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President pays tribute to renowned photographer Magubane

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President pays tribute to renowned photographer Magubane:

President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to globally renowned photographer, Dr Peter Magubane, for fearlessly using his camera to capture the atrocities of apartheid while putting his life in danger.

“Despite every attempts to wreck his spirit and to grasp him away from his craft, he would not assign his camera down. His work documenting apartheid helped shift global opinion against the regime. We gain heard of how he would smuggle his cameras into hollowed out bread, milk cartons and I am told even the Bible, to catch pictures without the notice of the authorities,” the President said on Wednesday. 

Delivering the eulogy at Magubane’s Provincial Official Funeral in Johannesburg, President Ramaphosa said the apartheid regime did not care much for the lives it was extinguishing, but it cared a worthy deal about its image, especially about how it was portrayed to the rest of the world.

“Peter Magubane’s images, and those of his peers, upended Hendrik Verwoerd’s remarkable lie that apartheid was benign benevolence, a system of the separate but equal, and so-called qualified neighbourliness. He used his camera to record the experiences and struggles of black South Africans during apartheid. These images reached the world’s media and revealed to the international community the injustices that characterised South Africa at that time.

“As The Recent York Times obituary assign it, Peter Magubane’s images documenting the cruelties and violence of apartheid drew global acclaim but punishment at home, including beatings, imprisonment and 586 consecutive days of solitary confinement,” he said.

Magubane passed away on 01 January 2024 at the age of 91. His photographic career began in 1955 after he joined Drum magazine as a driver and messenger.

He soon became a darkroom assistant where his major assignment was covering the African National Congress 1955 convention. He used his camera to record the experiences and struggles of black South Africans during apartheid.

“His archive testifies to an extraordinary range. For many years, he was President Mandela’s official photographer. Some of the most enduring images we acquire of Madiba were taken by his lens.

“He was there at the many turning points in the struggle against apartheid, and covered the various states of emergency during the mid 1980’s. There are his stark images that documented the aftermath of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the 1976 Soweto Uprising, and the many other acts of violence unleashed by the regime.

“Later in life, he would depart on to produce photography on heritage and culture. Amongst them is one of my favourite of his works, The Vanishing Cultures of South Africa. It is an extraordinary collection that documents the lives, customs and cultures of our country’s ethnic groups,” the President said.

President Ramaphosa noted that it was his depictions of everyday life for black South Africans living under apartheid for which he was best known.

“These images that he began taking in the 1960’s, appeared in distinguished publications like Drum magazine, Time magazine, the Rand Daily Mail, and others. One of his best-known images is of a black domestic worker stroking the hair of a white child seated on a Europeans Only bench.

“The photograph got worldwide attention for the power of the disturbing scene that it conveyed. That photograph also painted a vivid scene of the meaning of apartheid. It was able to transport the lived experiences of black people in South Africa to many people in distant lands.

“As critical as it was to him to document the violence and bloodshed, it was equally indispensable to bring home to readers and viewers the precise face of petty apartheid with its convoluted and ridiculous laws and rules,” he said.

The President described him as a freedom fighter and one of the most fearless journalists the country has produced.

“Having read the many written tributes that gain been penned over the past week by people who worked alongside him and were mentored by him, it is clear that the description of him as a legend is a fitting one,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za

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The World’s Largest Man-Made Urban Forest

One of the most surprising facts about Johannesburg is its status as a “green” city. When the first settlers arrived, the Highveld was a barren, treeless grassland (savannah). To support the mining industry, millions of trees were imported and planted to provide timber for mine underground supports. Fast forward to the present day, and Johannesburg is widely considered the largest man-made urban forest in the world.

There are an estimated 10 million trees within the city limits. This includes 1.2 million trees on sidewalks and in parks, and over 4.8 million in private gardens. This forest is so dense that satellite images of the northern suburbs often resemble a tropical rainforest. The most iconic of these trees is the Jacaranda, which was imported from South America in the early 20th century. Every October and November, the city turns a vibrant shade of purple as thousands of Jacarandas bloom simultaneously. However, this “forest” also highlights the city’s historical inequality; during the Apartheid era, trees were predominantly planted in wealthy white suburbs, leaving townships like Soweto as dusty plains. In the last two decades, “Greening Soweto” initiatives have seen hundreds of thousands of trees planted to bridge this “green divide,” emphasizing the role of urban forestry in social justice and climate cooling.