Bethal
| Bethal | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
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| Coordinates | 26 ° 28 ′ S , 29 ° 28 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | South Africa | ||
| Mpumalanga | |||
| District | Gert Sibande | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | ZA-MP | ||
| local community | Govan Mbeki | ||
| Residents | 60,779 (2011) | ||
| founding | 1880 | ||
Bethal is a town in the South African province of Mpumalanga , which emerged from a farm settlement and is now part of the Govan Mbeki Municipality . In 1959 it gained national fame through the so-called potato boycott. According to the 2011 census, Bethal had 60,779 inhabitants.
geography
The city is on the N17 national road . There is a railway connection.
To the south of the center are two small townships named Bethal and eMzinoni .
The landscape around the small town is hilly and characterized by farmland. The region belongs to the Highveld . There are extensive coal reserves in the Permian deposits of the Karoo supergroup .
history
Bethal settlement was established in 1880 as part of the larger farm Blesbokspruit. The name is a word composition that was created by the founders and owners by combining parts of the first names of their wives, who were sisters. The place name is therefore composed of Eliza beth du Plooy and Al ida Naude. The agricultural settlement is a traditional center of potato cultivation.
In 1910 a small town hall ( Old Magistrate's Office ) was built. This historical building still preserved today houses a museum, the Nomoya Masilela Museum .
Potato
boycott The place gained national fame from 1959 through the potato boycott ( Bethal Potato Boycott ). The situation of the predominantly black farm workers at the time led to extensive activity by trade unionists and political actors to raise the issue of the unreasonable working conditions on the farms around Bethal. Adults and children had to do the field work with bare hands in all weather conditions. The way the workers were handled resulted in several deaths. The farm workers were dressed all day in bags with holes cut in them and had to sleep on an uncovered cement floor covered with such bags.
In 1946, the employment agency Bethal's Arbeidsvereeniging , a farm service company, employed 40,000 farm workers in what was then the Bethal district. Most of them came from abroad, came from neighboring southern Rhodesia and the further north of Nyasaland and did not have any official residence permits. The exploitative working conditions in agriculture led to ongoing conflicts with the rightsless migrant workers . On September 9, 1949, the regional newspaper Bethal Echo's reported that Justice Minister Charles Robberts Swart had opened a private prison here. In this connection the minister asked the farmers to build more private prisons for the farm workers; an idea of his predecessor Harry Lawrence. Such prisons were built by the Farmers Association and staffed by the State Prison Department . The authorities hired the detainees as low-wage workers to the region's farm companies for a price of nine pence a day. In 1949, around 38,000 blacks worked on the farms according to this pattern. The escape rate of those affected was correspondingly high.
After research by the anti-apartheid activist and Anglican clergyman Michael Scott and his report Near Slavery at Bethal, which was printed in the Rand Daily Mail in June 1947 , the then South African Justice Minister Harry Lawrence ordered a police investigation , " ... whether workers had any complaints about mistreatment, attacks or withholding wages, and to collect all information about the nightly forcible detention of workers in the prison yards ” . In the course of further investigations, 65 farms in the Bethal district received official visits and 1,193 blacks were interviewed. These official activities extended to a further 55 farm regions around Ogies , Trichardtsdorp and Kriel , with another 2,270 farm workers being questioned. The Bethal administration later reported to the Minister of Native Affairs that working conditions had improved and that the workers appeared to be satisfied.
The unreasonable working and living conditions were not unknown in themselves. In the study by Edith Rheinallt Jones († 1934) about the socio-economic variants of farm work in the Transvaal, which was only published in 1945, the author referred to the so-called share-farming among nine employment models practiced in the provincial agricultural sector.
The conditions on the farms, which had hitherto been neglected, became known nationwide through the intensive reporting since 1947 in the Johannesburg newspaper The Guardian (later New Age ) and the magazine Drum . In numerous articles, their editors spoke very sharply about the slave-like situation of the potato farm workers employed there.
The drum journalist Henry Nxumalo worked for it as an undercover agent until his murder in 1954 . The South African Congress of Trade Unions called for a boycott. At the 1959 Anti-Pass Conference in Johannesburg, the ANC and other organizations decided to support the nationwide boycott from May 31st. The action was planned until June 26th. The main organizer of the boycott was the local activist Gert Sibande . The boycott process had a significant impact in South Africa.
The boycott call prompted a large number of domestic consumers to temporarily stop consuming potatoes and potato products. In the course of the campaign, large quantities of potatoes piled up in many South African markets or rotted in the fields. Merchants with a solidarity refused to store larger stocks. Fish-and-chip shops only sold fish because African workers refused to eat potatoes. Many shopkeepers who continued to sell potatoes were forced to close as people lined up in front of their shops preventing access to the premises. The government tried to create confusion with leaflets in a disinformation campaign, but was unable to influence the people with its propaganda. In August 1959, the Congress Alliance's slogan could be read on posters : Potato boycott lifted. A victory for the people. A warning for the farmers (German roughly: The potato boycott has been lifted: A victory for the people, a warning for the farmers ).
The theme of the potato boycott and the life of Gert Sibande form the basis for the musical Lion of the East by Mbongeni Ngema , which was first performed in 2010 at The Playhouse Drama Theater in Durban .
economy
The main focus of income is traditionally in agriculture. There are potatoes , corn and sunflowers planted. The Eastern Transvaal Agricultural Co-op (also known as the Transvaal Potato Co-op ) is based in Bethal . There are large silos for maize and sunflower seeds with a total capacity of 142,308 tons and a maize mill. The most important employer is Oostelike Transvaalse Landbou Koöperatiewe Vereniging (OTK) of Bethal, whose history goes back to 1923.
In the vicinity of the place are extensive coal deposits , the Highveld coal field ( Highveld Coalfield ). So far, little use has been made of them because various natural conditions, such as striking dolerite dikes , make mining difficult. Only one seam was assessed as being worth mining.
Attractions
- The Nomoya Masilela Museum (the former Bethal Museum ) , declared a national monument in 1988, with collection objects on regional history, the cork pharmacy (1890) and the history of the Bethal Commando during the Boer War (1899-1902)
- National Potato Festival held annually in the spring
- Memorial to Boer soldiers who were killed in a battle not far from the settlement in Memorial Square
- the Rusticana Holstein Dairy Farm
- the construction of the Dutch Reformed Church in Vermooten-Strasse
sons and daughters of the town
- Josia Thugwane (* 1971) became the first black South African to win an Olympic gold medal
- Llewellyn Herbert (* 1977), hurdler
Other personalities
- Gert Sibande (1901–1987), anti-apartheid fighter, lived in Bethal for a long time
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2011 census , accessed November 16, 2013
- ↑ University of Johannesburg: Geological description of the Highveld Coalfield ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Brief description of the place. on www.sa-venues.com
- ^ A b Hans Christian Meiser (Ed.): Nelson Mandela. Selected texts . Goldmann Verlag , Munich 1986, p. 35
- ↑ Ruth First: Bethal Case-Book. In: Africa South. Vol. 2 (1958) Issue 3 April-June, pp. 14-25 here pp. 18 and 20, at www.disa.ukzn.ac.za
- ^ South African History Online: Michael Guthrie Scott . on www.sahistory.org.za (English)
- ↑ AM Keppel-Jones: Land and Agriculture Outside the Reservates . In: Ellen Hellmann, Leah Abrahams (Ed.): Handbook on Race Relations in South Africa. Cape Town, London, New York, Oxford University Press, 1949, p. 198
- ^ SAIRR : Race Relations. official journal of the South African Institute of Race Relations. Johannesburg, Vol. XII (1945), No. 1
- ^ Keppel-Jones: Land and Agriculture Outside the Reservates . In: Race Relations in SA. Pp. 197-198
- ↑ Short note on the potato boycott. on www.sahistory.org.za
- ↑ Biography of Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim. on www.sahistory.org.za
- ^ 50th Anniversary of the Potato Boycott. on www.satyagraha.org.za ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Office of the Premier, Mpumalanga Provincial Government: Mpumalanga Premier Thabang Makwetla welcomes court ruling . March 12th, 2009 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Biographical information on Gert Sibande. on www.sahistory.org.za
- ^ Donald Pinnock, Ruth First: Voices of Liberation. Vol. 2. HSRC Publishers, Pretoria 1997, ISBN 0-7969-1777-9 , pp. 71 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 8, 2017]).
- ^ 50th Anniversary of the Potato Boycott. on www.satyagraha.org.za ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Witness: Hope and triumph. Announcement December 15, 2009, on www.witness.co.za
- ↑ Agricultural and Resource Report of the Mpumalanga Province, Resource Management and Land Use Planning, Document Page 8 ( Memento of the original dated August 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 146 kB)
- ↑ Masetopa Mateme: Ready to plant new furrows in technology . on www.financialmail.co.za. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Brief note on the coal deposits at Bethal. on www.miningmx.com ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Brief note on the Highveld Coalfield deposit. at www.keatonenergy.co.za ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Short note on www.sahistory.org.za ( Memento of the original from February 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Heritage Sites and Register Sites at www.sahra.org.za ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
