“It is a hot day in the Western Cape,” the TV commentator noted uninspiringly. Unused to momentous moments such as this, he grew increasingly banal as the waiting dragged on. “The sun beats down relentlessly in Africa,” he tried again. The camera continued to stare at the gates of the Victor Verster prison in Paarl. It was 11 February 1990, the day of Nelson Mandela's release after 27 years in jail. Malvern and I sat fixed to the television awaiting a glimpse of the man whose name we knew so well but whose banned image had hardly ever been seen in South Africa. At last the waiting crowd exploded with excitement and there he was, hand in hand with Winnie, acknowledging the roaring greeting. I felt a lump in my throat. A few months previously in Amsterdam such an event had not seemed possible. We watched every move of the cavalcade as it made its way to the Grand Parade in Cape Town where the icon of the struggle was to make his first public address. There, from a balcony overlooking the jubilant crowd, Mandela took my breath away when he publicly thanked two white organisations for their contribution to the liberation struggle: the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) and the Black Sash. It was an unexpected and unbelievable moment.
Lucy, a UCT student at the time, was in the crowd on the Grand Parade. She and her group of friends were ecstatic, but they decided to move off when some breaking of shop windows and hasty looting began nearby. It was inevitable that opportunists would seize the moment, and in their rash act they provided a warning of the roller-coaster ride that lay ahead. The ANC colours started to appear everywhere, on cup, scarf, shirt and cap, and the South African Communist Party fag was flown openly. Euphoria and hope were in the air, as was an exciting feeling of comradeship among all those who had taken part in struggle-related activities. We really seemed to be entering a wonderful non-racial period. The Black Sash national conference was held in Grahamstown that year, and while joy and elation were present there too, I was impressed by the clear-headed realism that marked the discussions. With its hard-won experience of the dynamics that had been brewing in the country, especially through the 1980s, the Black Sash knew that some very delicate and perilous work awaited all South Africans. Much thought was given to the new role the organisation would have to play in a radically altered socio-political landscape.
At this time the Jan Smuts air terminal in Johannesburg was undergoing renovations. Notices were put up depicting a cartoon figure losing his balance on a slippery floor. “Improvements in Progress!” the signs warned. As the year unfolded, change and improvement did indeed seem like a slippery floor to me, and that image became more and more apt. Bronwyn Brady, our young fieldworker at the time, was rushed off her feet as the Sash participated in ever more meetings and rallies and joined in the general bustling among comrades. Soon, however, we all found ourselves longing for less rhetoric and strategy, and more in-depth consideration of policies. As shared jubilation gave way to a rising sweep of triumphalism, we became concerned to see the rallies turn more and more militant. Amid the inevitable jostling and competition among factions, we were sometimes caught awkwardly in the middle. We soon realised that we would have to cling firmly to our independence. In the words of the Black Sash dedication, we were pledged to “uphold the ideals of mutual trust and forbearance, of sanctity of word, of courage for the future and of peace and justice for all persons and peoples.” At a time when national values were up for renegotiation, we steadfastly had to resist any diminution of these principles.
As our Zimbabwean sisters in Harare had warned, once the struggle was over the role of Comrade Freedom would be at severe risk if we did not guard it carefully. Many women in Zimbabwe felt that they’d been sidelined to the cooking pots after the war. I was reminded of this when plans were being made for a massive rally in the Bisho stadium at which Mandela would be present and the Black Sash in East London were asked to do the catering. The request gave rise to heated debate. We certainly needed to reassess our role in the activist arena, but should a human rights organisation be relegated to the task of catering? On this occasion the East Londoners decided to join in the spirit of the hour and do the task assigned to them, but we all undertook to remain vigilant in this regard.
All roads led to Bisho on that memorable day. Every form of transport had been commandeered and taxis and vans were bursting with people. The white section of neighbouring King William’s Town was cordoned off, in fear and trepidation of the black invasion. A small group from the Grahamstown Sash found a spot to perch on some rising ground overlooking the vast crowd. People stood shoulder to shoulder, helicopters hovered overhead. Marshals were searching everyone who entered the stadium, confiscating any sharp objects which could lead to trouble. At last Mandela arrived in a high-speed convoy of cars, some with blackened windows. From where we stood we could see only a vague outline of the man, but it was the roar of the crowd and the soaring singing that made the day most memorable.
I had to wait two years to have more than just a distant glimpse of Nelson Mandela. In November 1992 I was invited to a lunch in his honour in the Albany Recreation Centre, hosted by the Grahamstown Civic Organisation (GRACO). This was the hall where Malvern and I had attended a service many years earlier when Allan Hendrickse had been detained. It was on that Sunday, twenty years before, that I had decided to start keeping a diary. In the interim I had been to many meetings in that hall, some of them secret, some more overt. To see Nelson Mandela there felt like a circle completed.
GRACO was an organisation run by coloured Grahamstonians and the Recreation Hall was in the coloured area. After the lunch Mandela was due to attend a rally at a stadium in the black township. I was intrigued by this order of events. Was it a shrewd political move by the ANC to garner coloured support? Or had the coloured community stolen a march on the township? In any event, it was a wonderful occasion. The usually bare hall was transformed with flowers and balloons and a large welcoming banner hung above the stage. We sat at trestle tables groaning under platters of food, which ranged from curry and legs of lamb to trifle and mousse. A centrepiece of fruit gave the occasion the air of a banquet. Outside the hall a crowd gathered, and we knew when Mandela had arrived from the customary roar that greeted him. A red carpet stretched from pavement to hall and two little girls dressed in white held flower baskets full of corsages, which they presented to the VIPs. One of the girls was called Zinzi, the same name as one of Mandela’s daughters, and later he had a photograph taken of her sitting on his knee. I recalled reading an interview with him in which he said that the absence of children during his prison years had been one of his most severe deprivations.
Inside the hall there were presentations of gifts, speeches of welcome and toasts. As I looked about, I mused on past occasions in that hall and on my fellow guests. There were people I had worked with at GADRA and in many other non-governmental organisations. I was one of only a handful of whites. I felt deeply privileged and knew that it was thanks to the Black Sash that I was there. Alongside me sat a well-known Grahamstown couple, he a Black Consciousness priest who had spent time on Robben Island and she an acerbic academic. They'd always had a way of deflating my naive enthusiasms and even on this occasion they seemed mocking of my excitement. “So, Rosemary, aren’t you feeling important, being here today.”
But nothing could destroy the magic for me. Mandela looked younger than I had imagined, a man of charisma and strength, and as he spoke I thought, “Here is a person really in touch with himself.” He spoke for 45 minutes without a note, in humble vein and on the theme of reconciliation. He recollected that the first coloured people he had met had been members of the Garment Workers’ Union, women who had impressed him with their strength and ferocity. He told of arguments in prison with Neville Alexander, a coloured leader and educationalist who had urged that in a new South Africa, Afrikaans should be abolished for having been the language of the oppressor. He spoke of various prison warders who had shown him kindness. I heard Mandela speak again on various occasions afterwards and saw him at other functions in Grahamstown, but nothing could eclipse that first time in the Recreation Hall.
A new dawn had broken but it was clear the path, finally visible ahead, would be long. First of all, preparations for the election had to be made. But at the same time, the shape of the future had to be negotiated. Not only did first generation civil and political rights have to be secured, but it was also up to organisations such as ours to ensure that the second and third generation rights like social security, education, adequate wages, peace, a healthy environment and opportunities for development were not left out of the blueprint.
The immediate challenge, in Grahamstown as elsewhere, was the establishment of transitional local government structures in which both the expertise of the old civic structures and the political aspirations of the new guard were accommodated. This was often an unequal and acrimonious tussle as the community-based organisations tended to be poorly equipped and easily duped, while the established authorities were in a state of disorganised retreat, unsure of their future and sensing the carpet gradually being pulled from under their feet. In these scenarios the Black Sash played a consulting role. Our fieldworker Glenn Hollands was now a highly skilled negotiator who had earned widespread credibility in the Grahamstown community, and most of this delicate work fell to him. Glenn’s top priority was that a climate of free political participation be maintained.
In preparation for the transition that lay ahead, we renewed what we had in the past called “white outreach”, a range of projects aimed at white Grahamstonians. Sociologists, when they describe a country’s development, talk of societies as either “ascribing” or “achieving”. An ascribing society clings to the past and to values handed down by previous generations, making it difficult to adjust to changes in the outside world.
In an achieving society people are no longer imprisoned by the past but look outward with confidence towards the future. The transition can be painful, as people have to abandon certainties that had previously given shape to their lives. It was this process of adaptation that we were anticipating when we launched a series of public panel discussions entitled, “Signposts to the New South Africa”. We had a range of good speakers and interesting topics, but the audiences were sparse and the impact probably did not warrant the amount of work we put in. We managed to reach a larger audience at the National Arts Festival in 1992, when I was asked to be part of a panel discussion entitled “Living Space for All”, which addressed the future of town planning.
I found myself on a platform with some leading South African architects and an ANC spokesperson on housing. My humble brief was to describe housing conditions in Grahamstown and I was glad of the opportunity, hoping that somewhere someone of influence might be listening. I invited the audience to look out from the large plate-glass windows of the monument, over the town to the township, and to observe the hillside peppered with wattle and daub houses. Erected by the people themselves of tree poles and mud, these primitive structures had proliferated since 1989 when restrictions were being loosened and spontaneous land invasions had begun on every available patch of vacant land in and around the township. The last time any official housing development had occurred had been in the 1960s, and by the 1980s the situation had become dire.
In the townships up to 150 people shared a standing water pipe per street. Just a few months before the 1992 festival some of the taps had had to be closed because of the drought, but at the same time the city council decided to cut bulk electricity and water supplies to the township because of outstanding debts. February in Grahamstown is suffocatingly hot and that year was no exception. In the township there was an appalling stench as sewage was not being washed away. A range of local organisations appealed against the council’s inhumane action but to no avail. Tensions rose as residents were forced to carry water from the town and before long the security forces, still controlled by the Nationalist government, began to prepare for the inevitable backlash.
Late one afternoon, when rumours of stoning and police harassment began to drift into the Black Sash office, Glenn and I decided to drive to the township. On the way we passed a police roadblock, where we discussed the situation with the officer in charge. In the township we met with leaders of the civic organisations and together we decided to appeal for road tankers to ferry water. When we left the house where we had met, everything seemed quiet. There did not appear to be anyone in the streets and we decided to return to town by a different route. At one point we noticed a young boy standing on a bank overlooking the road, and when the first small stone hit the car we thought it was youthful mischief. But as we rounded the bend it was immediately clear that this was no child’s play. There were knots of people waiting along the road ahead, all with stones in hand. By this stage it was impossible to turn around and all Glenn could do was put his foot down.
When the first missile came through the window we realised that we were being pelted with bricks. I ducked down, but not before I was hit on the side and showered with glass from the shattering windscreen. The sound of bricks thumping and windows splintering was all I could hear. “This is what war is like,” I thought. I was frightened and certain we were going to die. From my crouched position I could not see the raised fists and the looks of hatred on people's faces, but those were the images Glenn registered as he drove furiously down the road. The police at the roadblock wanted to take us to the hospital, but we declined their help and went to the doctor ourselves. Amazingly, Glenn had only a small scratch, but the car was extensively damaged and I was severely bruised down one side, with glass in my hair and several cuts on my head. All the doctor could do was administer anti-tetanus injections and bathe some of the worst cuts. I had to go home and slowly remove all the glass in a bath.
I was shocked, but also deeply saddened that the divisions in our society seemed to be widening rather than closing. The images in my mind that night were not just of flying bricks and shattering glass. There was also one of a mother and her small child sitting in the doctor’s waiting room as we stumbled in. The mother was horrified at what she saw and hid her child's face in her lap. "Did kaffirs do this to you?" she asked. Glenn must have been even more haunted than I was, but he never mentioned it. I think the event was eclipsed for him a while later when he again found himself on a battlefield, only this time with real bullets whizzing around his head. He attended a protest march in Bisho where the Ciskei police opened fire, killing several people and wounding others. For Glenn, that was far more frightening.
As for me, I asked my friend and GADRA colleague Kholeka Nkwinti to take me in her car the very next day, along the road where the stoning had happened, so that I could exorcise my fear. Nevertheless, it was some time before the incident faded and even the sound of acorns raining down on the roof of my car could bring back terrifying memories.
We learnt later that several other vehicles were stoned that day and that a pedestrian was killed by a swerving car. The elderly couple inside were critically injured when the driver lost control. The one bit of good news was that the essential services were restored to the townships the next day. When word got out that workers from the Black Sash had been stoned, we received many phone calls of regret and condolence from township residents. A letter appeared in the local paper deploring the violence. While not condoning it, we realised that this was sometimes the only way people could find to express their frustration. We had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The day after the stoning, a few of us drove to Cradock. The Minister of Health and Welfare was visiting the town and we decided to challenge her with some pertinent questions on proposed amendments to the Social Assistance Bill, which would affect social pensioners. The Black Sash had been targeting members of both the Nationalist cabinet and the opposition with questions on welfare issues, and we could not let this opportunity go by. The Black Sash vehicle wasn’t in a ft state to be driven and I wasn't much better, but we went in a colleague’s car and I spent the three-hour journey lying on the back seat nursing my bruises.
The meeting in the Cradock Town Hall was a typical small-town occasion. The respectful audience was dressed as though for church, and at the end of the minister’s speech she was presented with a pot of homemade jam. In spite of clearly being outsiders we dominated question time, firing our salvos from the back of the hall. The minister did not ignore us, continued talking to us at teatime, and a week later there arrived a salmon pink, gold-embossed card with the assurance that she had heard our cries. I don’t know how much our particular efforts helped, but in due course some significant concessions were made, allowing the Black Sash to feel rewarded for its relentless campaign on social pensions. The points gained were that women would henceforth qualify for old-age pensions at 60; that “foreigners” would not include homeland citizens; and that the words “at the Minister’s discretion” would be altered to indicate that pensions were a right and not a privilege.
Over tea and koeksisters that day we also encountered the glamorous Martha Olckers, one-time Mayor of Grahamstown, who had since carved out a career for herself in national politics. In conversation with her, we challenged her on the callous Nationalist legacy that still led to incidents like the Grahamstown water cuts. Martha maintained her glossy composure, deigning only to say how pleased she was that there had been no violence – upon which my companions had to restrain me from tearing open my dress and displaying a bright purple bosom!
As South Africa inched its way towards its first democratic election amidst increasing violence, Charles Dickens’ famous line from A Tale of Two Cities had never seemed more apt to me – it was indeed the best and the worst of times. According to the South African Institute of Race Relations, in 1993 alone, 3 706 people died in political violence. When Chris Hani, ex-commander of MK and a popular ANC leader, was assassinated in April of that year, an outpouring of emotional outrage followed, with violence directed at any institution vaguely representing the state. Covert, so-called third-force operations by the far right stoked up tensions between warring parties, resulting in high levels of black-on-black violence. Meanwhile the PAC continued the armed struggle with attacks on soft targets. A prominent incident was the murder of white American student Amy Biehl, by PAC youths in Guguletu, Cape Town.
Across the country, members of the Black Sash served on peace committees and monitoring groups. Although the situation in the Eastern Cape never became as explosive as it was in Natal and on the Reef, our region too had need of its peace monitors. It was difficult to evaluate their true impact, but their distinctive blue bibs, emblazoned with the symbol of a dove, were widely seen as a reassuring and restraining presence at marches and meetings, which even in the ANC heartland sometimes turned confrontational.
In Natal, where the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the ANC were desperately manoeuvring for power, the conflict was at times nothing short of an all-out war. We were mindful of this on the night a few of us decided to attend a glamorous costume party. The Grand Victorian Ball was to be held in the City Hall to commemorate Dick King’s epic journey on horseback from Port Natal 150 years before, carrying a despatch from the war that was then raging. The idea of a ball was enticing and we decided to enjoy a fling. The costumes were half the fun, with farmers’ wives appearing in their ancestors’ ball gowns and Malvern in his top hat looking like the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland. A red carpet stretched from pavement to hall, lined with boys in scarlet cadet band uniforms and leopard skin drapes, holding blazing torches. On the printed programme was a quote from Mrs Beeton’s Manners of Polite Society, warning, “If a lady waltz with you, beware not to press her waist. Only lightly touch it with the palm of your hand, lest you leave a disagreeable impression not only on her dress, but also on her mind.” It was the last gasp of colonialism and the past, and we danced all night.
In the months preceding the election, Black Sash branches throughout the country engaged in a campaign to educate first-time voters. Our region was predominantly rural and our team of 15 Sash members, which included an indefatigable septuagenarian, travelled enormous distances. We concentrated mostly on large, well-mechanised pineapple and chicory farms, dairy farmlands and industrialised citrus co-operatives, but also visited parts of the drought-ridden hinterland where often the general farming infrastructure was extremely run-down. The venues for our workshops included barns and cowsheds, and once a hotel. Often people sat on bales of hay in dim light from paraffin lamps. In an area of 3 000 square kilometres, we travelled 6 000 kilometres to reach an estimated 4 200 farm workers.
On the whole, white farmers were uncompromising about the privacy of their land and exerted strict control over access to those who lived there. A generally conservative community, they had also come to regard the Black Sash with suspicion and even hostility, owing in part to our collaboration with an NGO called the East Cape Agricultural and Rural Project (ECARP), which had offices above us in Bathurst Street. We had to promote the voter education project with great care in order not to alarm the farmers. We spoke at agricultural meetings, met with individual farmers and wrote articles for the press, and in general were positively received. Often a farmer would coordinate the workshop arrangements for us, even transporting workers from surrounding farms.
Glenn wrote a play called Balloting Blues, complete with a rap song, which was performed in isiXhosa at our workshops. The play dramatised the choices facing a first-time voter, emphasising the point that his or her vote was their secret. Empowered by this knowledge, our protagonist, Nosipho, a domestic worker, was able to navigate her way through various forms of pressure and intimidation from her husband, her community and her employer. After the play, a mock ballot was held so that people could practise voting. Young and old, women and men, they came in their hundreds to watch the play and cast their first "vote".
Because we were reaching out to workers, these educational sessions had to take place either at night or on Saturdays. I discovered places in the Eastern Cape that I had never seen before, tucked away and reached only on rough roads, up steep rocky valleys and over dry riverbeds. We got used to natural history excursions as the car headlights picked out buck, rabbits, mice and other small mammals crossing the rural roads. One night a large hare got trapped in our headlights and raced ahead of the car for a long stretch of gravel road. There were potholes and dongas and roads sloping off into the veld, and many times the team got lost in the profound darkness.
One farm, which we visited on a bright Saturday morning, seemed like the original Garden of Eden, with flowering hedges in profusion along the roadside. But we soon discovered it was far from paradise. The workers lived in wattle and daub houses and had no toilets; the school had broken windows and badly fitting doors; and we discovered that the farmer had instructed his labourers whom they were to vote for. Some empowering education was clearly needed. At other times, though, we encountered people who knew their own minds. “My party isn’t on the ballot sheet!” one bent old woman complained as she emerged from the make-believe polling booth. It transpired that she wanted to vote for Umkhonto we Sizwe. One late afternoon we held an impromptu workshop at a road workers’ camp, where we squashed into a tin hut with people sitting on benches while pots bubbled on a stove at the far end. It was an all-male audience and some of the faces looked weather-beaten and worn. As they cast their mock votes, I wondered how much life would really change for them in the new democracy.
There was a special pleasure for me in working with first–time voters, because I was at last to be one myself. In preparation for the election, the government expedited new applications for citizenship, and this time I had no doubt that the time was right for me to become a South African citizen. So it was that I was able to stand in one of the legendary queues on 27 April 1994 and step into a booth to finally place my first cross in a South African election.
The day dawned windy and dusty. Malvern manned a polling booth in the township, where the queues of first–time voters snaked out of school buildings and church halls. The Black Sash helped to staff the Independent Electoral Commission’s monitoring centre, with its operations room in the offices of the Albany Council of Churches. Our job was to receive phone reports from monitors throughout the rural districts, and our chief operator was Nancy Charton, an Anglican priest and long-serving Sash member. Nancy stands out in my mind as a legendary figure who once stared down a military roadblock. On that distant Saturday morning in the mid-80s, a phalanx of security vehicles had blocked our access to Joza township, preventing us from attending a funeral. We were a motley crew of Sashers and students, and at our head was Nancy, grey hair whisping out from a bun, a battered straw hat on her head. Undaunted by the show of might in our path, Nancy mustered us into a circle in the road and proceeded to lead us in prayer. The young soldiers watched impassively, until the special branch drove up and gave us ten minutes to disperse. Now, years later, Nancy led our team of election monitors with that same ebullience, concluding her calls – to the astonishment of correspondents at the other end of the line – with her personal signature, “Receiving you loud and clear. Hallelujah!” As the day progressed, a berg wind began to rage. One of the messages from a small rural hamlet reported that the polling station, a tent, had blown away. To escape the dust, the reporter was phoning from inside a big plastic rubbish bag.
No one was surprised when the ANC gained a resounding victory. Come Inauguration Day on 10 May, we again had to pinch ourselves to make sure that this was real. Were we really seeing South African Defense Force generals saluting Mandela? Was that Fidel Castro on our television screens? And was this really all happening in Pretoria, seat of the Nationalist government for over 40 years?
Against the backdrop of Sir Herbert Baker’s majestic Union Buildings, the inauguration was immensely joyous. Our friend and fellow Sasher, Mary-Louise Peires, attended the occasion as the spouse of an ANC MP and she sent us a colourful description. People were in best dress and hat, exotic robes and turbans. She carried her own hat in a paper bag for most of the day and was accosted at one point by another spouse of a newly elected MP who had got rather used to all the freebies they’d been receiving. She wanted to know where the hats were being handed out. During the fly-past of the air force jets Mary-Louise overheard someone remark, “Isn’t it wonderful to think that those planes now belong to us.”
There were still the obvious vestiges of colonialism, with the navy band playing Land of Hope and Glory and boys in striped blazers and flannels serving food in a marquee. But the overwhelming feeling, for the duration of that day at least, was that all South Africans were equal at last, bowed down no more by fear, despair, oppression or guilt. I felt content and happy to number myself as one of them.