Working for a President
We received the strangest calls and requests sometimes in the President’s office. On one occasion a gentleman called to say that he had a parrot that could imitate the President and whether he could please bring the parrot to the office for the President to hear it. I was the lucky person to take the call and I obviously said, ‘No Sir, I don’t think so.’ One day I received a call from an Afrikaans gentleman who said, ‘Good morning lady, please give me your pints.’ I responded by saying, ‘Excuse me Sir.’ He said again: ‘Your pints, I need your pints please.’ I said, ‘Sir, I think you have the incorrect number as I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.’ He then explained that he was calling from a dairy farm and dialled the wrong number: he was looking for the pints of milk our dairy produced for the day. I replied, ‘Sir, even if I had the pints I wouldn’t know how much a pint is.’
A South African serial killer on the run, Colin Chauke, also called our switchboard and wanted to speak to the President, and the President only, to hand himself over to the police. He wanted the President to help him, probably because he was scared that he might be shot when he handed himself over to the police. Olga was on the switchboard that day and acted swiftly to alert the police from another telephone line. The police arrested Chauke a few hours later and he didn’t get to speak to the President. We therefore sometimes dealt with serious matters and on other days you had to keep your sanity in check because of the ludicrous things people would suggest or call about.
Things happened at an enormously fast pace. Especially when the President was around. In his presence things were calm but behind the scenes it was running and organizing at speed. There would be very little time for anything else than work. Somehow Elize based in Cape Town managed much better than us. She had a more balanced life but in Pretoria we raced against time to get through the day. As I have mentioned, Elize had served the former First Lady, Marike de Klerk, and was one of the staff members from the old regime who remained in the dispensation. The rest of us really had no knowledge or skill of having been in a President’s office before and a lot was done on trial and error.
The Presidency was focused on implementing the interim constitution and setting up structures to enhance the functioning of the constitution, which was signed into law in 1996. The President himself was very focused on reconciliation and nurturing both black and white people’s emotions that were bruised as a result of apartheid.
Apart from typing up the President’s schedule and distributing it daily to security, households, airforce and concerned parties, Mary tasked me with a few other mundane things. She would occasionally ask me to bring tea to the President or his guests or even drive her car to be filled with fuel and fetch her dry cleaning. I didn’t mind doing anything and whatever was asked. I often dropped off documents at the President’s house in Pretoria, received visitors and learned how to deal with any enquiries that came to the President’s personal staff. We started operating in a more structured way, where work was divided between the three private secretaries and Alan and I had to deal with most of the administration. Although operating within the larger office as the Department of the Office of the President, the President’s personal staff dealt with more of his private matters and day-to-day appointments and movements as well as requests directly related to him or requiring his personal attention, while the Department dealt with policy, cabinet and political issues.
I now knew Professor Jakes Gerwel, the head of the President’s office, a little better. Professor Gerwel – or Prof. as we called him – was an academic and anti-apartheid activist since his early life, and was a brown man originating from the Eastern Cape. He was head-hunted from the University of the Western Cape to become the Chief of Staff at the President’s office and the Secretary of Cabinet in the first democratically elected government. He was my first introduction to a real intellectual and when I met him for the first time I was a little surprised that a brown man could have so many academic qualifications. Most of his qualifications he obtained cum laude and all of them in literature and language. In my ignorant view only white people could be that learned. I was told about all his qualifications before I met him. He was a very likeable person who clearly respected people without prejudice – I had expected to be looked down upon by a person with so many qualifications. Even though it didn’t sound right, I was told that he was an Afrikaner too. Again my own prejudices made it difficult to believe that anyone who wasn’t white could be an Afrikaner. Prof.’s smile and his hair were his trademarks. His hair was very disorderly and in an afro-type style. It reminded me of Albert Einstein’s. Whenever the President was in the office, Prof. Gerwel would frequently pass our offices on his way to see him and always stopped to enquire about our well-being. The president relied heavily on Prof. Gerwel for advice on every detail of his presidency. They had a very close relationship and the President had a lot of admiration for Prof.’s calm and calculated approach not only to matters of national importance but even in dealing with issues in his personal environment.
* * *
It was February 1995 and we were all preparing to move to Cape Town for Parliament’s first session of the year.
In Cape Town all Parliamentarians lived in a village exclusively built for them called Acasia Park. According to rank and years of service you got allocated either an apartment or a small house, also depending on the size of your family. For us single girls, bachelor apartments with a small kitchen and a bathroom were adequate. I loved the independence and soon made friends with some of my colleagues. Maretha Slabbert was one such person; she worked in the Cabinet Secretariat at the Presidency at the time. Seventeen years later Maretha and I still worked together and she was single-handedly the most important support in my life to date, both professionally and personally.
Come July, Parliament would go into recess and we would all pack up and move back to Pretoria for the rest of the year. It was not something I looked forward to and I was hoping to avoid going back to anything that deprived me of my independence, like living at my parents’ home and having to report to anyone. Yet, I looked forward to seeing my friends and sharing my experiences with them, and then of course to certain home comforts such as having your clothes washed and ironed automatically in the course of everyday life and not having to worry about those things. Often at parties my friends would tease me, telling people that I now worked for the ‘enemy’. I took it as a joke but as we grew older and more mature we eventually started debating history and politics more seriously. I felt more informed and at least able to converse in an intelligent manner on something I thought I was gathering knowledge about. These debates often ended in heated argument because my perspective on events in South Africa was slowly changing, due to my interaction with the President and the knowledge I had acquired from some of my colleagues.
Mary also spent more time with me and told me about the President’s private life; his failed marriage to Winnie Madikizela and about their daughters, Zindzi and Zenani. Apart from official events where the President needed a companion and he would ask Zindzi or Zenani to join him, I rarely saw them, and judging from his diary one realized that the President didn’t have much time for a private life. I was also told that he had two surviving children from his first marriage but we never saw them or had any dealings with them.
I had noticed, now, that whenever the President had Afrikaners visiting him, he would call me to deliver documents or ask me to serve tea in his office. I didn’t mind as it posed another opportunity to see him. He was removing my defences day by day, chiselling away my prejudices and the layers of apartheid that had grown on me in the same way he chiselled the limestone while he was imprisoned on Robben Island. He would ask with real interest how I was, about my parents, about my well-being. Every time he saw me he would ask something different. Any person that takes an interest in you automatically becomes likeable, no matter what your preconceived ideas about him or her. And then it was done with sincerity in this case so I enjoyed the attention. I had never imagined that I would be of significance for a President to enquire about my well-being.
On one such occasion a documentary was being filmed around the President’s day-to-day life. I was instructed to serve tea in his office that day during a meeting attended by Jay Naidoo, Minister without Portfolio in the Presidency, and the man I would have worked for if fate hadn’t brought Mary into my interview. I wasn’t prepared and didn’t feel properly dressed to serve tea in his office that day. I nevertheless served the tea and the President introduced me to Minister Naidoo in Afrikaans. The Minister smiled unconvincingly. I found it hard to be sure whether all former anti-apartheid activists had joined Mr Mandela in the decision to forgive.
When the documentary aired, my parents were taken aback by reports that some friends of theirs had decided to cut ties with them because I served tea to a black man. The entire Afrikaans community was not adapting well to the changes in South Africa. Their interaction and relationships with black people remained on the same level as during apartheid – that of master and servant. Life for most whites continued unchanged, in the same bubble of their materialist comfort as before, and not all white people were actually making a concerted effort to change the country into a non-racial society. Sadly many remain in that bubble even today.
My parents found themselves in an awkward situation. They had no reason to suspect that I wasn’t happy at work. They could see that I worked hard and I liked what I was doing, yet it was clear that the community wasn’t going to support my endeavours. (Years later the same people wanted to talk to me about having books signed by then retired President Mandela and I took pleasure in arranging this. Whether their views had changed only towards the President, I don’t know.)
That autumn I got a call from Rochelle, the President’s niece who looked after him at home in Johannesburg, to say that he wanted me to accompany him to a United World Colleges event in the Carlton Hotel that night. After the President left his then wife, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, in 1992, his first permanent residence was in a suburb called Houghton and Rochelle moved in with him to look after him, organizing his house and workers but also providing him with some personal support at home. I was in Pretoria at the time of the call and panic struck. I asked my mother what to wear and we selected a simple black skirt and jacket. I was expected to be at the President’s house at a certain time and Rochelle said that he wanted me to drive with him. That made me even more nervous. What was I supposed to say or do in the car sitting next to a President? No one prepares you for these things.
I arrived at his house and asked Rochelle what was expected of me. She said I should just go along and when he is supposed to speak I should put the speech where he is supposed to speak from, as well as his reading glasses, make sure he had water to drink, and security would take care of the rest. I was anxious to hear from Rochelle that the President called Mary to inform her that he wanted me to go with him. It made me somewhat uncomfortable that she was not the one instructing me to go with him. That was the totality of Rochelle’s briefing.
The President came downstairs and he greeted friendly and invited me to get into the car. The security opened the heavily armoured door and I could barely move it. I didn’t want to intrude in the President’s space so kept to my corner of the car and sat as close to the door as possible. Tense. On our way to the Carlton Hotel in mid-Johannesburg the President said that I would now meet Queen Noor, the wife of the King of Jordan. I asked him how I was supposed to address her and he smilingly explained, ‘No, you see, you call her Your Majesty’ because she was a Queen. The President always started his sentences with a ‘No’ whether the answer was yes or no, and it usually was followed with ‘you see’. I paid so much attention to his every word that I couldn’t help but notice it. He had a way of addressing people with the utmost respect, no matter who you were, and even his choice of words conveyed that respect. Starting every sentence with ‘No’ didn’t have any negative connotation. It was just habit and a gentler way of starting off with any sentence.
Arriving at the event people quickly started crowding around the President and the security found it difficult to keep people away from him while at the same time trying to allow him to walk towards the door of the event. At the door he was met by Her Majesty. The President introduced me by saying, ‘Your Majesty, this is my secretary Zelda la Grange’: a) I wasn’t his secretary, and b) I really didn’t think she cared. But to my surprise she took interest in me and asked how long I had been working for the President. My answer: almost a year. The fact that I didn’t have a long history with him clearly didn’t discourage her to show interest in me. She was one of the most beautiful ladies I’ve ever met and she had the stature of a Queen. She moved with grace and I had to pinch myself not to stare. I had met a Queen!
Little did I know that a greater surprise awaited me inside. The security led us to the main table. I had never experienced such chaos in a crowd before and was trying my best to stay as close as possible to the President. I felt bewildered as people pushed against us, preventing us from moving freely, in addition to the security forming a tight circle around us. Everyone wanted to touch the President or see him close to. As soon as he and the Queen stood behind their chairs in the hall people quietened down and got ready to take their seats. I turned around and asked the security: ‘Where am I supposed to go?’ I was relying on them to guide me and teach me what to do. They showed me my seat, right next to the Queen. I blushed and felt blood and my heart pumping in every muscle of my body. There was no way, none, zero, absolutely no chance that I had to sit next to a Queen. What would I say? What do I do? I couldn’t even remember from my crash course on etiquette what cutlery to use first. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember overhearing my mom saying ‘start from the outside’. OK, that deals with that then. But still this cannot be happening. I told the security that it was a mistake. In the meantime the President and Queen took their seats and I was confused, nervously trying to get away, at this point being the only one in the room still standing around.
The President looked at me in a way that exclaimed ‘Zelda, take your seat.’ I looked into his eyes, mine filled with panic as if to say, ‘Rescue me; tell me to go away.’ But he nodded his head instead to signal sit down. So I sat. The Queen and the President exchanged pleasantries and I had no idea who sat to my other side. The person could have been naked or dead. I wouldn’t have noticed. I followed the pattern on the table cloth with my eyes and later put my hand on the table to draw the lines of the pattern with my finger. I was hoping to appear to be relaxed but I was dying inside of tension and nervousness. I knew I was supposed to keep my elbows off the table but I could no longer disguise my ineptness and I thought placing my elbow on the table would ground me a little more. Surely seating me next to a Queen was completely against protocol. Even I knew that.
The Queen turned to me and started talking to me. I smiled and looked past her to the President again with a look in my eyes that said: ‘OK Sir, you are supposed to help me here.’ I was a bit upset with him as he didn’t come to my rescue but only smiled, clearly not noticing my anxiety. The Queen started asking me about the political situation in the country, where I grew up, etc. I cannot remember what I responded but I knew I had to sound like the eternal optimist because I assumed if I was with the President it was expected of one to be positive about the future of South Africa. I didn’t really know what I was talking about and I wasn’t sure what to think yet: whether I really saw a future for South Africa and where we were heading. My opinion of the new South Africa had not really evolved beyond the fact that I now kind of liked the President.
And then, I was saved by the bell. Proceedings started and after the Queen’s speech the President was asked to speak. He was speaking from his seat and a microphone was handed to him. I handed him his speech and glasses and he put his glasses back on the table and started reading his speech. I thought: Why would he need his glasses if he doesn’t use them? After completing his speech he handed it back to me and said out loud: ‘Thank you darling.’ His words were filled with consideration and gratefulness. I wasn’t used to anyone calling me ‘darling’. Later I realized that it was just an affectionate term he used for many women from time to time. If a woman or a stranger calls me ‘darling’ I have always felt that there is a derogatory connotation to it. But surely you don’t mind Nelson Mandela calling you ‘darling’? Blood rushed to my head and I was shy with shock – almost the same feeling as when your mother used to kiss you in public as teenager, somewhat shy over the association and affection. I thought I had done my duty however, and was ready to relax and start eating.
We sat waiting for food for about five minutes and then the President said, ‘Zelda, I think it is time for us to leave.’ The master of ceremonies announced his departure and off we went. As years passed I also realized that he wasn’t fond of eating anywhere. He simply adored his home-cooked food prepared by one of his long-serving Xhosa chefs, Xoliswa or Gloria, and therefore he hardly ever ate at public events.
On the way to the car someone approached with a copy of the President’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Security turned him away but the man insisted, reaching the President himself, who couldn’t really say no. After he signed the book, he handed it to a security officer and moved to the car. When I looked round the security man had ripped the page with the President’s signature out of the book, telling the man that he should not have disobeyed instructions. I went into complete shock. Little did I know that I would become one of the people who had to try and maintain order no matter what it took, although I luckily stopped short of tearing pages out of books.
On the way home, I told the President that I thought it was inappropriate that I sat next to the Queen. He smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry, it was OK.’ That made me even more nervous. The President wasn’t fazed by it at all. At home he invited me in for coffee but I was eager to head back to Pretoria. This was too much to handle. He insisted that security drive with me ‘to my house’ he said, but outside I convinced them that it wasn’t necessary. They were tired and I was definitely not going to have anyone follow me home. When I later accompanied him more regularly he would insist on the security driving with me and we learned to agree only to break our agreement as soon as we left the door.
* * *
In the winter of 1995 the President was invited to a town in the Western Cape, Swellendam, a small village-like Afrikaans town along the Garden Route in South Africa, to receive the Freedom of the Town. It was an act of unity for a town that was dominated still by white Afrikaners to offer the President such an honour, and he agreed to accept it. Again, a few days prior to the event, he announced that he wanted me to go with him. He called me to Genadendal the day before, his official residence in Cape Town, and upon arrival asked me to sit down. Genadendal is the name of a small brown Afrikaans community in the rural Western Cape. He adopted the name for his official residence in Cape Town to pay homage to the community of Genadendal, which means something like ‘valley of gratitude’ when translated directly.
He announced that he wanted to practise his Afrikaans and I had to help him with pronunciation as his entire speech was in Afrikaans. He fired away and unceremoniously started reading. At first I didn’t have the heart to correct him but then he would look up every now and again to seek approval. I nodded like a real teacher and hated myself for appearing to be such a supremacist. Although I had been asked to help him, the situation presented was so typical of the apartheid era of a white overseeing what the black man was doing and the black man seeking approval from the white. I also couldn’t really understand what he was reading and I had to adjust my concentration level. Then he wanted to re-read the speech for a second time. So I agreed – who wouldn’t? – but this time I gathered some courage to add a few corrections. He was becoming more nervous to read and would peek at me over his reading glasses, this time seeking less approval but more affirmation. I nevertheless nodded.
It was my first helicopter ride ever. I was nervous but I watched the President’s face and saw that he was at ease in the big military Oryx helicopter. I relaxed. It was being flown by white military pilots and I wondered whether he trusted them. By 1995 very few black pilots had been trained and qualified to be absorbed into the transformed military forces. On our way I thought about his speech and wondered whether he was going to remember the words we’d practised the previous day. I was nervous for him while he appeared relaxed, as if he was on his way to a social gathering of some sort.
Arriving in Swellendam he was received with open arms and insisted on first walking among the ordinary people, and when a little girl came to greet him on stage his face and body language opened up completely. He spoke to her in Afrikaans too and she responded although she was shy. He enjoyed that interaction and I could see that he had a special connection to the child. He delivered his speech and remembered the words I had helped him with. It was perfect. By delivering his entire speech in Afrikaans he reached out to the community’s heart and people adored him for that.
Back in the office in Pretoria it was on one of the occasions that I served tea in his office, although he was by himself this time, that he requested me to take a seat at the other side of his desk. I nervously did, not knowing what to expect. The President didn’t easily tell you to sit down at his desk. I thought I was in some kind of trouble and tried to remember what stories I told to whom in the last couple of weeks, trying to assess why I was in trouble. He then said, ‘No . . . you see, I want you to come to Japan with me.’ My first thoughts were: Would that not be considered inappropriate to travel abroad together? and then I thought: Oh no, I’m convinced this is similar to my experience of my first encounter with him; I simply don’t understand what he is saying. I think I replied with ‘Excuse me Sir?’ and he repeated the question while I needed time to process what he was saying. ‘I want you to come to Japan with me,’ he repeated. And all I could think of to say was, ‘Thank you very much Mr President but I don’t have money to go to Japan right now.’ He burst out laughing, probably not knowing how to respond to such stupidity.
He saw the surprise on my face to his laughter and he quickly composed himself to repeat the question, this time with a bit of essential detail: ‘I want you to travel to Japan as part of my delegation on our state visit.’ I had a vague idea that this was work but he continued to say that I should go to the Director General, the Chief of Staff of the Presidency, Prof. Gerwel, who would explain everything to me. I thanked him and left his office. I didn’t say a word to Mary and I cannot recall if she was in her office as I passed through to my own office. I returned to my desk to digest what had just happened. I didn’t know what to do with the information in my head and who to contact next. The President made it sound so easy to speak to Prof. Gerwel but he was, after all, the head of our office and it was not as simple as walking through his door and demanding answers. So I decided to leave it there and not speak to anyone about this again and forget that it had ever happened. I was convinced it was just a mistake.
A few days later Prof. Gerwel passed our office on his way to the President and greeted us as usual. He approached me at my desk and told me that he had spoken to the President and that he had mentioned to him that I should be included in the delegation. I was nervous. He pointed me to the Department of Foreign Affairs to have a passport issued and told me who to speak to, to make arrangements. He also told me that we would be joined by another young lady from the Western Cape. Her name was Melissa Brink. The President encountered a debate with her in the Western Cape at a public meeting with the brown community, during which he was impressed by her inquisitiveness and the way she challenged the ANC to provide her with the education that her parents believed would be provided if they voted the ANC into power. In her view, progress was too slow and she had the courage to challenge the President when she had the opportunity. He liked the fact that such a youngster was so serious about her education to have the guts to question the President over it.
I had no idea why I was invited to go on this trip and no one else knew either. What I really thought was a bonus was that I wasn’t expected to pay for anything but rather received an extra allowance for travelling abroad. When I heard the amount I would be paid I was alarmed as it sounded like a danger pay of some sort. I think I drove the officials at Foreign Affairs crazy with all my questions – clearly a sign of my inexperience. I also had a sense of guilt towards Mary. I didn’t know whose duty it was to inform her that I would be accompanying the delegation on this trip or what my role would be and I felt uncomfortable being in a space where she was uncertain about my role too; after all, I was working more for her than for the President.
The day arrived for me to depart with the advance team for Japan. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited in my entire life. Armed with my diplomatic passport, newly sewn clothes and manners recited from my mother, I departed on my first ever trip abroad. Before that day, I had never left the borders of South Africa and my first trip overseas being to Japan was almost like a fantasy.
Upon arrival in Tokyo we were met by officials from the Embassy and driven to the Osaka Palace Hotel. I could sense that all the officials were as puzzled with my presence as I was. Mary arrived a day later and things were tense between us. People were careful not to offend me because they knew my presence was the result of a direct instruction from the President. I was trying to figure out who did what on a state visit but it was not easy. We were surrounded by security and protocol officials and I soon took a liking to a gentleman by the name of Johan Nieman from Foreign Affairs. Johan guided me and explained things in great detail. He was also the first person to say: ‘So how did you get to be put on the trip and what is your role?’ I explained that I was merely the typist and I had no idea what my role was, but he comforted me with the fact that the President personally invited Melissa and I and therefore we should not be intimidated by anything or anyone. That made me feel a little better.
In my conversations with colleagues on the trip I got a sense of why we were there: for the South African government to strengthen its economic ties with Japan. We were accompanied by a few ministers and it became apparent what is expected of such office bearers during state visits. I was slowly developing a sense of politics.
President Mandela was to meet the Japanese Emperor. Upon arrival at the Emperor’s palace we were told to stand in a receiving line. The most senior officials, the ministers, closest to the President and then in order of seniority down the line to the most junior. Of course Melissa and I were right at the end.
It was the first time it dawned on me why Melissa and I indeed accompanied the delegation on the trip. Melissa was introduced as a coloured, mixed-race young lady and I was introduced as an Afrikaner. I looked at my colleagues and realized that our delegation was completely ‘representative’, and I was happy to be part of that. The President wanted all the races represented in his team. He was determined to show the world that just as he preached reconciliation to the South African public, it was something he felt so strongly about that he wanted to apply that methodological thinking also in his own office, and commit to bringing about unity in South Africa even in his closest environment.
When the President got to me he introduced me to the Emperor by saying, ‘This is Zelda la Grange, she is my secretary and a real Afrikaner boere-meisie.’ I wasn’t sure the Emperor knew what an ‘Afrikaner boere-meisie’ was and he appeared puzzled, but courteously smiled while he shook my hand.
I also soon discovered that I could speak to the President in Afrikaans whenever I didn’t know what to do and that he would calmly direct me on the right protocol. He was being briefed by protocol officials and whenever he saw me hesitating, he would speak to me in Afrikaans and direct me. When the President had rest periods we didn’t move from the guest house. Other delegates went out shopping and sightseeing but I was too scared to move. What if the President called me and I wasn’t there? It was inconceivable. At the state banquet I sat at a good distance from the President but I could see and watch his every move.
Life for ordinary South Africans still hadn’t changed much since President Mandela’s inauguration in 1994, although there was a sense of optimism. What one saw of the President on TV was that he always greeted people respectfully and without prejudice. The public liked that. Our economy stabilized and investors started having confidence in the new South Africa. However, a watershed moment in President Mandela’s Presidency approached in 1995 and an opportunity to show the world that South Africa would survive; that we were healthy and well.
The Rugby World Cup was being played in South Africa. Rugby was still very much considered a white man’s sport in South Africa, even though I later discovered that black people, especially in the Eastern Cape, had played rugby for decades, but because of apartheid they were never allowed to participate in the sport publicly, or to be active spectators. Rugby is something most white Afrikaner people religiously follow and support, but the teams and attendance of public matches during apartheid were restricted for whites only. Prior to the World Cup the selectors included a brown Afrikaans-speaking young man in the national team (the Springboks) by name of Chester Williams.
The President met the Springboks before the start of the tournament at their training camp in the Western Cape, and on the day of the opening match in Newlands he was there to cheer them. When Chester (or Chessie as I later fondly addressed him) entered the field the crowd went crazy cheering him along. Chester was scoring points during matches and for that, white people started supporting his selection.
I never knew that the President even knew the rules of rugby but apparently he did – probably understanding more about the game than I did. He sat next to the Managing Director of SA Rugby, Dr Louis Luyt, as well as the Prime Minister of Australia, as the Springboks were playing the Australian team, the Wallabys, in this opening match. The President was in good spirits and took a bet with the Prime Minister that whoever won that day would win the tournament, and the loser would send the other a case of wine as both countries had reputable industries. South Africa won the match and we went right through to the historic day of the final in Johannesburg. (After our victory, the wine arrived from Australia and it was donated to a charity for fundraising purposes.)
I heard Mary calling around a few days before the final asking for a Springbok jersey, but didn’t know why or for who. Then the day before the match, when we said our goodbyes at the office, she told me that the President would enter the field on the day of the final wearing a Springbok jersey. I thought that was quite original but didn’t make more of it.
Mary gave me two tickets to the final match and I invited my dad to accompany me. We were well on time at the stadium and the crowd was excited and the vibe explosive. Shortly before kick-off the announcement came: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the President of the Republic of South Africa, Mr Nelson Mandela’ and he entered surrounded by bodyguards and rugby officials. The crowd cheered but when they caught sight of him in his green and gold jersey people started chiming ‘Nelson Nelson Nelson’. At first I thought it was disrespectful to call him by first name but then when I looked around me people didn’t seem to think about that but like one man they stood up and started screaming, whistling and shouting with excitement to see the black President in a Springbok jersey and cap. People felt a sense of pride irrespective of their political convictions. He greeted both teams and the National Anthems were sung.
It was a tense match and my dad and I jumped up and down with excitement like old buddies. Then in the extra time Joel Stransky kicked a drop goal which led South Africa to victory. The crowd exploded. People were hugging and kissing strangers, some even crying with joy. For a few hours our past didn’t matter; we went colour blind and people embraced the opportunity to celebrate as South Africans. South Africa was excluded from the first two Rugby World Cups in 1987 and 1991 because of apartheid and was only allowed to participate in the international sporting arena after our first democratic elections. It was our first participation and we won the tournament.
It remains one of the best strategic moves of Nelson Mandela’s Presidency in uniting the country to wear that jersey that day. The world saw South Africa as a united nation. He embraced what was considered the ‘white man’s sport’ and by taking that leap into their most emotional territory he reached way beyond the borders of race and touched the people’s hearts. He was proud of the Springboks but he was also proud of every citizen in the country, for them and with them. He would often refer to that day when saying that sport had the ability to unite people way beyond borders of division, and in a humble way I think he underplayed his own genius on that day.
The President soon invited the Springbok team for lunch after their victory and from there his close association with rugby started. He was fond of Francois Pienaar who captained the Springboks, but as proud of all the other players that led us to be not only a victorious team but a victorious nation. For years to follow the President would be very supportive of rugby until he got criticized for supporting it too much and not paying enough attention to other sports. There was always a juggling act to maintain. As much as he had to nurture the rugby players in the beginning he then had to learn to create a healthy distance.
Later, in 1998, the former President of the South African Rugby Union, Dr Louis Luyt, took President Mandela to court to contest a Commission of Inquiry that the President had established into the affairs of South African rugby. Luyt contested the President’s constitutional right to appoint such a body to investigate rugby for alleged racism and nepotism, the SA Rugby Union being an independent private body. Luyt was described in the Sunday Times of 16 August 1998 as ‘the nearest thing to a rugby war lord and the man fans loved to hate’. The now late Steve Tshwete was the Minister of Sport and Recreation at the time and he was concerned about the President’s insistence to defend himself in court. The President’s lawyers and advisors offered to represent him but he refused.
Judge William de Villiers was presiding over the case and on 19 March 1998, when the President walked into court, he walked to the prosecuting lawyers first and shook hands with each and every one of them, including Dr Luyt. He then greeted his own team and took his seat. I was angry on the first day at him and thought that if these people had the audacity to question the President, why should he give them any attention or even be friendly with them? When I raised the incident with the President during tea time he taught me a lesson I would never forget: ‘Remember, the way you approach a person will determine how that person reacts to you.’ If you start off by disarming your enemy the battle is halfway won. The prosecutors were indeed caught off guard by this gesture but they quickly recovered when they launched their attack. The other thing he said was never to allow your enemy to determine the grounds for battle. If they wanted the courtroom to be the battlefield, we had to neutralize them by showing them that it was not a personal matter, but by being friendly we have moved the battle to a psychological advantage. I heard and believed what he had said but to me it was very personal and ugly.
They eventually called him to the stand and he insisted on standing while being questioned, regardless of the Judge inviting him to sit down. The prosecutor would ask him questions in different ways and then the President would answer by saying, ‘My Lord, I believe Mr Maritz has already asked that question and I responded.’ The Judge would ask the prosecutor to continue and again the President would respond by saying he had already answered the question and that he felt his intelligence was being undermined if the prosecutor put the same question three times in a row in a different manner. It was tense in the courtroom as the President was getting angry. The trained lawyer within the President bloomed. He was shining in court even though I felt they were being unreasonable.
During lunch we would let his food be brought from Mahlamba Ndlopfu and he would sit quietly in a chamber eating. He was thinking and reflecting and strategizing for the next session. In the afternoon he was back on the stand. I had to pinch myself several times to keep quiet as I was disgusted by the prosecuting team. On more than one occasion I wanted to offer my remarks too. I gasped a few times at the way they tried to ridicule the President. How times had changed! Dr Luyt was a pure Afrikaner. Now I was siding with the President. Not because I worked for him but because I believed in what he stood for and his right as President to ask for this inquiry to be established. After proceedings had closed I made no secret of my feelings and told the President. He was calm and collected as ever, tired but not emotionally affected by proceedings like I was.
The government and therefore President Mandela lost the case but then appealed. The outcome was overturned much later by the Appeals Court but by that time the Commission of Inquiry had lost its relevance and never resumed its work.
While still recovering from the bruises of our defeat in court, we were preparing for the state visit of President Jacques Chirac of France to South Africa. A massive state banquet was being planned in Johannesburg. The President called me and told me to ensure through our Protocol department that Dr Luyt as well as his legal team be invited to the banquet. I agreed but when I put down the phone I thought: Over my dead body. I will deliberately just forget about it. Why would we invite people who belittled the President the way they did? He had not an ounce of bitterness in him towards white people despite apartheid, yet they wanted to so badly prove him wrong, not in private but in public. How could I be party to inviting them to enjoy a banquet which clearly every person in South Africa wanted to attend? So I neglected my task and I didn’t tell the Protocol section about the President’s request. The next day he specifically called me to ask: ‘Did you invite Dr Luyt and his legal team?’ And I said, ‘No Khulu, not yet.’ I also didn’t reveal my plan to conveniently, deliberately forget about it. But the next day and the day after he reminded me again. And I realized he was not going to forget and that if he looked for them at the dinner, which he then did, I was going to be in an enormous amount of trouble if we hadn’t invited them. He wanted to greet them and I was shocked. Despite all that had happened, he was his charming self and greeted them like old friends. My ego’s most expensive lesson: that is how you deal with the enemy.