•Soweto Youth Student Uprising hero, Mbuyisa Makhubu, has been missing since 1978.•Victor Vinnetou illegally entered Canada in 1988 and is evasive about his identity.•Vinnetou is believed to be ...Makhubu, but a performed DNA test was inconclusive.•A morphological facial comparison utilised SAPS protocol and FISWG guidelines.•The result was inconclusive, but does not dismiss Vinnetou from being Makhubu.
June 16, 1976, marks the Soweto Youth Student Uprising in South Africa. A harrowing image capturing police brutality from that day comprises of 18-year-old Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying a dying 12-year-old Hector Peterson. This circulated international press and contributed to world pressure against the apartheid government. This elevated Makhubu’s profile with the national security police and forced him to flee to Botswana, then Nigeria, before disappearing in 1978. In 1988, Victor Vinnetou illegally entered Canada and was later arrested on immigration charges in 2004. Evasive of his true identity, the Canadian Border Services Agency and Makhubu’s family believe Vinnetou is Makhubu, linking them by a characteristic moon-shaped birthmark on his left chest. A performed DNA test however, was inconclusive.
Following the continued 40-year mystery, Eye Witness News in 2016 requested further investigation. Using a limited series of portrait images, a forensic facial comparison (FFC) was conducted utilising South African Police Service (SAPS) protocols and Facial Identification Scientific Working Group (FISWG) guidelines. The images provided, presented a substantial time-lapse and generally low resolution, while being taken from irregular angles and distances, with different subject poses, orientations and environments. This enforced the use of a morphological analysis; a primary method of FFC that develops conclusions based on subjective observations. The results were fundamentally inconclusive, but multiple similarities and valid explanations for visible differences were identified. To enhance the investigation, visual evidence of the moon-shaped birthmark and further DNA analysis is required.
Soweto and Lenasia, the most densely populated area of South Africa, is simultaneously a thriving metropolis, with a fair share of people still living in squalor conditions directly dependant on the ...natural resources. Because of industrialisation the populace and environment in this urban area are exposed to various pollutants. The aquatic environment was selected as a proxy to study the effect of industrial pollution in this area. The concentrations, source identification, and various environmental risks of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were determined in sediments of the upper reaches of the Klip River. Composite sediment samples collected in low-flow conditions in 2013 and 2014 ranged from 270–5400 ng/g. The PAHs in this aquatic ecosystem were dominated by 4-ring congeners and could be attributed to combustion of organic fuels by chemical mass balance. Heavy traffic and industrial complexes in the northern part of the study area were responsible for the PAH fingerprints. Probable adverse effects such as toxicity to benthic biota were proven after comparison with international sediment quality guidelines (SQG) both survey years. Toxic equivalence quotients (TEQs) calculated for the sediments using fish potency factors (FPFs) were up to 30 times greater than the Canadian guideline for dioxin-like compounds, indicating high probability of carcinogenic effect to fish mediated through the aryl-hydrocarbon receptor. Finally, sediments in the area posed moderate to high ecological risk, which corroborates the other toxicity assessments. The advantage of investigating multiple risk endpoints, is the comprehensive results obtained that allows for a more realistic representation of the study area. Consequently more aspects are kept into account that results in better conclusions.
The full diversity of economic activities in the informal economy is not well understood. The apartheid legacy of limiting informal entrepreneurship explains the most obvious geographical patterns in ...South Africa. After a decade and a half since the end of apartheid, however, knowledge about the places from which informal entrepreneurs operate is incomplete. Retailing is overemphasized and production firm entrepreneurs, both male and female, remain a neglected spatiality. This study reports on a survey of 100 firms in Soweto and in-depth interviews with 30 firm owners. The findings challenge the representations of isolated urban entrepreneurs dependent on inherited social capital and of women's exclusive engagement in retail. Entrepreneurs create their own social capital in work-related realms, but there are important gender differences. More finely tuned conceptualizations of entrepreneurs and of gendered working spaces need to be developed so that policy does not perpetuate unitary myths and incomplete spatial representations. Key words: entrepreneurship, Soweto, informal economy, gender.
Soweto during the 1970s was riven with violence and brutality, the brunt of which was borne by the young people of that period, who took the lead in the struggle against apartheid oppression. Himself ...a product of the era, Sol Rachilo turned both to science and to art as he strove to depict the atmosphere and the emotions of the people of those tumultuous times. Not relying solely on his own deeply engraved memories, he spent 18 months researching the events which swirled around the Morris Isaacson High School, a magnet for the activists and intellectuals of the time. The book especially highlights the happenings of 1976 and 1977, two years of strife in this politically charged township which was the home of all the founding fathers of what Sol calls, ìour cherished freedomî ñ Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Nthato Motlana, Desmond Tutu, Mothopeng and Sobukwe.
The focus of the article is on writing the history of community theatre, which was a popular avenue for artistic expression for a number of township playwrights. During the period 1984–1994, there ...was a flowering of the arts in Soweto. Numerous popular community plays were staged, but this has not been documented due to a lack of record-keeping by the playwrights and the absence of formal theatre structures for township-based playwrights. In contemporary writing, theatre received attention from newspapers, with Gibson Kente, Matsemela Manaka and Maishe Maponya being the most prominent playwrights. Because of their popularity in South Africa and esteem with international audiences, the stature of the three playwrights presents an opportunity to see how a history of Soweto community theatre may be written. This article proposes that memory studies facilitates the writing of a more comprehensive narrative because it enables the melding of various sources: newspaper articles, theatre programmes, private archives, and information and insights from interviewees. Halbwachs’s methodology allows for a discussion in which theory (memory studies) and practice (writing the narrative) present evidence that community theatre has contributed to the development of theatre in South Africa. Without discounting the significance of (written) history, Halbwachs foregrounds the importance of memory, which resides with “people still living,” as key to formulating a narrative of the past. This is pertinent to Soweto community theatre, since the insights from interviewees and various sources also help to re-examine the perceived limitations attached to the label “community theatre.”
This observational study aims to describe fitness, and objectively measured physical activity levels and patterns in 409 young black South African adults (aged 19-20 years) from Soweto, as well as to ...examine associations between physical activity, fitness and BMI.
A sub-maximal ramped step test was used to obtain an estimate of maximal oxygen uptake (VO
). Physical activity was measured using ActiGraph (GT1M) for 7 days in 256 participants. Time spent in sedentary (<100 counts per minute (cpm)), moderate (2020-5998 cpm) and vigorous (≥5999 cpm) intensity activity was calculated, and 90% of participants were considered active. Data are presented as mean(CI) or median(CI).
Overweight and obesity was more prevalent in females than males (35% vs 8%, p < 0.001). Males had a higher VO
than females (41.9(41, 43) vs 32.6(32, 33)mlO
/kg/min, p < 0.001); spent more time in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) (83(80, 94) vs 43(38, 45)min/day, p < 0.001), and less time in sedentary behaviours (541(541, 567) vs 575(568, 597)min/day, p < 0.01). Sedentary time was not associated with VO
, however BMI was inversely associated, and MVPA was positively associated, with VO
(both p < 0.001).
The majority of young South African adults in this study were sufficiently active, and higher MVPA was associated with fitness. However, the high level of sedentary behaviour in this population is of concern and may be contributing to the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in this population. Young South African females are at greatest risk for decreased cardiovascular fitness and should be the focus for future interventions.
On 16 June 1976 an estimated 20,000 black students took to the streets of Soweto, South Africa in protest against the mandatory use of Afrikaans in all segregated schools. Apartheid police responded ...to the protest march with unrestrained brutal violence, firing live rounds of ammunition at the unarmed school children. This police intervention left thousands injured and 176 people dead. Using Mbongeni Ngema’s Sarafina!: The Sounds of Liberation (1987), this account problematizes the often romanticized post-apartheid portrayal of the usage of art as a tool to fight apartheid. It investigates two interrelated themes. First, it interrogates how the memory of the 1976 student protest was shaped, preserved, remembered and transmitted over space and time through performance as the show toured from apartheid South Africa to the US. Second, through a close reading of the musical this article investigates how Sarafina!’s global circulation and reception negotiated the United Nations sanctioned academic, cultural and sporting boycott imposed on South Africa in 1968, which called for a total ban on all such activities. This close reading of the tour offers a nuanced understanding of the complicated and sometimes contradictory dynamics of the total anti-apartheid cultural boycott movement and the use of art as a weapon for the struggle.
Abstract Background There is strong anecdotal evidence that many urban communities in Sub-Saharan Africa are in epidemiologic transition with the subsequent emergence of more affluent causes of heart ...disease. However, data to describe the risk factor profile of affected communities is limited. Methods During 9 community screening days undertaken in the predominantly Black African community of Soweto, South Africa (population 1 to 1.5 million) in 2006–2007, we examined the cardiovascular risk factor profile of volunteers. Screening comprised a combination of self-reported history and a clinical assessment that included calculation of body mass index (BMI), blood pressure and random blood glucose and total cholesterol levels. Results In total, we screened a total of 1691 subjects (representing almost 0.2% of the total population). The majority (99%) were Black African, there were more women (65%) than men and the mean age was 46 ± 14 years. Overall, 78% of subjects were found to have ≥ 1 major risk factor for heart disease. By far the most prevalent risk factor overall was obesity (43%) with significantly more obese women than men (23% versus 55%: OR 1.76 95% CI 1.62 to 1.91: p < 0.001). A further 33% of subjects had high blood pressures (systolic or diastolic) and 13% an elevated (non-fasting) total blood cholesterol level: no statistically significant differences between the sexes were found. There was a positive correlation between increasing BMI and other risk factors including elevated systolic ( r2 = 0.046, p < 0.001) and diastolic blood pressure ( r2 = 0.032, p < 0.001) with overweight subjects three times more likely to have concurrent hypercholesterolemia (OR 3.3, 95% CI 2.1 to 5.3: p < 0.01). Conclusions These unique pilot data strongly suggest a high prevalence of related risk factors for heart disease in this urban black African population in epidemiologic transition. Further research is needed to confirm our findings and to determine their true causes and potential consequences.
Background: Despite the city of Johannesburg having one of the highest rates of crime in the world, no national databank for trauma exists. This study profiles the victims of penetrating trauma and ...identifies geographical areas in which it occurs, while describing the outcomes and patterns of injury. Methods: A retrospective study including penetrating trauma patients triaged as Priority 1, presenting at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital's (CHBAH) trauma department over a six-year period (2011-2016). Results: A total of 4 697 patients were included. The majority of victims were Black African males (92.1%) between the ages of 29-40 years, and stabbings were the most common mechanism of injury (71.8%), followed by gunshots. The commonest body area affected was the thorax, with a consequent haemothorax the most likely result. Weekends accounted for over 48% of all presentations--the last weekend of the month being the busiest. Region D was the area in Johannesburg with the highest trauma incidence (51.9%), with the oldest townships in Soweto found to be "hot spots". Conclusion: Penetrating trauma is inherently linked to alcohol abuse and interpersonal violence in South Africa, (1) primarily affecting its young economic, working-class citizens. The data provided some insight into the burden, structure and challenges of our trauma system. These should be regarded as opportunities to implement change and improve our surveillance and prevention, beginning with a national trauma databank. Keywords: trauma systems, penetrating trauma. South Africa, Soweto
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