My grandfather was a big, quiet man. He had enormous hands, hardened by years of working the land. But he had a soft heart. He announced one day that he would no longer shoot the pig he used to feed daily to fatten up until the fatal day. He felt it was a betrayal of his bond with the pig, and told my grandmother that she could do it if she felt that strongly about eating pork. From then on, they bought their pork from the local butcher. No one ever left my grandparents’ house without bags of vegetables, and if anyone knocked on their door, they would be given food. Needless to say, the word spread, and my grandfather made very little money from farming!
As I got older, I would follow my grandfather around while he worked in the vegetable fields or with the animals. He taught me how to milk cows and drive a tractor. He tried to teach me to shoot a gun, but I was hopeless at it. I hate guns with a passion and I have never, nor will ever, own a gun. So every time I had to aim, I would close my eyes and of course hit everything except the tin target. My grandfather gave up in exasperation one day after I nearly hit him.
My grandparents had two children. My mother, Helena (also called Lenie), was born in 1943, and her brother Hannes was born in 1949. Like most Afrikaners at that time, my grandparents were extremely poor. The house was basic, without running water or electricity. I was already at school (in the 1970s) when they finally got running water and no longer had to collect it from the river every day. Even better, they had a water-borne sewage system installed, which meant that the long walk to the pit toilet and night pots under the beds were at last things of the past. It took many more years (until the late 1980s) before they got electricity.
Despite these difficult circumstances, it was extremely important to both my grandparents, and in particular my grandmother, to ensure that both her children got a university education. From early on, she instilled in them the ambition to strive for something more, and to get an education. At night, by candlelight at the kitchen table, they studied for hours.
It paid off. My mother passed her Matric with flying colours and went on to Potchefstroom University to do a Bachelor of Science and an Honours degree in mathematics. She would later become one of the first women in South Africa to get a Masters degree in computer science, at a time when a computer took up most of a room. My mother’s brother received a degree in pharmacology and is a very successful pharmacist. Until her death, my grandmother regarded the fact that she had put both her children through university without incurring any debt as her biggest achievement.
My mother met my dad, Johannes Hendrik Philippus van Niekerk, at university. Bennie, as he was known, was a very attractive pharmacology student and, like my mother, was ambitious and full of dreams for a better future – which was part of the attraction. His father, my grandfather, was a teacher who later became a big commercial farmer on the northern border of South Africa, close to Zeerust. In 1963 my parents got married, and in 1965 they moved to Pretoria. The move was a source of bitterness for my mother, who had been offered a teaching position at her university – an extraordinary achievement given her background and the fact that she was a woman. But my dad insisted on going to Pretoria, where he opened a pharmacy in the suburb of Menlo Park. My mum joined the Atomic Energy Board, where she continued to work as a computer programmer until shortly before my birth in April 1967.
I was born into what was, according to all accounts, a deeply troubled marriage. My dad was an alcoholic and struggled with addictions all his life. My mum was ambitious and determined to make a better life for herself and her children. In December 1969 they separated and a final divorce came through in May 1970. I was only three years old and cannot remember any of the troubles. I have a vague recollection of the big swimming pool and sandpit, as well as our two boxer dogs, Lady and Sir, but nothing more.
Following the divorce, my mum returned to her job as a computer programmer at the Atomic Energy Board. She and I moved from our very big, comfortable house in the suburbs to a one-bedroom apartment in the centre of Pretoria, where we lived until I was almost five years old. I have a few recollections of the time in the apartment. They are happy memories of times with my mum, which would lay the foundation for the very close relationship we still have today. I remember the crèche – in particular the food and naptime, as well as outings to the nearby park to look at the bridal parties, who often had photos taken there. A less happy memory is of my tonsils being removed. I can clearly remember the surgeon’s face and surgical cap, as well as the big operating lights. I also have a vivid recollection of waiting for my dad to visit after the operation. He never came – a pattern of disappointments he would repeat until his death almost 25 years later. During the period following my parents’ divorce, I spent an increasing amount of time with my grandparents in Leeupoort.
Despite what must have been tension-filled times at home, my days on the farm were happy and carefree. I would run around barefoot, loving the feel of the deep-red soil – particularly when it was wet – under my feet and between my toes. Like all farm kids, I quickly learnt to keep an eye out for snakes and scorpions – and the enormous thorns from the African thorn trees. At night I would collapse, exhausted but exhilarated.
A less happy part of life on the farm was the complex relationship my grandparents had with their farm workers. They were, like the majority of white South Africans at the time, racist. It was a racism born out of a sense of superiority on the one hand, and fear on the other. Yet at the same time there was a close and almost loving relationship born out of Christian values shared with their workers.
As it was a small farm, they only had one domestic worker, called Johanna. She and my grandmother would work side by side, talking like friends for hours. Yet at night Johanna would go home to a little shack on the farm. When I saw Johanna’s shack for the first time, I was almost seven years old. I was upset and had an argument with my grandparents, telling them how I would change everything one day when I inherited the farm. They laughed at me, which drove me to angry tears, made worse by my being forbidden to go near Johanna’s house again.
Yet, ironically, it was my grandparents who laid the foundations that would lead me to enter liberation politics later on. Through my relationship with them, I learnt early on that education, wealth and status told you little about a person. My grandparents had almost no formal education. They were extremely poor and were not regarded as movers and shakers in society. But they were dignified, humble, caring and cultured people who were wise beyond any ‘book knowledge’.
Years later, when I was a political activist, I felt completely at home in townships and with farm workers. Not only did the sound of the animals and smoke in the air remind me of Leeupoort, but the caring, simple nature of the people reminded me of the deep bond I shared with my grandparents – even though they were disgusted with my political beliefs.
In 1971, my mum remarried. Philip Fourie was a colleague of hers at the Atomic Energy Board – and the polar opposite of my dad. An intellectual with a doctorate in physics, he was far more introverted and, thank God, stable than my father. I had no objections to the wedding, although I was livid when my mum insisted that I wear a white-and-baby-blue knitted pant suit to the wedding! Even though it was the seventies, I was furious that I could not wear a dress and, according to my grandparents, I tried to boycott the wedding. It is obvious from my grumpy face in the photographs that I was there under duress.
Thankfully, my and Philip’s relationship improved dramatically over the years from the low point of the wedding day, and he became a father to me. A year after the wedding, we moved to a bigger house in the suburbs, which they built just in time for my sister Melissa’s birth in April 1972.
I was five years old when Melissa arrived, and it was a happy change to my life. I was overwhelmed with joy at having a sibling, even though Melissa was an extremely unhappy baby who screamed most of the day. I stayed with my grandparents on the farm while my mum was in hospital. Shortly after the big day, my grandparents and I made the two-hour drive to Pretoria, to the same hospital I had been born in, so we could see the new little arrival. However,
