I knew that, even though they called me ‘Sisi’ and I respectfully called them ‘Mama’, it was still ‘us’ and ‘them’. Us whites, them blacks. Us in the affluent neighbourhoods, the good schools, the good churches. Them in the shacks, the overcrowded schools, the outdoor churches. Even my R5.60 an hour at the university library was a fortune compared to what they were earning.
‘I am so tired of these divisions,’ I said aloud. And then I knew I had to do something big, to step across this divide. I loved these women; they had become my friends; they were kind, caring and gentle. They were politically skilled and informed, even though very few of them had formal education. These were the people I felt at home with – in contrast to the women I worked with in the library or met at the mother-and-baby groups. The women from Kayamandi talked about Mandela, economic oppression, and their hopes for their children’s future – while always singing and laughing. The white women complained about their maids, the horrible possibility that the blacks would take over, and how we all had to emigrate, for our children’s sake.
I wanted to cross this us-and-them divide, and the only way I knew how to do that was to join the ANC, the only truly non-racial party in South Africa at that stage. I had for years read their policies and met with their members and leadership. I knew I would feel at home there. I also knew that joining the ANC would probably cause more trouble with Wilhelm’s family, but being ‘the wife’, they probably would not notice – and we certainly would not be drawing it to their attention.
Back home, I discussed my plan with Wilhelm, who was fine about it. He would not join yet, because of his fear about his family’s reaction, but he agreed – not that anything would have stopped me. So later that evening, I drove over to Zelda’s house, filled in the yellow membership form and paid my R10 fee. With these few simple actions, I became a member of the ANC. I asked them not to say anything about it, not that they intended to. After all, I was not a true Verwoerd, so no one would be interested – or so I thought.
For the next six months, I regularly went to ANC meetings at Zelda’s house, where we were briefed on political developments. I was still working at the library but, increasingly, I was leading a double life, with ANC meetings and domestic-workers business at night and serving white Afrikaner students by day. Passing some of the black or coloured workers in the library or on campus, they would now quietly say ‘Hello comrade’, but nobody said anything openly. I was also pregnant with our second baby and dealing with morning sickness and tiredness; but thankfully, this time all was going well.
On 17 March 1992, President FW de Klerk called for what was to be the last white referendum. The question (asked of the white voters) was whether he had a mandate to continue negotiating with the ANC. I was working that day and the atmosphere was tense, with more than the usual irritable and racist comments about where the country was going. The ‘comrades’ kept passing me little notes on the way to the bathroom with information they had received from various places around the country. After work, I went down to the town hall to vote. I met Wilhelm and Wilmé there. Wilmé had on a little sun hat that some campaign worker had given her, with the word ‘Ja’ on it. A photographer took a shot, and she was in the local paper the next day. As I left after casting my vote, I bumped into Annie Gagiano. She was on her way to the annual general meeting of the ANC in Kayamandi and insisted that I come with her. I agreed.
In the township, it was of course business as usual, since the referendum was only for the whites. I was met by the now-familiar smell of fires and the sight of raw, fly-covered meat being sold at the side of the road. Radios were blaring everywhere, and people shouted greetings and news to one another – sometimes from several blocks away. There was a buzz and liveliness, and a sense of community in the townships that is hard to describe.
We parked the car on the road and wove our way through the rows of shacks. It was dark, so we had to step carefully to avoid the raw sewage running between the shacks. We finally came to a spot where a few shacks were put together, with a sign proclaiming ‘Community Hall’ above the door. Inside, it was spotlessly clean. There were rows of benches and the place was packed. Annie, Rudolf Mastenbroek and I were the only white people there.
As always, the meeting was opened with prayers (so much for the ANC being anti-religious, as we were always told by the government) and the singing of ‘Nkosi Sikelele’. I had heard it sung many times before and knew most of the words, but I had never stood among a hundred or more African people, all singing it with deep emotion. I had goosebumps and felt tears in my eyes. After the chants of ‘Viva ANC!’, ‘Long live Nelson Mandela!’ and ‘Amandla!’, we settled in for various speeches and reports. We all sat tightly squeezed on the backless benches with rain pelting on the corrugated-tin roof. Every fifteen minutes or so, the light coming from a single bulb hanging from the roof would go out. Exasperated exclamations would follow, and a child would be sent out to fix the problem.
Kayamandi was linked to the electricity grid, but only a handful of older houses, the municipal building and the police station had electricity. Frustrated, people would hack into the mains supply; the area above the shacks looked like a spider’s web of wires, all connected in an amateurish fashion. This was of course extremely dangerous, and people were regularly electrocuted. The community hall’s light was hooked up to five extension cords that were running outside on the wet ground to a comrade’s shack, which was in turn illegally hooked to the mains supply. But every time the owners wanted a cup of tea, the supply to the community hall was disrupted.
The child would report back that the comrade said that he, or someone else, needed a cup of tea and would be done in five minutes. Everyone would murmur understandingly, and then wait quietly in the pitch dark until there was light again. Then the meeting would continue as if nothing had happened.
This was a completely different world for me. I thought how all the people I knew, including my family, would react if they knew I was sitting shoulder to shoulder in the pitch dark in a big shack in Kayamandi. They would be sure that I would be killed. But I felt completely safe – and indeed thrilled by it all. In fact, it struck me that no one took much notice of me or Annie or Rudolf. That was the essence of the ANC: it was truly non-racial. If you joined, you were a comrade, and that was all that counted. Of course, you had to be loyal, but I had expected that, as a white with the surname ‘Verwoerd’, I would have to deal with many questions and suspicions. But there never were any.
Towards the end of the long evening, the elections for the new executive were held. Annie was nominated, but declined because of work pressure. She then nominated me. Before I could protest, the nomination was seconded, hands flew into the air in support, and I was elected. Rudolf, who was secretary, and would become a very close friend, came over and said: ‘Welcome. This is going to be interesting.’
As we drove back through the quiet, wet, oak-lined streets of Stellenbosch, I thought about the contrasts of the day. The results of the white referendum suddenly seemed so irrelevant in the light of the evening I had just experienced. I was now a member of the Stellenbosch ANC executive!
After my election onto the executive, my life became very full. Briefings, organising marches, consulting with our members and signing up new members took much of our time. There were also frequent meetings in the ANC’s little office close to Du Toit Station. The chairperson was Patrick Xegwana, a messenger at the university. He was a strong but quiet leader with a big heart. He lived with his wife and children in a tiny shack in Kayamandi. I had enormous respect for him and was distraught when he drowned a few years later while trying to save his child’s life. Other members were Mpumi Hani (a relative of the Chief of Staff of MK, Chris Hani), Malcolm Ncofe (a teacher), Oom Tom Ncungwa (a trader who sold meat in an open stall on the street in Kayamandi) and Franklin Adams (a fiery coloured guy, who had many small-business ventures). We were later joined by the deeply religious, but equally fiery Faghrie Patel. And of course Rudolf Mastenbroek and I were there too.
Meetings usually started 30 to 45 minutes late (‘African time’
