Two Towns, Two Tests of Freedom

It has been more than a century since the last of South Africa’s frontier wars, but this rugged region near the Indian Ocean is still known as the Border, a reference to the bloody dividing line between white settlers and the Xhosa people.

A lot has changed since the Xhosa were defeated in 1878 and finally rendered servants to the whites’ expansive Cape Colony. Five years ago, perhaps the most famous Xhosa of all--Nelson Mandela--became president, the first black to govern both blacks and whites since the arrival of European settlers 3 1/2 centuries ago.

In this Border farming and logging town, named after a 19th century German army commander once stationed here, the racial divide is also looking remarkably unlike the colonial past. A rapprochement is underway that has blacks and whites working hand in hand for the first time.

All is not well by any measure, but in the vast landscape of racial disharmony that is South Africa, the 30,000 residents here stand out: Blacks and whites acknowledge that they cannot go it alone; their destinies are one and the same.

“We can’t just look after our little white butts any longer,” said Dr. Adrian Cole, a family physician who serves on the local school board. “We have to look at the big picture and accept this is Africa. The blacks aren’t going anywhere, and there are too many whites to get rid of us. We share this place.”

A short distance away, beyond the sawmill, across the railroad tracks and down a bumpy, unpaved road, Lloyd Phuphu Mgwangqa has come to a similar conclusion, albeit with different reasoning. A town council member with a booming money-lending business, Mgwangqa has built a spacious brick house in the heart of “the location,” the vernacular for Stutterheim’s black township of Mlungisi.

“Let’s face it, we need the whites more than they need us,” said Mgwangqa, interrupting himself to take a business call on his mobile telephone. “The thing that always keeps blacks different from whites is an understanding of business. We need to be in partnership with whites so we can learn from them and influence how money is invested.”

From the very beginning, such mutual self-interest has been a guiding principle in South Africa’s peaceful transformation from apartheid to a multiracial democracy. Without it, many of the momentous changes of the past five years would not have been possible.

But outside the halls of Parliament, government conference rooms and big-city workplaces, the “we-are-in-this-together” realization has yet to take hold in the minds of countless ordinary South Africans. In many ways, the country’s transformation has dragged at the grass-roots because of continued racial separation, both physical and psychological.

Stutterheim is different, not only because most residents seem to have signed off on a new worldview--and started doing so a decade ago, before the rest of the country. The residents also are actively reaching across racial barriers to better the community.

“Our firm belief is that no one can sort out our problems but ourselves,” said Chris Magwangqana, a former community activist in the black township who has been Stutterheim’s mayor since 1995. “Starting early allowed us to make mistakes at a time when the country was changing and no one really knew the policy of the day.”

The achievements have been simple but significant. Plans for housing projects have been drafted, water taps installed, sewers dug and electricity lines extended to black neighborhoods. Several new schools have been built and adult training programs launched. A computer center has been opened next to the high school, which has been integrated without serious incident. And several hundred new jobs have been created in everything from sewing to fence-making.

Town Is Inspiration Despite Shortcomings

There are shortcomings too. Blacks in Stutterheim outnumber whites 9 to 1 but have only a fraction of the wealth. The local economy is a wreck, with joblessness approaching twice the national average. Only about a quarter of Mlungisi residents can afford to pay for municipal services, which in some cases have been cut off by cash-strapped authorities.

Magwangqana and a small group of influential blacks have moved into the previously all-white town, but there is still little racial mixing outside officialdom and work gatherings. Mgwangqa, the money lender, said he was unable to buy a house in a white neighborhood because the banks refused to give him a loan.

Even with its blemishes, Stutterheim has been an inspiration to other South African towns, many of which are only now seriously thinking about change. More than 100 municipalities have sent representatives to the “Little Bavaria of the Border” to learn about its story.

“Stutterheim went through a real hard time of mistrust, but people now are really trying to make it work,” said Sigrid Pickering, a white teacher who raised three sons on a farm outside of town. “Today whites don’t leave Stutterheim because they are frightened; if they leave it is because of economic reasons. That is a difference.”

It was May 6, 1990, when Magwangqana and the Mlungisi Civic Assn. forever changed race relations in Stutterheim by showing up at a crisis meeting in the Town Hall convened by then-Mayor Nico Ferreira and the all-white town council.

The next day, Magwangqana--less than two years out of jail for anti-apartheid activities--called off a black consumer boycott of white businesses that crippled the local economy and forced 14 of 120 local merchants to close shop.

Magwangqana offered the whites a chance to change, and they snapped it up.

“When Chris came to the Town Hall meeting and said, ‘OK, we will take you at your word,’ we knew things had to get done quickly,” Ferreira said. “We met again within a week and did not philosophize or academize. We identified problems and said, ‘OK, let’s fix them.’ ”

Outside Assistance Key to Progress

In the early stages, just the image of black and white leaders working side by side was too much for some to swallow. Even more unpalatable, Ferreira and Magwangqana had agreed to serve as joint leaders of the reform movement, later called the Stutterheim Forum, a decision that exposed them to death threats.

“We were facing racism on both sides,” Magwangqana said.

Eventually, the Stutterheim Development Foundation was established, with Ferreira at the helm, to attract corporate and international donations. Without outside assistance, officials acknowledge, the town would have never made it this far; in that regard, critics say, Stutterheim is an inappropriate model for other communities.

And even money and a big head start have not been able to remove historical and cultural attitudes that are among the biggest drags on Stutterheim’s renaissance. Nomfuneko Salaze, who heads the foundation’s business advice center, said most blacks have been so conditioned into submission that she devotes more time to psychological counseling than to bottom-line business advice.

“You are dealing with people with very low self-esteem and who are depressed,” Salaze said. “The old government used to do all the thinking for people, so we found them folding their arms and waiting to be told what to do. They were expecting handouts.”

There was a breakthrough of sorts last year, Salaze said. For the first time since the advice center opened in 1992, black clients began accepting that things would not get better unless they tried harder themselves. Six years of waiting for such progress is a long time, but Salaze said there is no other way.

“I still battle with the work ethic,” she said. “When someone says they will do something, they do it only when you are watching. You go to their business, and it is closed. They say they didn’t know customers might come then.”

Slowly, however, black businesses are opening, succeeding and setting an example for others. Resignation is turning into determination for a few, as the women of the Laphumilanga Producers Assn. are only too happy to demonstrate.

The seven mothers, old and young, work at sewing machines squeezed into a one-room building near the community center in Mlungisi. Small children make mischief on the floor; newborns dangle from their mothers’ backs or are passed around the sewing circle.

For the better part of a year, the women, who specialize in school and sports uniforms, had worked eight hours a day for nothing. Expenses equaled revenues, explained Qobongoshe Nombasa, a mother of three in a patchwork smock. Since February, however, business has taken off. The women now are each taking home about $35 a month; if projections bear out, they can expect tenfold increases down the line.

Uniform shops in town that sell factory-made wares, Nombasa boasts with a satisfied grin, have taken a sudden dislike for the ladies of Laphumilanga, which is Xhosa for sunshine. The entrepreneurs have responded as any competitor should: They have given up their lunch breaks so they can work even harder.

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About This Series

In this three-part series, The Times examines a changed South Africa as it prepares for its second free, multiracial elections.

* Wednesday: Life is better since Nelson Mandela came to power five years ago, people say. But it is not nearly good enough.

* Thursday: The historic black-white schism endures as one of the country’s most sensitive and intractable problems.

* Today: A tale of two cities: one a “town of hate,” the other a place where blacks and whites are working hand in hand.

The series is available on the Web at https://www.latimes.com/safrica.