Diamonds on a River of Tears

And so my uncle, his mother, and his son were the first occupants of a newly built house in a newly built township, a four-room structure with no interior doors, on a street that initially had hardly any neighbors.  Although they certainly had a roof over their heads, the family's financial prospects were decidedly glum.  In sharp contrast to the bustling street life of Sophiatown, the surrounding community was desolate, strictly residential, and devoid of commercial activity.  The absence of any visible client base discouraged my uncle's mother from attempting to reopen a drinking establishment.  And the destruction of Sophiatown completely eradicated my uncle's business, as he had anticipated.  Among the sterile, uninhabited houses of Meadowlands II, there was no shared history, no demarcated territory, no common enemy, no long-term associations, no hard earned trust, essentially none of the elements that bind a gang together.  The dwellings were filling quickly, but nobody knew each other.  One day soon, the gangs would be at war over this turf, but right now they were starting from scratch.

Although Uncle Winston's gang had drawn from its war chest to support his legal defense, my uncle himself had also been obliged to contribute from his own pocket.  Furthermore, the gang's income producing activities had been disrupted for some time by the increased police presence and the government troops occupying the streets of Sophiatown.  The same was of course true for MaSibiya’s illegal business operations.  Nor had the gang's anti-demolition efforts proved to be a particularly profitable undertaking.  In short, the savings built up by both my uncle and his mother had been significantly depleted before they even arrived in Meadowlands, where all of their sources of income were cut off.  Moreover, MaSibiya did not own her new house.  Like all township dwellings, it was government property, with the added financial burden of the monthly rent.

Uncle Winston, who had seen many of his colleagues maimed, killed, or incarcerated over the years, appreciated that he had been fortunate to survive beyond the age of thirty in his profession, and was mentally prepared to take the opportunity of his forced relocation to pursue a more low-risk livelihood.  However, a combination of factors, from the wealth and status to which he had grown accustomed, to the paltry compensation and demeaning job responsibilities available to a black man who had not completed elementary school, to the time and expense of the daily commute to Johannesburg, conspired to prejudice his appraisal of the impact that such a career change would have upon his quality of life.  In short, the prospect of legitimate employment was overwhelmingly unappealing.

He made contact with some of his dispersed cronies who had been likewise expelled from Sophiatown, and embarked upon a series of individual capers, mostly burglaries of houses and small stores in the white suburbs of Johannesburg.  The planning and execution of these crimes, even the fencing of stolen goods, without a secure base of operations, without the ready availability of additional manpower, without protection from well bribed local police, proved to be far more difficult and dangerous than in the good old days.