It Was Twenty Years Ago Today…

This is what the Hub, Tory Boy and I were doing today in 1994, one of the best days of our lives: 

Not eating biscuits: queuing.

The first day of polling in the first Free & Fair South African election.

We were living in Alberton in the Transvaal at the time.  We got up early to be at the polling station for seven, when it opened.  We didn’t want to be stuck in queues all day long.  The government had declared a national holiday so that everyone could vote, and it seemed like everyone intended to.

We were first in the queue, but only just.  Not that it did us any good: we were still first in the queue come four o’clock in the afternoon.  There were no ballot papers at the polling station.  The election officials popped out periodically to tell us that they were on the way – in a helicopter now – would be here any minute.  None ever showed up, except on auction sites in the last few years.

In spite of this, and in spite of the news of bombs going off at the airport, the mood of the crowd was, well, joyous.  There was a lot of singing and a lot of braaing (barbecuing): those who came later and knew about the long wait brought their skottels (a portable gas barbecue) and fold-up deck chairs.  The Hub went home to make us some sandwiches and drinks, but I wish we had braaied instead.

Whole families turned out to vote.  We had four-year old Tory Boy with us.  I have another photo of him, sitting glumly on the kerb, unaware that he was participating in a truly momentous event in South African history.  He’s grateful now, of course.

We chatted to everyone around us.  There was a tearful old man who had never believed that he would ever get the chance to cast his vote.  There were Afrikaaners, resigned to the inevitable and taking it gracefully; and many who welcomed it.  I suppose those with strong opposition to the change were at home, planning protests.  People of every race, tribe, ethnicity, colour and political persuasion stood in that queue and waited with great patience for the ballot papers that never arrived.

There were no murmurings or angry voices, but there were a lot of rumours about what was happening in the rest of the country.  We were in a capsule, a moment in time when we were all in this together, all looking toward a happy and prosperous future; each believing that things would be better, fairer, and right.  We were in the mood to party, not fight.

No ballots came.

Because of our tired little boy, we wondered if we should go home and come back next day – the election was intended to be held over two days, but lasted three because of the issue of having nothing on which to cast your vote – but then we heard there was a magical polling station a few miles on which did have ballot papers, and even enough to go round.  We thought it was worth trying because we really did want to cast our vote on a day that would go down in history.  We wanted Tory Boy to be able to say that he was there. 

I don’t remember where either polling station was, except that the first was in a suburb and the other in a huge, unkempt field.  At the second, we joined a slightly smaller queue that we could see was moving, though it didn’t have the atmosphere of the first.    It took three hours but we got inside at last. 

The most bizarre moment of the day for me was when I went into the booth and there was a scruffy little stub of a pencil.  It didn’t seem fitting to cast a vote that would help change the political landscape of a nation, with a tatty bit of lead.  To this day, I’m not certain that I wasn’t expecting quills or expensive fountain pens. 

In the PWV area (Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging) we had a choice of thirteen parties.  As brave as the National Party had been, I couldn’t vote for the architects of Apartheid.  I couldn’t vote for the ANC bunch of terrorists either, no matter how just their cause.  I didn’t think the KISS lot (Keep It Straight and Simple) was taking the whole thing seriously enough; and the Women’s Rights Peace Party was missing the point.  I voted for the Democratic Party.  Helen Suzman was a lone white protest voice in the wilderness of the Apartheid government for many years, so I voted for her party, which I felt had moral conviction.  As the vote was by proportional representation, I helped them to their seven seats.

I discovered a wonderful quote from Helen Suzman, via Wikipedia:

She was once accused by a minister of asking questions in parliament that embarrassed South Africa, to which she replied: “It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa; it is your answers.”

Our tiny piece of history made, we took our exhausted child home, probably collecting a takeaway on the way.  Once he had eaten I put him straight to bed.  We followed soon after.  History is important but it’s the mundane that keeps us going.

Relatives living further out told us they hadn’t bothered to vote on the first day when they saw the queues; they left it to the next day and walked straight in and out.  It seemed most people wanted to vote on the first polling day.  I guess we were not the only people conscious of history on that glorious day.

Booking The Trend

Books (Photo credit: henry…)

I have neglected you all this week.  I’m sorry.  I never call; I never write comments…it’s as if I’ve been busy with something other than blogging.

Ridiculous, I know.  But true.

I have been working on…I blush to admit it…I don’t know quite how to say it – if I say it, it has to be true and I have to do something with it other than work on it and talk about working on it and not read other blogs or answer comments because I’m working on it…

I have written a book.

There!  I said it!  Now I have to do something with it.

I am doing something with it.  This week, I have been working on my first re-draft.  I’m a thirteenth or fourteenth re-draft before I’m satisfied kinda girl, so it may take a while.  Each morning, when I should be visiting you and replying to you, I have been editing me.

I sort of wrote it two years ago, on my short-lived blog about living in South Africa during and after Apartheid; some of it was written before that, over many years.  It is in part a collection of poems (stop yawning at the back), but also a memoir (wake up, the rest of you).  I lived during an exciting period of history and it left me well-balanced and not a stress head and if you believe that, you haven’t been reading this blog for long.  The book is a catharsis.  Should be fun!

I intend to go down the e-publishing route because, if I’m honest, I can’t imagine a publisher wanting to buy it; why would they?  Apartheid is long dead and there’s no money in poetry.

However, I have this story in me that wants to be told.

I know many of you don’t read poetry, but I will share one you might enjoy; it may or may not make it into the final draft, but it will give you a flavour of the book’s tone.  Background: in 1994, just before the first free and fair South African election, a new flag was unveiled:

The Old Flag

Flag of South Africa, used between 1928 and 1994 known as the Oranje-Blanje-Blou. From the xrmap flag collection 2.9, with modifications by Denelson83. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The New Flag

Flag of South Africa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*

Let’s Hear It For The Bunting

*

Orange and

green must

no more

be seen.

What a

drag.

Raise your

cup as

they run

up our

new

Y-fronts

flag.

*

*

*

For the boxer generation – these are y-fronts:

Y fronts (Photo credit: stringberd)

Apartheid Was All Right, Then?

No, it wasn’t; and one of the knives in its back was wielded by a determined media.  Now that media is struggling as much under President Zuma as it was under any white government.  I have copied and pasted the following from http://africartoons.com/story/1468.  If you believe in a free press please share this story by clicking the links at the bottom of the page at Africartoons.

Cartoonists take a stand against media restrictions

BY JOHN CURTIS
South Africa’s top editorial cartoonists have banded together to protest against the government’s intended press restrictions.

In rejecting the proposed Protection of Information Bill and Media Tribunal, they have warned that these restrictions will erode the right to freedom of expression achieved by the country’s hard fought struggle for democracy.

The cartoonists’ declaration is presented in an open petition to the government and any others that might challenge this right. It condemns all politically and religiously motivated threats against the media, and also objects “in the strongest of terms to all acts of intimidation being waged against the media in general, and cartoonists in particular.”

The 29 signatories represent a veritable who’s who in South African cartooning, including the creators of four of the country’s most syndicated newspaper strips . Between them, their work is published in almost every major newspaper in the country. The petition was initiated by Africartoons.com.

Recent threats to media freedom have fired up the country’s cartoonists to produce powerful statements against such interference, many drawing parallels with the apartheid regime’s propensity for such behaviour. Others have warned that these threats may be the beginning of the end of our miracle democracy.

During this month Africartoons will feature a collection of cartoons on the subject of the free press (and threats to it) which can be viewed via the “Free Press Cartoons” link on the homepage. More cartoons will be added to this collection as the story unfolds, and veteran cartoonists have been invited to contribute their apartheid era cartoons on the subject as a reminder of the implications of state press control. The best of these cartoons will be selected to form a narrative on the theme in an online exhibition to be hosted by the site in the near future.

The signatories of the petition (listed from Andy to Zapiro) are: Andy (Sunday Times), Brandan (Business Day, Rapport, Weekend Argus), Chip (Cape Argus), Dave Gomersall (Treknet), Deni Brown (Mama Taxi), Dov Fedler (Independent Newspapers), Dr Jack (Mail & Guardian, Noseweek, Pretoria News), F Esterhuyse (Beeld), Findlay (Sondag Son, Sunday Sun),  Fred Mouton (Die Burger), Gavin Thomson (People’s Post, Mama Taxi, Treknet), Grogan (Cape Times), Jerm (The Times, Biggish Five), John Curtis (Africartoons.com), Mark Wiggett (The Herald, Weekend Post), Mgobhozi (The Star), Miles (Daily Dispatch), Mothowagae (City Press), Mynderd Vosloo (Beeld), Nanda Soobben (Post), ND Mazin (CCIBA), Qap’s Mngadi (Echo Witness, Isolezwe), Rico (Madam & Eve), Stephen Francis (Madam & Eve), Siwela (Africartoons), Stent (Noseweek), Stidy (The Witness), Yalo (Sowetan) and Zapiro (Mail & Guardian, Sunday Times, The Times).

The petition has been sent to all the signatories to forward to their respective newspapers, email to their contacts, and post on their websites, blogs, and facebook pages. Africartoon visitors are invited to join the campaign by doing the same. By clicking on the facebook button (‘f share’) beneath this story you can post it on your facebook page (as you can do with any of the cartoons on this site). You can also tweet it just as easily if you have a twitter account. And a high resolution version of the petition can be made available for printing purposes as an A4 (1MB) advert or flyers, and A3 poster (2MB) on request via the website’s contact form.

Posted on Aug 12, 2010 by Africartoons

 

Of This ‘n’ That

You may recall I wrote about the Hub’s trip to Madagascar a while back, and the awful poverty he witnessed, particularly amongst the street children.  I just read a cheering article in earthtimes which reports on things being done to give them the tools to improve their lot.

*

I get quite a few hits from people looking for information on how life was lived during the Second World War, so I’m going to direct you to Vivinfrance, who has started posting her memories of life as a child during the Blitz.  Highly recommended!

*

The Big Tent prompt this week was ‘possessions’.  I did write something which isn’t very good, but I thought this one I wrote a couple of years ago about the run-up to the first free & fair elections  in South Africa was better.  

Pre-Election Jitters 

Civil war is on the tip of the country’s tongue.
You might have to flee for your life:
what do you pack in your truck?

Dried goods
Canned food
Water
Candles
Matches
Can opener
Two 25 gallon drums of petrol
Ammunition for the firearm
you keep at your hip
A map to Zimbabwe

The things you need to survive.

You fear the day is coming soon.
You might be one of the lucky few
to be airlifted out of the country
by your former government.
What do you put in your tiny suitcase?

Family photographs
Video tapes of your baby
His first curl
The battered jewellery box
that was a gift
from your parents
on your 11^th birthday
The jewellery in it
(inexpensive; sentimental)

The things you need to survive
to make surviving matter.

Ladies And Gentlemen, Please Be Upstanding For The National Anthem

I was looking for a You Tube clip of Steph on Over the Rainbow – I’m gutted she’s out; it’s my fault for not voting because I taped it and watched it the next day – when I came across this clip from the SABC, the broadcasting arm of the Rainbow Nation:

I love the South African national anthem; talk about a coalition: two minutes, two tunes, five of the eleven official languages.  It was an inspired piece of thinking from Nelson Mandela.  In case you don’t know the history, I’ve copied this from Wikipedia:

For decades during the apartheid regime it was considered by many to be the unofficial national anthem of South Africa, representing the suffering of the oppressed. In 1994 after the fall of apartheid, the new State President of  South Africa Nelson Mandela declared that both “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” and the previous national anthem, “Die Stem van Suid Afrika” (“The Voice of South Africa”) would be national anthems. While the inclusion of “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” rejoiced in the newfound freedom of many South Africans, the fact that “Die Stem” was also kept as an anthem even after the fall of apartheid, signified to all that the new government under Mr Mandela respected all races and cultures and that an all-inclusive new era was dawning upon South Africa. In 1996, a shortened, combined version of the two anthems was released as the new South African National Anthem under the constitution of South Africa.

I like a good national anthem.  My favourites are the South African; the British (naturally): 

 The American:

. 

And the French:

 

I find it amusing that three of my favourites celebrate republicanism and the fourth monarchy.  I guess it’s all down to their rousing tunes, which is the point of a national anthem, after all: they are a rallying cry set to music. 

I had a quick look at the different lyrics.  It was inevitable, I suppose, that the French anthem would ramble on for five minutes, but they are complaining about bad soldiers slitting their throats so we’ll forgive them that.  Their anthem says

…that the impure blood
Should water the furrows of our fields.

The Americans thunder about 

…the rockets’ red glare
The bombs bursting in air. 

Before peace descended on South Africa, Afrikaaners

…always, always say yes:
To live, to die.

And the British?  Why, we

confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks.

That told ’em! 

I guess it’s why we have a constitutional monarchy system that still works; we are far too polite to change it.  Even our radical new political system is just two groups agreeing to disagree on a few points and rub along on the rest.

An interesting fact about Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika: it is also the national anthem of Tanzania and Zambia and was formerly the anthem of Zimbabwe and Namibia.  It was written in 1897 as a Methodist hymn.  The title means God bless Africa.  A nice little irony is that it was the rallying cry of the exiled and Communist-supported ANC.

The reason for the SABC video of the national anthem is to teach the South African population the words in time for the World Cup.  Not everyone speaks five languages, though most South Africans speak at least two and often three.  As the host nation, it would be embarrassing if the people didn’t know the words to their own national anthem; just ask the British: our footballers all speak the same language, but most of them lip synch like a bad dubbing at international fixtures.  Still, we don’t pay them obscene amounts of money to be literate, do we?  Just as well, really.

 

 

 

 

 

PS

Speaking of leaders’ debates and South Africa, Nick Clegg’s proposals to only send immigrants to parts of the country where they are needed sounds awfully like the pass laws to me:  Welcome to Britain!  Apartheid is alive and well and coming to a doctor’s surgery near you.

No thanks.

*

Big Night Out For Me

If a cancer-stricken elderly lady knocked on your door and invited you to a party, could you say no?  Me neither. Though I did at first. 

Let me explain: I had just come in from church a couple of weeks ago (five minutes later and I’d have missed her) and there was a knock on my door and this old lady asked me, ‘Are you interested in politics?’  When I said ‘Yes’ she wept on my shoulder with relief; when I told her in reply to her next question that I was voting Conservative, she asked if she could have my baby.  We live in a strong Labour ward; there are blood and custard Labour posters all over the place.  Well, I say ‘all over the place’ but I really mean ‘in one window in a house three streets away’ because these days ‘deprived area’ doesn’t mean ‘Russian revolutionary-style activism’ but, ‘if I could be bothered to vote at all, it would be Labour because I work in a low-paid job and don’t have much money and they are the party that will look after me by taxing me to death, from birth to death and everywhere in between; besides, that’s how my parents voted and furthermore, blue doesn’t suit me.’  My old lady wanted me in the audience for tonight’s  ITV Leader’s Debate; a variety of types is needed and there aren’t many working class, Condervative-voting women around, apparently.

I have ranted about electors not bothering to elect in earlier posts so I won’t go there again, but I read a post yesterday that irritated me because it pointed up my inadequacies as a concerned voter: check out http://cubiksrube.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/democracy-in-the-uk/ and he will show you how the work of engaging voters should be done – by appealing to their inclination to do it all from home if they are going to do it at all.  It is a really useful guide to this election.

Perhaps that is why the big media networks are so excited about the debates; it’s a way to interest a largely apathetic electorate.  If we had X Factor-type shows where the duckhouse builders were voted out in the early rounds, it might be more interesting; it would certainly get a bigger turnout.  I think it might have to be proportional representation instead of first-past-the-post politics, however, or we could lose a leader who’s having an off-night, because some perform better than others (naming no names).  That’s what politics is really all about these days: who performs well in the media; who looks good.  You can pass all the anti-discriminatory legislation in the world, but these days, I don’t see any polio-stricken, wheelchair-bound candidates applying for the job of Prime Minister of the UK or President of America; do you?  It’s why I nag Tory Boy to visit the dentist regularly: he’ll never get elected with manky teeth.  They are lovely, actually; and they’d better stay that way or it won’t be just the media making fun of him…Britain’s not gallant.

America has had leaders’ debates for fifty years, but this is our first one (of three).  I almost turned down the opportunity to be in the audience because of the logistics of getting there: three buses and a ten-minute walk.  It’s not getting there so much, but travelling home late at night.  I can’t rely on the Hub being well enough to taxi me around so I always have to assume he can’t, make contingency plans, and cross my fingers that his M.E. won’t be our foe that day.  As it happens, he has had a rough week and he is feeling it, so I will get the buses to Granada Studios and he will rest all day so that he can collect me.  It’s only 23 minutes away but that’s a round-trip of an hour with waiting; it’s too much for him to do that twice today.  Who knew M.E. was the enemy of the voting classes? 

I wonder how the leaders (I keep wanting to add the words ‘Our Glorious’ to that, though I am not at all Orwellian) are travelling to Manchester?  Not by air, I hope.  Iceland, not content with losing millions of our British money, has allowed a volcano to erupt and thus stop those Brits with any money left from going on holiday to recover.  A cloud of volcanic ash is snaking across Britain six kilometers above us, forcing flights to be cancelled.  Britain is not amused.  Questions will be asked tonight, I’m sure; demands to know why the Government has not acted on the issue of erupting volcanoes in foreign countries spoiling British holidays.

I doubt if I’ll get a chance to ask a question: I’m not going on holiday, for a start.  But I heard someone say that, as the debate is only ninety minutes long, it’s likely that there will only be time for eight questions to be asked and answered.  If the audience is one hundred strong – though I think it might be bigger – that gives me an 8% chance.  I’m not holding my breath.

Back to my story: the lady at the door was drooping so I invited her in while we filled out the inevitable paperwork.  It was then that she told me how peeved she was that she couldn’t attend the debate as a hostess because she was having ugly stuff cut from her stomach today.  It was only after she left with my personal details (including passport number) that it occurred to me that it could have been an elaborate scam to steal my money and identity.  Seventeen phone calls from ITV regarding security, questions I might wish to pose, and whether I have any metal body parts later and my fears were eased.  The ticket arrived on Tuesday and, barring a last-minute hiccup when my stolen identity reveals me to be an Icelandic banker and thus persona non grab me in the face and smash me with a useless airline charter, I should be taking my seat around seven tonight.  If you are watching, look out for me: I’ll be the woman in black hiding the right side of her face with straightened hair.  I haven’t had my glasses fixed yet; I should have gone to Specsavers.

*

8

Yesterday’s prompt was to write a ‘cleave’ poem: it’s a fusion of two vertical poems to make one horizontal one.  I wrote one last year as part of my South Africa collection, though I didn’t know then there was a name for the form:

*

Anti-Apartheid Movement

 * 

crazy in love,

                                they see through

a fervid haze. 

                                razing unjust laws,

passion scars, grazes

                                false cultural ideals. 

black and white

                                race to connect,

skin on skin;

                                ignoring political sin.

*

*

*

Here’s a little other poem so that I have something new to post to fulfill the terms of the napowrimo agreement (write a poem every day):

*

Old Habits
*
I used to read
Before babies
Before study
Before I forgot to