Living In Alexandra During The 1980's

Living in Alexandra during the 1980’s was nothing short of paradise. The rebellion during this decade was a good representation of good vs. evil. The township of Alexandria was located within the suburbs of Johannesburg, an enclosed black enclave within white suburbia (1). The people of Alexandra were proud to be where they were from, regardless of the situations they were dealing with. The residents of Alexandra were treated with the short end of the stick; living in ghettos and getting paid rubbish for their work. The government did not care enough for giving the black communities enough money to run their own economy. They did this purposely so that no one would attempt to govern the community no matter how good their intentions were.

The early township was born of what was called “welfare paternalism” and a later one was labeled as “racial modernism” (41). There were specific segregated areas for those who weren’t of the white race. Everything that the government did was to gain control of the black people living among them. No Blacks were actually citizens but those who owned some land or shared home ownership felt a higher ranking then others. All these regulations have fired up the youth to rebel. This new generation did not care if they were going to die rebelling and they weren’t afraid of it. In 1986, the 6 month long Alexandra rebellion started along with what was called the “six-day war”. The young rebels reinvented the “good” and “bad” spaces. They occupied and redefined the streets as well as recasting the meaning of official boundaries (66). The six-day war presented a violent challenge to the stay along with the new stylistic inventiveness by the youth. There were constantly new forms of action and violence that were added to the township of Alexandra everyday. There were stores being burnt down and streets being bombed during this six-day period. These are images that would never leave the minds of the citizens of the township. This was considered to be a “week of living hell” one journalist mentioned (86). After all this violence had happened, Alexandra would never be the

The youth may have been proud of the changes they were making but it wasn’t the prettiest in many people’s eyes. The adults didn’t believe the violence they were using was right to get their points across. The split between the old and new generation created conflict in the beginning of the rebellion. Even their ideas of utopia both differed from each other. The violence was the reason there were so many reforms in Alexandra and this is what caused the mixed emotions between the people. They believed they had the right to more freedom and through the youth’s eyes; the only way to get that was through violence. The peaceful protests were just not