WEBVTT 00:00:09.180 --> 00:00:11.060 [DAVID GOLDBLATT] We're headed west-- 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:13.440 at the moment we're heading south-- 00:00:13.440 --> 00:00:19.080 but we're going to the west of the city to a suburb called Fietas. 00:00:26.620 --> 00:00:29.920 [Fietas was a diverse community with a large Indian population.] 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:33.320 [During apartheid its residents were forcibly relocated.] 00:00:33.940 --> 00:00:36.040 It's official name is Pageview, 00:00:36.700 --> 00:00:40.840 but it came to be known by its residents as Fietas. 00:00:42.100 --> 00:00:44.850 No one knows now for sure where the name came from 00:00:44.850 --> 00:00:47.200 and if it has any meaning-- what it means-- 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:50.500 but that was the fond name for the area. 00:00:53.760 --> 00:00:56.760 When I started photographing here in '76, 00:00:57.420 --> 00:00:59.860 the community was still largely intact. 00:01:03.860 --> 00:01:06.100 That's the Twenty-Third Street mosque. 00:01:07.940 --> 00:01:14.680 The houses here consist of some of the original Indian houses 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:19.579 and then those that were built by the Department of Community Development. 00:01:20.220 --> 00:01:25.140 We were wonderful in our ability to invent the meaning of words. 00:01:25.149 --> 00:01:31.259 The Department of Community Development came here and destroyed their community. 00:01:31.260 --> 00:01:38.960 For example, these here were built by the Department of Community Development. 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:44.380 And as you see, they are now little fortresses, 00:01:44.380 --> 00:01:48.100 as are so many of our houses in Johannesburg. 00:01:50.140 --> 00:01:54.659 A working class White community, next door to this, 00:01:54.660 --> 00:01:56.560 agitated for their removal. 00:01:57.320 --> 00:02:00.980 Whites didn't want people of color living next door to them. 00:02:00.980 --> 00:02:02.760 It was as crude as that. 00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:11.600 What happened here is typical of what happened in almost every town in South Africa. 00:02:17.980 --> 00:02:20.520 --[SALMA PATEL] You went from behind, and you could buy meat. 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:21.660 [LAUGHS] 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:24.000 --I had an amazing childhood, you know that! 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:26.660 I remember David coming on a bicycle-- 00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:29.880 coming and cycling. 00:02:29.880 --> 00:02:32.320 And I used to wonder, "Why does he do this?" 00:02:34.740 --> 00:02:36.760 I was going to school then. 00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:40.940 I saw this man photographing all these ruins. 00:02:41.980 --> 00:02:45.020 In my little world in those days, this was home, 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:52.740 and I didn't really understand the full implications of forced removals. 00:02:55.740 --> 00:03:00.640 Because of the apartheid regime's racist ideologies, 00:03:00.640 --> 00:03:02.500 this area was destroyed. 00:03:05.110 --> 00:03:11.740 Fietas Museum is a very good way to understand land dispossession, 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:15.700 destruction of family units, and a community. 00:03:17.040 --> 00:03:20.180 These are Paul Weinberg's photographs. 00:03:20.180 --> 00:03:23.780 Paul and I have a long history. 00:03:23.790 --> 00:03:26.530 He's walked this whole journey with me, like with David. 00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:29.160 I've known them for so many years. 00:03:29.160 --> 00:03:30.910 These two photographers were very generous 00:03:30.910 --> 00:03:33.620 in just donating the pictures to the Fietas Museum. 00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:37.060 Had it not been for their photographs, 00:03:37.060 --> 00:03:41.040 we wouldn't have a pictorial record of my forebearers 00:03:41.040 --> 00:03:43.060 and my community. 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:55.600 This shows Fourteenth Street in its heyday. 00:03:55.600 --> 00:04:02.060 As you can see, it had the elements that are essential for good cities. 00:04:02.060 --> 00:04:07.500 And that is: density, diversity, and complexity. 00:04:07.500 --> 00:04:10.900 It was a community of blended cultures. 00:04:12.020 --> 00:04:17.260 There's an Indian concept called, "upar makaan neeche dukaan," 00:04:17.260 --> 00:04:21.740 meaning living quarters upstairs and trading premises downstairs. 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:24.860 It's a very smart way of using space. 00:04:24.860 --> 00:04:27.300 The people that were forcibly removed from this area-- 00:04:27.300 --> 00:04:30.660 especially in this particular street-- were traders. 00:04:32.920 --> 00:04:34.560 [GOLDBLATT] White people, Black people-- 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:37.240 all kinds of people-- would come from all over the area 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:39.760 to shop here, on Fourteenth Street. 00:04:42.980 --> 00:04:45.350 The streets were very narrow. 00:04:45.350 --> 00:04:50.680 I found that the best way of coming here to photograph was to ride a bicycle. 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:53.910 I came in on a bicycle with a couple of panniers on it 00:04:53.910 --> 00:04:57.190 so that I could carry a four-by-five view camera, 00:04:57.190 --> 00:04:58.640 or a Hasselblad, 00:04:58.640 --> 00:05:01.720 some film, and a lightweight tripod. 00:05:02.400 --> 00:05:06.660 I would come in here and photograph people, shops-- 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:07.780 whatever I wanted. 00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:13.020 I got to know Ozzie Docrat, 00:05:13.020 --> 00:05:16.200 one of the Indian men who had a shop here. 00:05:16.200 --> 00:05:19.920 He had a shop just down the road here which was called the "Subway Grocers." 00:05:21.100 --> 00:05:24.420 If there was a big cricket match-- internationally-- 00:05:24.420 --> 00:05:28.180 he would put the score outside on the sidewalk, 00:05:28.180 --> 00:05:32.920 so that people coming by could see what the score was. 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:36.720 He knew the tram drivers who came past. 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:41.380 It was not impossible for a tram driver to stop his tram 00:05:41.380 --> 00:05:45.220 and go in there and say, "Ozzie, you got the score wrong, man!" 00:05:45.220 --> 00:05:47.160 "So-and-so is out now." 00:05:47.660 --> 00:05:50.580 It was a very popular place and he was a very popular man. 00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:53.730 His home was here. 00:05:53.730 --> 00:05:54.980 Right here. 00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:57.960 This was the core of the house. 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:02.460 It was reinforced concrete, because it needed to support the water tank. 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:11.440 When the front-end loaders came in here to destroy everything in 1977, 00:06:11.440 --> 00:06:13.340 they couldn't push this over. 00:06:13.340 --> 00:06:14.900 It's reinforced concrete. 00:06:14.900 --> 00:06:20.620 So it remains here now as a crazy monument to apartheid. 00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:24.300 He had to move to Lenasia, 00:06:24.310 --> 00:06:29.200 which is the Indian suburb that was set up outside the city 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:31.880 to absorb these people who were displaced. 00:06:32.840 --> 00:06:36.480 The government built the so-called "Oriental Plaza"-- 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:39.460 a shopping mall which they said would then 00:06:39.460 --> 00:06:42.500 substitute for the shops that they were destroying here. 00:06:44.180 --> 00:06:45.780 One day, it is was a Sunday Morning, 00:06:45.780 --> 00:06:48.840 I came riding here on my bicycle, 00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:50.120 and there was Ozzie Docrat. 00:06:50.940 --> 00:06:52.720 We greeted each other, and I said to him, 00:06:52.721 --> 00:06:54.220 "You know Mr. Docrat," 00:06:54.220 --> 00:06:57.900 "I cannot tell you how ashamed I am of what is being done here," 00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:00.860 "to you in my name, as a White voter." 00:07:05.740 --> 00:07:08.880 Then I said to him, "You know, I've got a problem," 00:07:08.880 --> 00:07:12.480 "because they're knocking down the buildings and I can't remember what was there." 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:14.740 And he said, "Mr. Goldblatt," 00:07:15.340 --> 00:07:19.240 "I feel as though I've been to the dentist," 00:07:19.250 --> 00:07:22.040 "and I've had teeth extracted." 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:23.890 "And I run my tongue over the spaces," 00:07:23.890 --> 00:07:27.280 "and I try to remember the shape of what was there." 00:07:28.640 --> 00:07:30.600 It was an extraordinary statement.