Dimbaza (G15)

Name:Dimbaza

Dimbaza in the Eastern Cape was created as a dumping ground for Blacks who lived illegally in White South Africa, during the mid and late sixties. The concrete houses consisted of two or three rooms. Sanitation facilities were non-existent. The lucky individuals could obtain employment in King Williams Town, roughly thirteen miles away,paying roughly a quarter of their gross income on transportation.

In keeping with then standard South African government policy, infrastructure development was financed by the beer halls.

Between the abject poverty, and active negligence by the South African government, the town became a symbol of apartheid, and the subject of the 1975 documentary Last Grave at Dimbaza.

The town's original name was changed, due to the inability of the Special Branch to pronounce it correctly.

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A film with the name Dimbaza

Last Grave at Dimbaza 55 minutes/color Morena Films, 1974; Closed captioned release date 2006. DVD/VHS distributed/sold by First Run/Icarus Films, Brooklyn, NY. Sale: $390, rental $100

The images remain in your memory nearly thirty years later: grainy, often flattened telephoto shots of factories, mines, military bases, overlain with texts and voiceovers providing statistical inventories of weaponry and which countries they were purchased from. White people bowling on immaculately kept, emerald green lawns are contrasted with black workers hauling the trashcans of a white suburban neighborhood, scurrying down back alleys

www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-171138751.html


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