Home soil touches the heart of top businessman
New Brighton was at the heart of the ‘76 student uprising for equal education in then-Port Elizabeth but, ironically, or perhaps unsurprisingly, it was home to a Calvinist community that took pride in what they had.
Former political activist and now top SA businessman Sipho Pityana, 63, who grew up in a single parent home in Stokwe Street in Nelson Mandela Bay’s oldest township, said this ethic had extended through every facet of their lives.
“I attended Charles Duna Primary School and Newell High School and the first thing we did when we arrived at school in the morning was clean up the trash.
“We would also clean the classrooms.
“At home, my mother taught my brothers and I how to cook and clean, and to wash and iron our clothes. There were no girls’ jobs or boys’ jobs.
“We dressed neatly when we went out and made sure our shoes were shiny.
“There was no litter in the streets. Cleanliness was next to Godliness.
“Ours was a Calvinist culture and as a community we were proud of ourselves and the place we lived.”
Pityana, who is former president of Business Unity SA and convener of civil society pressure group Save SA, said though he remembered the pain of losing friends and fellow activists in high school, growing up in New Brighton had in many ways been idyllic.
“My friends and I played stick fighting, spin the coin and other games. These took place in the middle of the street.
“Otherwise we would go to the municipal swimming pool in Pendle Street or the Rio Cinema in Aggrey Street. I remember watching To Sir with Love with Sidney Poitier.
“We could do karate, boxing, weightlifting or body building at Centenary Hall.
“We would walk everywhere because New Brighton was not that big and we had a whole community of mothers and fathers who had the right to chastise us if we misbehaved.”
He said he was an active member of St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Gratten Street.
“Besides learning scriptures, we could sing and dance and participate in the many programmes on positive ways of life.”
Influenced by his older brothers, Lizo and Barney, Pityana was already deeply involved in politics and in 1977 he was elected president of the student representative council representing pupils from all the black schools in the city.
In 1978 and 1979, he was detained several times and finally his mother, Ruth, sent him to finish his delayed matric at Osborn High School in KwaBhaca.
He then dived into union politics and in 1982 became the youngest person to receive a banning order from the National Party government.
He ended up spending a decade in exile in Britain and, when he returned in 1991, New Brighton was very different.
“It was midmorning on a weekday, I remember, and I saw some youngsters loitering in the street. I asked them sternly why they were not in school. They just gave me a dirty look and ignored me.
“Before I could do anything further my mother quietly told me, ‘it’s not done to speak like that any more. You can’t reprimand them even if you can see they are playing truant’.”
He said this rejection of authority by the youth and a growing post-apartheid attitude that “somebody else will do it” had combined to tear the heart out of New Brighton where filthy streets, danger and dysfunction were now the norm.
“Before, New Brighton was a multi-class society where teachers and priests and even attorneys and doctors lived next door to working class people.
“This mixture was reflected in the school governing bodies and the standard of education in the local schools was revered.
“It was understood that all parents had to be involved and to contribute financially according to their means.”