It was clear from the start that Malibongwe would be very different from the meeting in Harare. I soon realised that there were hidden agendas and complex intrigues that I in my naïve idealism had not anticipated. This time I was also more outspoken, and my criticisms did not go unmarked. “Are you for or against the ANC, Rosie?” a bemused Ruth Mpathi, one of the leaders of the ANC Women’s League in exile would ask at the end. In Harare the ANC had addressed itself in fairly careful tones to the largely white contingent from South Africa. At Malibongwe the tone was different. The 150 women who travelled from South Africa came mostly from backgrounds of cruel and ongoing suffering and struggle, while those in exile in Africa, Europe and America seemed, by comparison, to be viewing the country through somewhat distant and analytical eyes. Karin Chubb, a fellow Sasher from Cape Town and I found the predominant focus on militarism and armed resistance quite disturbing. After hearing addresses by women from the Philippines struggle and the Cuban Women’s Movement, and a female Palestinian soldier, we felt it would have been good to hear from women who had resisted oppression in non-violent ways, such as Argentinians or Indians. I became friendly with a young girl in our delegation who did development work in a small fishing community on the west coast of South Africa, where sand, sea and sky made up her horizon. She told me in horrified tones that two people at the conference were actively trying to recruit her for Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC. Becoming a soldier was the last thing on her mind.
As with the Harare conference, the most important thing to come out of Malibongwe was the human contact, and this began even on the journey to Amsterdam. What should have been an overnight fight turned into a three-day excursion when our plane was diverted from a fog-engulfed Paris, to Toulouse and then Lyons. Travellers on South African passports were not allowed out of the transit lounge, which gave us plenty of time for bonding. I still had a British passport and had the added bonus of being able to make myself understood in French, thus I soon became the chief negotiator with airline representatives, airport officials and police. I was just beginning to enjoy myself when my enthusiasm was firmly reined in by one of our party, a born again radical with the immortal words, “Rosemary, before you do anything further we must workshop this!” My family was delighted with this story and the phrase passed indelibly into Smith family parlance, to be used to subdue me whenever I became over-enthusiastic.
In the course of the long journey people began to swap life stories. I met the widow of one of the Cradock Four, Sicelo Mhlauli, who was a classmate of Lucy’s at UCT. I made the acquaintance of Thandi Modise, the “knitting needles guerrilla”, an MK operative whose cover was to carry a handbag with protruding knitting needles. Her two children had been brought up by her mother while she was in training camps in Botswana, Tanzania and Angola. As in Harare, I again met women who had forfeited their mothering for exile and the fight for liberation. It's a sacrifice I wholeheartedly respected, but not one I felt I could have made.
Amsterdam was grey and cold, brightened, thankfully, by the group of Dutch women who greeted us at the airport bearing bunches of flowers. And yet, just as I had begun to think that I was a South African after all, I fell in love with Europe all over again. I loved the tall, narrow houses, the bridges, canals and fleets of bicycles, and when darkness fell, the lighted windows revealing warm interiors which beckoned, often with Christmas trees still on show. One evening all the delegates had supper on board barges on the canals, before taking part in a torchlight procession accompanied by a jazz band and led by police on horseback. At night Karin and I would go to the American hotel adjacent to the conference centre and drink gluwein at midnight. It was great to be in a city again, and we felt enveloped in warm Dutch hospitality.
On our first day in Amsterdam we attended an ecumenical service entitled “Children and Peace” in the Dominicuskerk. Brass chandeliers lit the soaring ceiling and windows of the old church, and part of the service involved the lighting of candles. It was an afternoon of juxtapositions as the warmth and light inside the church held back the icy darkness outside, and the melodic harmonies of singing contrasted with the harrowing stories told by South African women from the pulpit. It was a powerful start to our time together. Later that week, sitting in the Amsterdam City Hall, gilt mirrors sparkling, redolent of the grandeur of a golden age, I again had to pinch myself. Was I really sitting in Europe, amongst women from the ANC?
The first week was spent visiting small towns and meeting various women’s and civil rights organisations, which had given money towards the conference. My party visited the city of Heerlen, two hours by train from Amsterdam. There, we spoke about ourselves and the organisations we represented. It was clear that most people thought of the South African struggle as a purely black one, so it gave me pleasure to talk about the work of the Black Sash. At the end of the day we were each given an album with photos and messages. One of the messages said, “Dear Rosemary. For me it was very surprising to see a white woman who fights active against apartheid."
One day we saw the film of Andre Brink's novel, A Dry White Season. Portraying detention and police brutality on township streets, the film had been banned in South Africa. Except for a fine performance by Marlon Brando, it was not a great artistic achievement, but its impact on the audience of Malibongwe delegates affected me deeply. For many it was a painful experience seeing a mirror of their own tragedies on screen. Women began to keen and some had to leave the cinema. I had never experienced such identification with a film and I was extremely moved.
I made friends with fellow delegates and began to feel at home in the Malibongwe milieu. But once the closed sessions commenced and we began to tackle issues in smaller groups, the mood changed. The ANC delegates now seemed harder and I sensed that it became necessary for them to toe the party line. There was little genuine exploration of world-views or searching analysis of power structures. Dissension was not easily brooked, but Karin and I were impressed by a woman who worked for the ANC in East Germany. She was open in her disillusionment with communism and the ANC. Exile, for her, had become a bitter experience. Karin visited her in Berlin afterwards and said that she was wondering where her place in the new South Africa would be.
For myself there were moments when I felt distinctly uncomfortable. During the debate on the End Conscription Campaign (ECC), for instance, it became clear that the ANC viewed the ECC as an offshoot of their armed struggle. I knew from experience that many embraced the ECC as a pacifist cause, and when I said so, I could sense the general antagonism. In a plenary discussion on Palestine and Israel, Karin and I dissented in the face of the overwhelming consensus in favour of Palestine. There were many Jewish members in the Black Sash who would have rejected the conference’s simplistic analysis of the Middle East situation, and we felt compelled to represent them. Swimming against the tide gave us a slithery sensation of fear. It was small wonder that Ruth Mpati questioned my allegiance as she said goodbye to me at Schipol airport. I felt I had to digest all that I had seen and heard and so my response was simply to shrug and smile.
The conference had culminated in a series of discussions on women’s unity, and as the delegations parted and went their separate ways – some home to South Africa, others not – we were all aware that much remained to be done to ensure the fair representation of women in the new South Africa.
Airport authorities at Schipol were lenient about overweight baggage for our return fight. Several women had acquired large bags, which they had filled with winter coats, boots and other goodies that had been on offer to delegates who were not equipped for the severe Dutch winter. At Jan Smuts airport, where overweight restrictions on domestic fights were much more stringent, these bulging bags caused great consternation, with racist accusations beginning to fly in all directions. The situation was exacerbated when one of the Port Elizabeth delegates was marched off to a customs office. At the end of the conference we had been told emphatically to destroy any literature that might be
banned in South Africa, but as it turned out, that was not this woman’s sin. The offending item was a small rubber doll, complete with urinating penis!
Shortly after our return home, FW de Klerk made his momentous announcement. The ANC was to be unbanned and Nelson Mandela released. The news exceeded our wildest dreams. Was the struggle won? Were we about to see the dawning of non-racialism and equal opportunity, service delivery, an end to poverty, education for all, a new constitution, open media and freedom of speech? Would this country at last be able to hold its head high? The euphoria was almost unbearable; I wanted to dance in the streets. Of course there were dangers ahead and much to be negotiated, the quagmire of political jostling not the least of it; but the world was right to hail this as a miracle nation and I was proud to be part of it.
Improvements in progress
“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.
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