Tony McGregor's Blog – September 2009 Archive (2)

A walled city



Pretoria is a walled city, like most of the major cities in South Africa. Walls and fences are the most noticeable features of the residential areas of these cities, at least the formerly "white" areas, and this gives one a clue to the reason for these walls and fences.

It is not a walled city in the traditional sense, but is rather a city of walled off areas, where relatively small groups of citizens live behind… Continue

In the bad old days of apartheid in South Africa the police used to spy through bedroom curtains, poke flash lights into parked cars and even go into bedrooms and smell the sheets for signs of inter-racial sex. I know it sounds incredible, but it happened.

The latest events in Sudan are strongly reminiscent of these amazing police actions in the apartheid state. Imagine, the police go around to parties and into restaurants looking for women who are wearing “inappropriate” clothing. As if,… Continue