in gated homes, drive fancy cars and sip cocktails at swanky bars on Vilakazi Street. As is so often the case in South Africa, the inequality is stark – but there is a complexity and nuance to these neighbourhoods that goes far beyond the slum image the city often carries. The staff at Lebo's aim to show this. On a spring afternoon, I stood alongside Lebo's brother Phillip Malepa at the community gardens attached to the hostel on a hill overlooking Soweto, gazing over the vast expanse of the township across to Johannesburg's abandoned mine dumps in the distance, where many of the city's residents once worked. Lebo Malepa spent much of his life working among tourists, from his early days selling T-shirts and trinkets at market stalls to renting out a room to travellers in the family home, and then buying bicycles and tuk-tuks to take visitors around. He died on Christmas Day 2021, aged just 46, but his wife Maria and family continue to run the hostel and tours, employing local Sowetans and working closely with residents to create a model that benefits the community. Maria explains that is it important to visit the 'tourist sites' like Nelson Mandela's house; the bustling Vilakazi Street filled with stalls, shops and cafes; and the Hector Pieterson memorial that tells the story of the 1976 Soweto uprising in which hundreds were killed (the image of the lifeless 12-year-old Pieterson being carried away from the violence is one of the most heart-wrenching of the apartheid era), but Lebo's tours aim to go further. By travelling by bicycle or on foot, visitors can take their time and visit places that are not well known, but tell so much about the story of Soweto and apartheid. While in the city, I was taken to see the hostels where male labourers were split up and housed when Black South Africans were brought to Soweto as a cheap labour force for the surrounding mines. Maria explained how a visit like this helps visitors explore some of the lesser-known parts of Soweto's history. She points to the single women's hostel that she says acts as a reminder of the female struggle both during apartheid and after democracy, and Meadowlands where the government divided groups by race after forcibly removing them from Sophiatown in Johannesburg, which had been declared a 'white' neighbourhood in the 1950s. 'I think so much of your understanding of the country starts here,' she told me. 'By coming here you will leave South Africa really having understood a little bit more. This sort of experience really kind of gets under your skin. I think it's something that we can't really touch and we don't even quite know how to explain it.' I was visiting South Africa with travel company Intrepid. Clinton Els, Intrepid's regional general manager for Africa and the Middle East, explained to me that the company felt it was important not only to enable their travellers to experience this side of the city, but also to ensure it was done in an authentic way that benefits the local communities. He added: 'It saddens me that some tour companies treat Soweto like an attraction by just viewing it through the windows of a bus before moving on to the next point of interest. These are real people, living in a real community. It's important for people to experience the 'real' Soweto – not just certain streets and flashy houses, but the areas that've been somewhat ignored and forgotten.' After exploring the city – including a stop at a local restaurant for a snack of beef cheek and a maize dish called pap – we join other travellers at the backpackers hostel to share a lunch of stews and curries with ingredients sourced from the market and community gardens, cooked the traditional way over an open fire. Meals are served in the outdoor restaurant, which is a revamped former dump site that has been turned into a very pleasant park. Beyond the hostel's ground, you will also find good local food at the Disoufeng Pub & Restaurant in Meadowlands and Native Rebels in Jabavu, or you can watch performances at Sawubona Music Jam, a weekly live music event held every Tuesday in Chiawelo. While in Soweto I also spoke with Joseph Tshehla, one of Intrepid's guides who lives in the township with his young son. He told me: 'Soweto is home to the African saying Ubuntu – 'I am what I am because of who we all are.' In Soweto, locals make sure the door is always open for neighbours to come knock when they need sugar.' He adds: 'You need to walk through the town to get a feel for being part of the community and understand the history. Just driving through won't let you fully experience the culture.' Maybe a day or two here will only let you scratch the surface and get a taste of what Soweto is truly like (in fact, Maria recommends spending a week or more). But it is a taste that will allow you to see beyond the crime statistics and news reports. Most importantly, you can speak to those who call the city their home, share meals and listen to music – and that's something you certainly can't experience through a bus window. Annabel was travelling in South Africa as a guest of Intrepid Travel. Intrepid Travel runs two tours that include the Soweto experience with Lebo's Backpackers. The Experience Southern Africa (16 days, from £3,259pp) tour takes travellers through South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, including stunning nature, encounters with endangered species and the chance to stay in local communities.
IOL News
14-07-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
A nation turned upside down: How SA's system now punishes the honest, protects the powerful
Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us: 'There is no future without forgiveness, but forgiveness does not mean forgetting; nor does it mean impunity.' Image: File South Africa has not collapsed. It has been inverted. What once punished wrongdoing now protects it. What once honoured the honest now humiliates them. What once upheld truth now turns it into a liability. We are now living in what can only be called the age of the unpunished where accountability is an illusion and wrongdoing is a stepping stone not a stumbling block. This national inversion plays out not only in the streets or in the headlines but deep within our governance systems. The medical aid racial profiling scandal, the collapse of oversight structures and recent internal disclosures from senior police leadership have laid bare how criminal sabotage and systemic corruption have infiltrated the state from within. These are not opposition claims; they are acknowledgements from those entrusted to lead. Corruption is not an anomaly. It has become the rule. This betrayal is not theoretical. It unfolds in three distinct ways affecting the working class, black professionals and unemployed youth differently but equally destructively. For the working class, the betrayal is material and immediate. The state that should protect their safety and dignity instead leaves them exposed to criminal syndicates and collapsing infrastructure. The 2023 Public Procurement Review found that over R28 billion in state tenders were under investigation for fraud, largely in service delivery sectors such as housing, roads and water. That is not inefficiency; it is institutional neglect. For black professionals, success itself becomes suspicious. According to a 2021 study by the South African Medical Association, black practitioners face significantly higher audit rates from medical aid administrators. Many skilled professionals report a pattern of systemic bias where regulatory scrutiny falls harder on those without legacy networks. The very mechanisms designed to ensure compliance become traps that obstruct transformation. And for the unemployed youth, of whom 8.9 million are not in education, employment or training (Statistics South Africa, 2024), the betrayal is existential. Young people are blamed for disengagement while entire sectors fail to absorb them. Corruption in skills agencies and jobs programmes has diverted billions away from future building efforts. According to the Auditor-General, more than R5.2 billion in irregular expenditure was flagged across youth-targeted initiatives between 2018 and 2022. These are not just numbers; they are broken promises. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ What we are witnessing is not merely administrative failure but cultural amnesia paired with the death of consequence. In traditional African societies, wrongdoing was never ignored; it was confronted. But punishment was not exile. Instead, harm was brought to the centre of the community and confession was the first rite of repair. A chief who erred would step down not because he was shamed but because he was honourable. Ubuntu, the ethic that binds us to each other, demands accountability not for punishment's sake but for healing. Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us: 'There is no future without forgiveness, but forgiveness does not mean forgetting; nor does it mean impunity.' Today, however, our state culture increasingly mimics an imported logic of severance. We cut off the problem, the person or the department not to heal but to distance. We shuffle portfolios, suspend officials indefinitely or quietly retire the scandal. This 'cut-off culture', a borrowed posture from Western bureaucratic systems, offers no reintegration, no learning and no transparency. It is alien to African traditions which emphasise truth-telling and restoration over cosmetic damage control. Some may argue that not all African leadership models upheld this ideal and they would be right. History offers many examples of rulers who betrayed these principles. But these exceptions should not define our norms. We cannot build national character on the lowest common denominator. Ubuntu is not a myth; it is an unclaimed inheritance. We dishonour it not by failing perfectly but by ceasing to try at all. Restoration without remorse is manipulation. True Ubuntu-based justice dignifies consequence; it does not erase it. Yet the dominant model of leadership today treats admission of wrongdoing as political suicide rather than moral courage. The result is silence, secrecy and systemic rot. The cost of corruption in South Africa is not only measured in rands and lost infrastructure; it is a theft of thenational soul. According to national estimates, South Africa loses over R186 billion annually to corruption. During the Covid-19 pandemic alone, over R2.1bn in flagged contracts were found to be fraudulent and yet few faced trial. Surveys show that 76.2% of citizens fear retaliation for reporting corruption and 48% believe most police officers are corrupt. This is not just a governance crisis; it is a breakdown of civic trust. In every sector, a new lesson is being taught. Speak out and you fall. Stay quiet and you may be next generation is internalising this code. And when truth becomes a career risk and integrity is punished, the long-term cost is not only institutional decay; it is moral disintegration. Understanding how we got here is critical if we are to chart a path forward. South Africa's institutional crisis is not only about leadership personalities. It is about system design. Inherited colonial architectures were repurposed for post-1994 governance without reengineering the logic of power. As Frantz Fanon warned, colonial mimicry allows the oppressor's tools to be adopted by the formerly oppressed, producing new elites with old appetites. Mahmood Mamdani described the post-colonial African state as 'bifurcated': liberal in language, authoritarianin instinct. We adopted the language of rights and democracy but embedded them in bureaucracies allergic to transparency and allergic to remorse. Seen through the lens of risk governance, this is not merely a political flaw; it is a structural vulnerability. What we lack is not awareness of risk but the systems to manage it. Whistleblower protections exist on paper but are routinely violated. Ethics committees are undermined by internal loyalties. Audit findings are tabled but never resolved. And where risk detection mechanisms are present, they are often neutered by political interests. Professor Pali Lehohla once remarked: 'Institutions do not fail all at once. They collapse incrementally, when truth is first ignored, then tolerated and finally institutionalised as normal.' That is where we stand today. As Morena Mohlomi once warned King Moshoeshoe, 'You are a leader because you are a servant to the people. Once you forget to serve, you lose the right to lead.' We are losing that right, and with it, the soul of the nation. This is a call to the honest, to the South Africans who still believe integrity matters not as a slogan but as a survival principle. Restoring public trust will not begin with national conferences or anti-corruption week slogans. It will begin with institutional courage and public visibility. That means public confessions by those who have erred. It means resignations with remorse not resistance. It means truth-and-reconciliation with consequence. We must reimagine leadership as stewardship not entitlement. We must move from secrecy to transparency, from shame to truth, from denial to repair. Cultural restoration is not about nostalgia; it is about reintroducing accountability as a moral norm not a political calculation. We can no longer afford to outsource integrity to the next administration, or the next election cycle, or the next commission of inquiry. Those who remain honest must step forward and hold the line not only in courtrooms but in boardrooms, classrooms and living rooms. South Africa's fight is not only against corruption. It is against forgetting. Against forgetting who we are, whatwe inherited and what we owe to those who still believe in a country worth saving. This is the moment to flip the nation right-side up. Not for spectacle. Not for revenge. But for restoration. Nomvula Zeldah Mabuza is a Risk Governance and Compliance Specialist with extensive experience in strategic risk and industrial operations. She holds a Diploma in Business Management (Accounting) from Brunel University, UK, and is an MBA candidate at Henley Business School, South Africa. Image: Supplied Nomvula Zeldah Mabuza is a Risk Governance and Compliance Specialist with extensive experience in strategic risk and industrial operations. She holds a Diploma in Business Management (Accounting) from Brunel University, UK, and is an MBA candidate at Henley Business School, South Africa. *** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL. BUSINESS REPORT
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'It's not just people far away who need peace, Bolton does too'
Blessed are the peacemakers On #prayforpeacewednesday this week, I invited people to pray particularly for the peacemakers presently working to broker peace between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. We don't hear much about these people, but their role in the background is crucial. Without them it's unlikely there will be peace, so they need our love and support and prayers. Then on Thursday, I had the privilege of sharing in a fantastic summer festival at St Thomas' CE Primary School in Halliwell. READ MORE: Bishop of Bolton Rt Revd Dr Matthew Porter on families Bishop of Bolton Matthew Porter on finding love in everyday things The theme was peace, and through story and song, drawings and drumming and dance, we celebrated peace. It was joyful and fun and everyone had a great time. But it was more than just a happy time, for our theme was powerful and challenging, inviting us to stop and think seriously about peace. Peace in our school and community. Peace in our lives and families. Peace in our town and region. And peace in our nation and global community. I was invited to share a few words at the end, so I told them one of the reasons why I follow Jesus is that the Bible calls him the 'Prince of Peace.' In a world of squabbles and division, conflict and war, I've found no bringer of peace greater than Christ. I went on to tell the story of Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of Cape Town, who worked incredibly hard to bring a peaceful stability to South Africa in the 1990's when many feared the nation might plunge into civil war. He got people together to share their anger, frustration and pain. Those who had persecuted others because of the colour of their skin met the families of those they'd hurt, tortured and even killed. Stories were told and sorrow was shared. It was difficult and painful, yet healing and good. It was remarkable, so much so that Desmond Tutu was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a peacemaker. The children had been talking about peace-making, so I reminded them of Jesus's famous words: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.' I thanked them for what they had presented and reminded them that you don't have to be a bishop to be a peacemaker, we can all do that. In fact, that was exactly what they'd been doing at the festival, and I urged them to keep going. As we pray for the peacemakers in the Middle East, Thursday's festival reminded me to pray also for peacemakers closer to home, starting with the children of St Thomas' CE Primary. Because it's not just people far away who need peace, Bolton does too.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
As the Dalai Lama turns 90, photos show the global arc of his life
DHARAMSHALA, India (AP) — The Dalai Lama is revered as a deity by millions of Tibetan Buddhists and known worldwide as a resolute voice for peace, spirituality and Tibet 's autonomy. He is also seen as a threat by China, which accuses him of wanting to wrest Tibet from Beijing's control. As the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhists, he established a government-in-exile in the Indian town of Dharamshala after fleeing Tibet in 1959. Since then he has traveled the world to raise the issue of Tibet and Tibetans, while spreading a message of nonviolence. He has met world leaders and celebrities, from the likes of fellow Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to multiple U.S. presidents, popes and Hollywood stars. As he celebrates his 90th birthday on Sunday, The Associated Press has curated a selection of photos of the Dalai Lama, from his early days in India to appearances he has made around the world. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
The Independent
05-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
As the Dalai Lama turns 90, photos show the global arc of his life
The Dalai Lama is revered as a deity by millions of Tibetan Buddhists and known worldwide as a resolute voice for peace, spirituality and Tibet 's autonomy. He is also seen as a threat by China, which accuses him of wanting to wrest Tibet from Beijing's control. As the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhists, he established a government-in-exile in the Indian town of Dharamshala after fleeing Tibet in 1959. Since then he has traveled the world to raise the issue of Tibet and Tibetans, while spreading a message of nonviolence. He has met world leaders and celebrities, from the likes of fellow Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to multiple U.S. presidents, popes and Hollywood stars. As he celebrates his 90th birthday on Sunday, The Associated Press has curated a selection of photos of the Dalai Lama, from his early days in India to appearances he has made around the world. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
