As a young girl, I was somewhat puzzled because I knew that we were living in Africa, yet almost all the people I met were white. There were only two black men in my childhood sphere; one came very early every morning before the sun rose to deliver the milk and the other came twice a week to empty the rubbish bin. Our postman, bus drivers and the man who delivered eggs were all coloured. So were all the ousies who arrived on my school bus to clean house for the white women and who, to my amazement, would always exhort the bus driver to “buy a donkey”! This was back in the days when white women were still housewives.
In 1972, when I was in Standard 4 (Grade 6) we learnt in geography about the population figures of South Africa. I thought it must be an error. I asked my teacher “Surely these are the figures for the whole of Africa?” She assured me that they were correct, approximately, for South Africa. I was shocked. So where were all the black people? I started looking out for them at train stations and bus termini. I also started eavesdropping on the conversations of some of the high-school children – white high school children. At the age of eleven, that was the closest I could get to dissidence with apartheid. It was how I learnt about apartheid.
By the time I started high school, aged twelve, I had found out about the ANC and, at least in my heart, I had taken sides with them. By June 1976, I was in Standard 8 (Grade 10) and I was nearly fifteen. Those kids in Soweto were my peers. My father would not allow us out of the house during that time, not even to go to school. I assured him that I would much rather go to town than to school. He was enraged. “They’re overturning cars and setting them alight in town!” This was Cape Town. The idea of kids physically turning cars over intrigued and inspired me. I told my father (he was SA Navy, permanent force) “But Dad, that’s what kids my age do.” He wanted to lock me in my room (yeah, I had a whole room to myself!) and throw the key away.
Within a year of leaving high school and my parents’ home, my white friends had dwindled and most of my friends lived in Grassy Park, Mitchell’s Plain or Gugulethu (Gugs to us). Because of the apartheid laws I was mostly traveling in minibus taxis or 3rd class on the trains in order to be with my friends. It was exciting. The regulars on the trains always knew which conductors would throw me off the train and they would help to obscure me. In the taxis it was never a problem and the taxi-drivers got to know me and where mostly very friendly.
In the location, we would always be warned if there were casspirs or ratels patrolling and when they came past they would make me crouch under the windows. For the first time in my life I met people with real values – not linked to the rand. Real community feeling where everybody helped everyone else. Even the outies living on the street were given the same love and respect – Ubuntu was for everyone regardless of class or status.
Much as we hated the oppression of the old regime, that time of struggle was a time of great human co-operation amongst the downtrodden. We shared everything we had. Literally; what was mine was yours too. After the revolution we were going to fill South Africa with these values; with our vision of love, sharing and non-ownership. Our members of parliament were not going to drive cars that the majority of people could not afford. We would use taxis; those that had to have their own vehicle would drive ordinary, everyday vehicles (Ford escort in those days!) Even Madiba.
What happened? Twenty years after Madiba was released, those same African values I cherished so dearly, are almost impossible to find. Our brothers who sheltered us in their countries when we were forced into exile, we now call makwerekwere and accuse of drug, gun and human-trafficking. I have now moved to what was formerly the moSotho homeland in search of real values. It’s definitely better here, but even here those same values are rapidly getting buried in the mad scramble for the so-called wealth of the white people.
Wake up people. Plasma screen TV’s can never replace what we are losing; maybe have already lost.