But as a sovereign state, it could live by its own laws. Comprising a patchwork of seven separate enclaves scattered across three provinces, its “independence” was laughable, its cabinet recognized only by South Africa.
The Republic of Bophuthatswana was one such. It took a certain twisted vision to find opportunity in the misery of apartheid.
Isolated and brainwashed, living under a punitive apartheid government hell bent on moralising to whites and herding blacks into ethnically separate ‘bantustans’ – pockets of tribal land on which the apartheid government foisted faux independence. The country was still the biggest producer of gold and diamonds in the world the rand equal in strength to the dollar. We’d just stepped out of the Seventies, a decade of mixed emotions for white South Africans.
We were there to see George Benson, and watching a black man play to an adoring white audience was a thrill in apartheid South Africa. The first time I went to Sun City I was 16, glinting defiance at my mum through teardrop spectacles as I asked for a brandy and coke.
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