was amiss.
Problem was I didn’t really know what I wanted. I got increasingly interested in politics, but didn’t consider it as a career. Despite suspecting that I would enjoy being politically active, I was not inspired to get involved, even on an informal basis. From a distance, the ANC seemed to be reserved for comrades only, while the DA appeared to be made up of a bunch of ex-high school debating team captains. Hence, when the prospect of a political realignment surfaced, it both intrigued and excited me.
During my time as a banker I had become a regular attendee of Wits University’s Public Conversations, which were colourfully chaired by the charismatic academic and political commentator Xolela Mangcu. I enjoyed these forums, partly because of the fascinating topics discussed and partly because the discussions satisfied my desire to be more politically active. One day in late October, after Mosiuoa Lekota wrote his open letter to the ANC Secretary General, and when the formation of a breakaway movement from the ANC seemed a certainty, Mbhazima Shilowa was invited to address the forum. I made sure not to miss it.
I arrived a little late and was further delayed by the tight security. What for? I wondered. The lecture hall was packed and I was forced to take up a front row seat. Though I did not realise it at the time, I happened to be sitting next to Wendy Luhabe, the Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg and Shilowa’s wife. I was there to see Shilowa, despite not even knowing what he looked like! Yet, he was immediately recognisable when he entered the room. He had a sense of purpose about him, and the glow that celebrities seem to acquire from spending so much time in the spotlight.
His speech was a little guarded for my liking. He spoke about the need for a direct elective system to improve accountability. He avoided levelling direct accusations at the ruling party, apart from saying that the ANC was a voluntary organisation and that members who chose to resign should be allowed to do so without being harassed. He explored the differences between a liberation movement and a developmental state, implying that the ANC’s struggle mentality had become outdated. The issue which everyone wanted to hear more about received only fleeting attention. Almost as an afterthought, Shilowa mentioned that a new political party would certainly be formed. He went on to invite us to what he called a convention of South Africans where, he said, this topic would be explored further.
Throughout Shilowa’s address a cluster of youngsters, clearly from the ANC Youth League, attempted to disrupt the speaker. This gave rise to a rather awkward situation, especially given the modest size of the gathering (about 50 or 60 people). After each statement by Shilowa one of the main agitators would shout something that I couldn’t understand, but which was clearly a ‘yeah right’ or ‘in your dreams’-type comment. Then all the others would bounce in their chairs, cover their faces and giggle. It was juvenile to the point of being pathetic. At some point the chairman interrupted proceedings in an effort to stop them, but to no avail.
Question time was even more painful. The first question contained the words ‘former comrade’ no less than fifteen times, and with each mention of the phrase the entire gaggle of youth leaguers repeated the bounce-and-giggle routine. Their ‘questions’ hardly qualified as such; they were not of the type to which one would normally affix a question mark. The majority of people in the audience sympathised with Shilowa, however, and found the young protesters’ behaviour deplorable. Despite the shenanigans I got home that evening feeling inspired. I itched to be part of the new movement.
Perhaps because I always regretted missing the excitement of the early 1990s, having been too young to really appreciate what was happening, I have been looking for a repeat of the miracle. All I can remember of politics in the transition years is how my friends’ parents stocked up on canned food and paraffin, and how bored I was waiting in the queue when my parents took me along to the polling station to cast their vote in 1994. They voted in Jamestown, a small town on the outskirts of Stellenbosch, which, under the old regime, was designated a ‘coloured’ area. Obliviously ignorant of the magnitude of the event I sadly missed out on the elation that accompanied the experience for so many South Africans.
To be born and brought up in Stellenbosch in the eighties, as I was, didn’t make for the most racially diverse childhood. I can recall thinking how brave the first, and at that stage the only, coloured pupil in my historically white primary school was. In standard five I had to break up a fight between a white pupil and a coloured pupil, the former allegedly having called the latter a ‘hotnot’. The fact that it was the first time I’d heard that word, and that I found it more amusing than offensive, testifies to my childish naivety.
I grew up with little exposure to the ugly aspects of society. I cycled to school, played in the neighbourhood streets, went to Voortrekkers and Sunday school, and was given enough pocket money to buy sweets and go to the movies when I wanted to. I had a couple of bicycles stolen and our house was robbed a few times, but I never heard of anyone who was hijacked, held up, raped or murdered. I was raised in an open-minded household and my parents taught me to challenge stereotypes. I was only confronted with racism when my friends, who were all white, made racist jokes.
During high school, with the country changing around me, I started paying more attention to current affairs. I joined the school debating team and developed some of my own opinions, but still knew more about WP rugby than about the cabinet. I got along with the coloured pupils in my class, but never thought about inviting them over for weekends. I played a game of rugby with the farm workers on my friend’s wine farm once, but ran away laughing when the supporters started breaking bottles. I didn’t spend much time thinking about either race or politics.
I only became genuinely interested in these topics after returning from Melbourne, Australia, where I spent three years at university directly after high school, doing a degree in finance. When Australians asked me about the political situation in my home country, as they often did, I tended to paint a rosy picture. I dismissed racial tensions and ascribed the country’s problems to the economic disparities. White Australians are as racist as white South Africans, if not more, I used to argue. South Africa’s race problems are just more widely publicised.
Only upon my return home did I realise the discrepancy between that picture and reality, and start fretting about it. Far from being the reconciled people I described, South Africans from different race groups seemed permanently at odds with one another. Racial tension was everywhere: in public debates, in the media, in education, in business, in sport, you name it. Where most of my peers in Melbourne were colour blind, or at least pretended to be at risk of being vilified, the Stellenbosch students were often openly racist. It was an unpleasant eye-opener and a shock.
A year later I was in limbo before I planned to head abroad again and so decided to dedicate a few months to NGO work. This opened up a world to which I was previously oblivious, and which I was intrigued by. I held two jobs: one with TSiBA Education, a free university offering business degrees, and another with Impumelelo Innovations Award Trust, which rewards public sector projects based on their innovations. The latter required me to appraise government projects and recommend the good ones for the awards. My job was to do write-ups about previous winners and drive around looking for new ones.
The first project I evaluated was the Sexual Abuse Victim Empowerment, or SAVE. SAVE is situated in Observatory, Cape Town, and assists the state prosecutor in cases of sexual abuse involving intellectually disabled victims. Dealing with persons with an intellectual disability can be complicated, and their abuse cases used to go unheard because the prosecutor didn’t know how to approach them. Since SAVE was started, the number of these cases that reached the courts each year increased from two or three, to over a hundred. Furthermore, the conviction rate increased dramatically.
Further searches for innovative projects led me to the North West province, a region I had only driven through once or twice on my way to some holiday destination. I encountered a wide variety of projects, some of which were moderately successful while others failed spectacularly. The most inspirational was the Animal Feed & Medical Distributors Co-op
