What was going on when I was born?

Anywhere else in Africa, a sudden state of emergency after months of unrest might evoke the image of tanks in front of a stuccoed palace and troops controlling traffic at intersections. Not in South Africa. In South Africa, the troops are there, but over the hill, out of the view of most visitors or white residents, patrolling in black townships designed to be invisible from white areas and business centers. A visitor arriving in Johannesburg today, for instance, would see smooth highways leading in from the airport, and much traffic, and, despite a six-day-old state of emergency, bustling streets in a city center where the main task of the police seems to be to issue parking tickets.

Leaders of the United Automobile Workers today approved an innovative labor agreement to cover workers at a factory that the General Motors Corporation plans to build for its new Saturn model, a factory that Tennessee's Senators said would be built in their state. Approval of the contract had been delayed for several weeks by disputes over job security and some technical issues. Spokesmen for General Motors had said they would not announce the location of the $5 billion Saturn project, which will employ 6,000 U.A.W. members, until the approval came. In Washington, Senators Albert Gore Jr. and Jim Sasser, both Democrats, said there was no doubt that the factory site would be near Spring Hill, Tenn., about 30 miles from Nashville. ''This is a day of joy and celebration for Tennessee,'' Senator Gore said. ''We won.''

A Bronx man was arrested yesterday and charged in connection with the 10 recent attacks on women in midtown Manhattan office buildings, authorities said. The man, Russell West of 811 Walton Avenue, was paroled last year after serving 10 years for a 1974 conviction on rape and robbery charges, according to the police. Those offenses also involved knifepoint attacks on women in midtown office buildings. Assistant Chief Anthony Voelker said Mr. West was arrested outside his residence at 7:20 A.M. yesterday. ''He was taken by surprise - he was taken without resistance,'' Chief Voelker said at a news conference.

Four years after being ousted by the Nicaraguan Army, the first of 35,000 Miskito Indians have begun to move back to their traditional homeland along the Atlantic coast with the Government's blessing. The Miskitos had been uprooted from their homes along the broad, muddy Coco River without warning, their houses destroyed, possessions removed, crops and farm animals left behind. The mass evacuation and the travail the Miskitos faced as refugees attracted worldwide attention. Opponents of the Sandinista Government, including President Reagan, held up the Indians' plight as an example of official repression in Nicaragua.

Localities will have to bear more of the cost of future water projects subsidized by the Federal Government, Congressional negotiators agreed today. This principle, strongly supported by the Administration, represents a significant change in Federal policy. Until now, the United States Goverment absorbed most of the cost for such projects, including dams, harbors and flood control dikes. The permanent cost-sharing formulas for future projects will have to be worked out in legislation. Until then, no new project can go forward unless the Corps of Engineers works out a specific plan for sharing the costs with the municipalities and the states involved.

The Reagan Administration called on South Africa today to lift its six-day-old emergency decree. The decree affects areas hit by widespread unrest in black townships. The American statement, the strongest since the emergency was declared, was issued after President Reagan presided over an hourlong meeting of the National Security Council. It came amid growing pressure from Congress, and it coincided with a United Nations Security Council debate on sanctions against South Africa.

Low levels of plutonium were found in a sample of New York City water, Mayor Koch announced yesterday, but he said the water was ''absolutely safe to drink.'' A composite sample of water was taken from four locations after the city received an anonymous letter on April 1 from someone threatening to contaminate the water system with a plutonium compound, Mr. Koch said. The sample, taken April 17, showed an unusually high level of plutonium, he said, but still far below the permissible level for drinking water. Subsequent tests, which are continuing, have shown only the trace levels of plutonium common in water, the Mayor said. It was not specified whether the subsequent tests involved water from the same sources as those in the composite sample.

Western nations scored a major victory at the United Nations Decade for Women conference here Friday when the participants agreed to drop language equating Zionism with racism from the final document. Then, after a marathon session that lasted until early this morning, the delegates passed the main document unanimously. Walkout Was Threatened Both the United States and Israel had vowed to walk out of the conference if a Soviet-sponsored paragraph condemning Zionism by name came to a vote. This morning, when Margaret Kenyatta of Kenya, president of the conference, announced that the document would be adopted by consensus, the 2,100 delegates from more than 150 countries burst into applause and continued clapping in rhythm. The vote, after days of recriminations, parliamentary wrangling and forecasts of failure, was a welcome surprise to delegations that had fought hard to insure that the 12-day conference ended on a note of harmony.

For many middle-aged Russians, the 1957 Moscow youth festival is a memory of unusual excitement and abandon, a time when the city welcomed its first mass influx of visitors from abroad since the closed days of Stalin. The organizers, too, remember the 1957 festival, which many people believe planted the seeds of restlessness and a fascination with the West for succeeding generations of Russians. In 1957, tens of thousands of foreigners flooded the city, which took on a fairground atmosphere as Russians rushed to clasp the visitors' hands and swap coins, pins and greeting cards. It was the first taste for many of them of blue jeans, ball-point pens and, simply, friendship with outsiders.

Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, hospitalized Wednesday with abdominal pains, is suffering from an inflamed esophagus and will leave the hospital Saturday, a spokesman announced. Tests at New York University Hospital showed that Mr. Perez de Cuellar, 65 years old, has esophagitis, a condition brought on by a gastric reflex that sends acid into the esophagus, the spokesman, Francois Giuliani, said.

Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was quoted today as saying that his group was sending personnel and weapons back into southern Lebanon. ''We have the right after Sabra and Shatila and other genocides to help our people protect themselves, and to help the Lebanese people protect themselves,'' the English-language newspaper Arab News quoted Mr. Arafat as saying in an interview.

King Hussein of Jordan called on Arab governments today to form a working group to address critical problems confronting the region. The King, saying efforts to convene an emergency meeting of Arab leaders appeared to have collapsed once again, said that formation of such ''a new constructive alliance'' was essential. ''We simply can't go on like this,'' he said. Last month, King Hassan II of Morocco proposed a meeting of Arab leaders to discuss attacks by Shiite Moslem militias on Palestinian settlements in Lebanon. King Hussein emerged as an ardent supporter of the idea.