My world has always been coloured by and in a world dominated by the political system of Apartheid- a world in which Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was ever present in terms of his physical presence being incarcerated a mere few kilometres from where I lived and in fact during my life I had cause to visit the island prison no fewer than 15 times… This essay loosely tracks this strange world in which I and the “father of my nation” lived almost side by side yet truly, worlds apart.
In 1945 my father shipped back to South Africa
. He was not the same man that had left the shores of Cape Town some 3 years
earlier. Part of him remained in Tobruk, on the streets of Italy along with two
children he had seen, huddled together and frozen to death on a park bench.
Another part was left in the mud under the half-track that had almost taken his
life one August afternoon and which was to take his life at the age of 52, some
24 years later. And the tears that often welled up when he sat in silence,
hunched over his reel to reel tape recorder trying to make sense of his life
some year later, were those tears reserved for his partner whose head had
disappeared from a dum- dum bullet that had shattered the windscreen of the military
vehicle they were travelling in. I was to be born some 7 years after he stood
at the dock in Cape Town along with others of the Sappers that had returned.
And I was to enjoy some of the “freedom of
expression” he had fought for, even though his own “freedom of expression” now
hid behind clouded eyes.
In 1948, 3 years after those who had fought for
freedom in the world, had returned, the Nationalist Party in South Africa came
to power. Despite having fought alongside their white compatriots, the black
and coloured soldiers would now be denied the right to vote and their
oppression under the new regime would grow apace in the ensuing years.
4 Years later, in 1952 in a nursing home in
Kenilworth Cape Town, I would be born, the only son to a man who had sacrificed
much and been given nothing back by a country which would now become a world pariah.
In 1964 after the Rivonia treason Trial Nelson
Rohlihala Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island. I was
then in Standard Four, a 12 year old oblivious to the political machinations
and only slightly aware of the fact that I attended a whites only school,
travelled in whites only sections of buses and trains. That the man who worked
in the garden was coloured and the woman who came to the house once a week to
help my mother clean was also coloured meant nothing at all! This was how
things were supposed to be in my well protected, well sanitized world. I also
had no idea that in fact I was growing up in the “poorer” suburbs and that my
parents at that stage were deciding how they would be able to afford sending me
to a “wealthier” suburban school some distance from where we stayed. But send
me they did!
In 1966, the cotton -wool cocoon world that I
lived in suddenly began to dissipate like proverbial candy floss. Each day I
cycled some 7 kilometres in one direction
to attend a school on the slopes of Table Mountain, just below the
University of Cape Town and another 3 kilometres from where a famous surgeon
would perform the world’s first heart transplant taking the heart of a young
girl, Denise Darvall, the accident which had caused her premature passing
taking place in the road I travelled each day. The headlines became part of my
history, and Louis Washkansky the recipient, was closely followed in the
newspapers. Somehow the world had been forced to notice another side of the
“pariah”. For me though the “Freedom of
Expression” I had seemingly enjoyed was now becoming filled with questions… the
teachers at my school, Westerford High, many of whom were anti -apartheid
activists, were leaving questions in my mind, and a young girl who sat two rows
in front of me, Ruth Carneson would soon leave due to the actions being taken
on her anti -apartheid parents by the authorities. I was slowly awakening.
Freedom of Expression? Was that what I was
enjoying whilst a few kilometres away from where I would enjoy a day at the
beach, Nelson Mandela and his compatriots chipped rocks in the midday Robben
Island sun.
Freedom of Expression? Was this what I was
enjoying when I was visited by the police shortly after I had begun visiting a
coloured friend in the then District Six area?
Freedom of Expression? Was this what I enjoyed
when I was ostracized by family and friends when I had had the temerity to fall
in love with a coloured girl, a relationship which was of course doomed from
the start due to our freedom of expression. I was white- she was not! The irony
only became supremely evident when many, many years later, my younger sister in
tracing the family tree, discovered a hitherto undiscovered coloured branch.
1969 and whilst still at school and about to
write my final examinations, my father passed away. The times I had sat at his
feet and listed to him as he shared some secrets of life would now no longer
continue. He had started an ardent Nationalist Party supporter- it was fairly
obvious but also paradoxical he would be a Nationalist, after all, he had
sacrificed much as he took up arms against the Nazi threat. The years though
mellowed the truck driver who had wanted to study and become a gynaecologist
but never had the funds to pursue his dream… a dream he would pass on to his
son, although the gynae part was not something his son would aspire to. The
truck driver too, would begin to question the Nationalist party propaganda
machine and the allegiance would change to the PFP or Progressive Federal Party.
The South African apartheid system was though
at the height of its power and in 1971, scores of young men, who had recently
completed their formal school, were conscripted to fight in a war most of us
had no idea why. The idea of a Communist threat, lurking on an Angolan border
was to erase much of our freedom of expression as it had done to our father’s
some 30 years earlier. Under the guise of protecting our freedom, my friends
lost theirs- sometimes in a hail of bullets. I was fortunate and lived.
1976 the anti -apartheid movement had begun to
foment and South Africa was not only a world pariah but was slowly being
isolated by sanctions in many forms- perhaps one of the most effective
sanctions occurred when the national sporting teams of Rugby and Cricket were
banned from participating against other countries. South Africa, although
relatively small in numbers, is an extremely proud sporting nation and to be
isolated by the world (in the UK Peter Hain was a major force for change in
this sense, advocating the isolation of South Africa). For me, along with many
of my sporting colleagues this was a personal blow as I had been fortunate to
be selected for Provincial Cricket, Soccer and Hockey teams and suddenly the
prospect of a career in sport was taken away from me… was this the ”freedom of
Expression” I would reflect on in later years? I had already served my country
in one tour of duty as a soldier…I had already lost a love due to the political
dispensation, now I faced the prospect of losing the opportunity of
representing my country in the
international sporting arena.
As an educationalist the world of 1976 became
very real as the young people of my country rebelled against having to learn a
language (Afrikaans) deemed to be the language of the oppressor. For me,
“freedom of Expression” had disappeared and I packed up my children (both
toddlers)… my wife had left me for another, and I travelled to Namibia where I
hope to avoid the plague that I found myself in in my own country. On
reflection I was merely in a sense, doing a “Lady Macbeth” and trying to wash
the blood off my own hands.
Nelson Mandela was still on the island! Freedom
of Expression belonged only to the White minority! It would be another 14 years
before he would be able to shake the Robben Island dust off his feet.
In the interim I was able to have a modicum of
freedom and was (eventually) able to represent Namibia in Cricket, and
provincially in both Hockey and Soccer. It was a small realization of what I
could have achieved in my own country had we not been isolated.
This week the world has celebrated
(celebrated?) the Freedom of the Press/Freedom of Expression. The USA is
arguably one of the few countries able to celebrate “Freedom of
Expression”/Freedom of the Press, whereas most countries will have some
restrictive measures in place- Post 1994 in South Africa our country has been
somewhat “free-er” but regrettably the new government is slowly becoming more
and more austere in its approach to freedom of expression and one is very
careful as to what one says in public spaces and especially if one is critical
of people in government.
Allow me though to return to the idea that the
world seems to have that Nelson Mandela was a/the primary causal factor in the
ultimate removal of the Apartheid system and the eventual democratic elections
of 1994. It is not my aim to downplay his role nor the advocate of peace that
he was but perhaps at this juncture it may be worthwhile to reflect briefly on
the idea of freedom of expression as it was from the outset in terms of the
growth and development of the country called South Africa.
As was similar in many colonial countries from
the 15th and 16th Centuries South Africa was “discovered”
by Portuguese in their quest to discover a spice route per se. Cape Town on
the southern tip of Africa became a so called refreshment
station for ships (sailors) where they could stop and take on drums of water and
various other items such as vegetables grown at the Dutch East India Companies
gardens on the slopes of Table Mountain. History has shown that the then
settlers m oved into the interior of the country, clashed with the Xhosa/Zulu
tribes initially and so began the colonial expansion and settlement of the
country by the then Dutch/English/French and various other white colonialists
who obviously in their settlement (having superior weapons) dispossessed the
inhabitants of their land and who then became labourers on what essentially had
been their land originally. Freedom as they knew it in the early years of the
development of South Africa belonged primarily to the settlers. I mention this
as the idea/concept of Freedom of Expression existed before the arrival of
White Settlers but in a sense of a relationship between what was then warring
Black tribes. I will allow the reader to gain their own sense of how this
freedom existed as it does not take much of a leap to understand how the
hierarchy within the tribes, run by a King and his supervisors (a Sangoma-
witchdoctor being of paramount importance) and how limited the freedom would
have been for the non -royalty tribe members.
Having stated the aforesaid I purposed this to
allow the reader a better understanding that South Africa has had many men and
women perhaps with as great a stature as Nelson Mandela who litter the history
of the country with their efforts to be free and removed from what was
considered the yoke of colonialism. Recently South Africa renamed an Eastern
Cape airport after one such person namely David Stuurman, who has the debatable
honour of being possibly the only Robben Island prisoner to have escaped from
the island- the first time being in 1809, and in fact escaped no fewer than 3
times. David Stuurman is also arguably one of the first to rebel against the
colonialists who had dispossessed him and his people of their land.
In conclusion:
It is not within the context of this paper to
examine the heroes who fought against racial domination which eventually became
the cornerstone of South African politics under the guise of Apartheid, but
rather to give a sense that many sacrificed their lives over hundreds of years
prior to the dismantling of Apartheid under the leadership of Nelson Mandela
and hence the giving of credence to Freedom of Expression in South Africa which
we now enjoy.
Perhaps though even more than the greatness of
the man in enabling South Africa to move from and oppressive State peacefully,
would be some of the things he left behind to carry the country ever onwards
and upwards. One of these would be his 10 rules for success:
1.
Demand
Respect
2.
Prove
them wrong
3.
Use
your time wisely
4.
Don’t
worry about labels
5.
Be
humble
6.
Have
heroes
7.
Take
a stand
8.
Manage
your emotions
9.
Be
willing to die for your cause
10.
Speak
with conviction
If ever a person stood for the rights of
humanity and the right to freedom of expression, Nelson Rolihlala Mandela (Madiba)
epitomized that.
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