But
the damage done by apartheid is largely irrevocable, says Haroun,
52, Suliman Moolla's son. "The house was demolished and the
land lay empty for a while, until it was commercially developed.
Today that land is prime property, situated near the local taxi
rank," he says. "The property had a commercial license,
but because we were not white, we were not allowed to develop it.
"The
house had sentimental value. We grew up there," he adds
Apartheid
also meant that both Suliman and Haroun struggled to gain access to
basic education.
"There
were only white high schools in Heidelberg, so when I reached
standard six [at approximately 13 years of age], I had to go and
live with friends in Johannesburg [approximately an hour
away]," remembers Suliman. "We often had to walk 3
kilometers to school in the morning, and I would sometimes be robbed
on the way there. Whilst walking to school, the white kids would
often come and hit us for no reason other than the color of our
skin. If we were alone, we wouldn't fight back, but if there were
three or four of us, we would hit them back."
This
coupled with the fact that his father could no longer afford his
fees, as well as the knowledge that, by law, opportunities for
Indians to further their studies at tertiary level were few and far
between (for example, only two Coloreds, one black, and one Indian
could be admitted into medical college at the time), and the fact
that Indians were not allowed to work for whites meant that he soon
had to leave school without having completed his secondary
education.
Haroun
also had to travel 35 kilometers to and from high school on a daily
basis, paying a teacher for transport.
But
today, his teenage son Asif attends the local Afrikaans school that
was previously whites only but which was forced to open its doors to
all races in post-apartheid South Africa.
When
the newly elected State President of South Africa, Nelson
Mandela, hosted a luncheon in honor of the veterans of the
struggle for freedom, an invitation was sent to "Comrade
Moollabhai." |
|
And
while Asif can freely visit the coastal city of Durban, which is a
5-hour drive away from Heidelberg, and choose to holiday at any one
of hundreds of beachfront hotels and holiday flats, in the days of
apartheid, special permission from the authorities was required
before traveling to other areas. And the choices at the destination
were limited. "Most people wanted to stay near the beach, but
there was only one hotel which was open to Indians, and it used to
get full. We could also only swim at Indian beaches, and nowhere
else," says Haroun.
"Asif's
life is very different, very easy," he adds. "It was
difficult to live under apartheid — we had no rights."
It
is not surprising, then, that the Moolla family gave their full
support to the struggle for freedom and often actively voiced their
protest against the status quo. Ismail Moolla was an active member
of the Transvaal Indian Congress and a supporter of the African
National Congress.
"One
night Yusuf Dadoo, the leader of the Transvaal Indian Congress,
called my father and told him that he should go and fetch him and
some other people and take them to Benoni, where my father owned
another shop that my uncle ran," narrates Suliman. "My
father asked us what to do, and we told him that since the leader
had spoken, he should go. He went to pick them up. They were all
prominent activists, and one of them was Nelson Mandela. My father
drove them to Benoni, taking only the back roads, for fear of check
points. He took them to Benoni, and they stayed at my uncle's house
for two days, holding a very important meeting. He went to fetch
them when they were finished."
Suliman's
elder brother, Muhammad Amin, was part of a group of activists who
were jailed for three months when they erected tents and camped out
in a whites-only area as a form of protest.
As
a result, thousands of people gathered outside the Union Building to
protest the dompas (literally "stupid pass") the
name given by black South Africans to the document that they had to
carry with them at all times; otherwise they would face punishment.
Ismail Moolla made sure that his wife could baby-sit their
grandchildren so that all five of his daughters-in-law could
participate in the event.
The
Moollas' contribution to the struggle against apartheid did not go
unnoticed.
In
1994, when the newly elected State President of South Africa, Nelson
Mandela, hosted a luncheon in honor of the veterans of the struggle
for freedom, an invitation was sent to "Comrade Moollabhai"
(literally "brother"; the suffix bhai is often used
by Indians as means of conveying affection or respect for each
other), Ismail Moolla, then age 95, and his son Suliman. (Ismail
passed away in 2001, at the age of 102.)
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