I am a white girl who was born in
Boksburg in 1979. For those who don’t know, Boksburg was at the heart of the
apartheid movement, and the laws governing that place were as vicious,
oppressive and cruel as ever could be in our darkened history. I came from a
poor family, but still a daughter of privilege in the sense that my skin colour
allowed me access to the local swimming pool, public toilet, the library and to
picnic and walk by the legendary Boksburg Lake. My happiest early childhood
memories include train rides at the little park for children next to the Lake,
winning a fancy paint-set at a Christmas colouring-in competition at the library,
and long summer afternoons splashing freely in the pools. To the outside world,
apartheid never affected me negatively as a child, but that is not entirely
true. I was guilty of the sin of acceptance, albeit unconscious acceptance. I
was taught by my societal surroundings that black people were not capable of
keeping the lake clean, unable to respect the value of books and words, and, in
horrifically extreme cases, taught by the church that blacks were the sons of
Ham, who, according to the Bible, were cursed to live under the oppression of
their white brothers forever - and it was their own fault. I accepted these
teachings as a small child, never questioning them or the authorities who told
them to me. I was a white child in South Africa, being taught to be a racist.
My parents were involved in missions,
and opened a Christian school in the Boksburg town center. This was the only
school there to have both white and black students attend together. And this is
where I first noticed that something was not right. When my black skinned
friends were not allowed to come with me to the library, I asked my mother why,
and she explained to me that while it was wrong and an injustice, that the laws
prohibited it because of their skin colour. This had me baffled. I could not
for the life of me think what could possibly be different between my friends
and myself – we played games, laughed and learned together. One of my friends
had managed to get a hold of green nail polish and I thought it was the most
fabulous nail colour I had ever seen. She was my hero! And she was just like
me, surely?
But as I grew older, it was
continuously reaffirmed to me that no, she wasn’t. She was black. Therefore
inferior. It wasn’t her fault, it was her skin colour. We as white people could
be kind, ‘un-racist’ and loving towards these lesser beings – we would open our
homes to them when the fighting in Vosloorus (a local settlement development
where black people were removed to in the 60’s under the apartheid regime) was
too dangerous for them to go home – we could give them our old clothes and tins
of food when they came begging, but we were, of course, by all accounts, the
superior race. I lived in a protected bubble where I was not exposed to the
true atrocities that were happening. But
the curse of the privileged is the belief that we deserve our privilege,
and others don’t. I was being gently coerced into being a delicately
tailor-made racist. A nice one, but a racist none the less.
Mandela was released from prison when
I was ten years old. I remember the hushed, outraged grumblings, talking about
how ‘those’ people celebrated by breaking bus windows and causing a general
destructive ruckus. How ‘they’ were celebrating the release of a terrorist. I
heard, but I didn’t ask too much and carried on in my blissfully ignorant
existence. What I of course didn’t realize yet was how much he had done, how
tirelessly he worked to change those wrongs that had touched my little life so
mildly, how he labored to save me from believing the racist lie, and how
significant that day was to the entire nation.
In the years that followed, I learned
much more of the man, and the monster, Mandela. Some of those who had my ear
spoke of him in reverence while others spoke in hatred. South Africa was
torn and I began to pay more attention. We moved to Cape Town, I hit my teen
years, and I quietly started choosing who I believed and who I didn’t agree
with when he was discussed. A family friend I used to hold in high esteem told
a story of how he refused to shake Mandela’s hand. I decided that he, no matter
how close a friend of the family, was an idiot.
Mandela became president, and though I
was not interested in politics but rather honing a fondness for shoes, I could
see all the good that was being done in his name. My Granny read ‘Long Walk to
Freedom’ and often read out extracts to us. She had been a Boksburgian herself,
but was thoroughly converted, discussing the importance and greatness of this
man. We teased her by nick-naming her ‘Comrade Granny’, but I didn’t realize
until later how those afternoons with her, listening to her in her bedroom, my
own beliefs about racism and oppression were being shaped. He had done some
terrible things, Granny explained, things that many people were not willing to
forgive, (the same people, incidentally, who were more than happy to forget the
terrible things that had been done to him and his family and friends first). He
was fighting in a war I had not seen – a war for freedom. And he had done the
time when convicted, coming out of prison with a more powerful weapon than
before – Love. He forgave those who oppressed him, but did not accept the
oppression and vowed to do everything he could for the freedom of ALL South
Africans. Black, White, Coloured, Indian, Men, Women, Gay, Straight, Christian,
Muslim, Jew – he committed the rest of his life’s work to the equality of us
all. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a
way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” And that is what made him such a great man.
I am so thankful for Nelson Mandela, for
everything he did for our country. Not only did he open the gates to save the
oppressed people, and open up our country to the world, but he saved me from a
racist society that was surely seeping into my very core. He sucked the poison
from me, offering his life for the freedom of us all. I am honoured to have
lived in his time and to have been able to see some of the history and
transformation happen first hand. I am blessed to have become part of the new privileged, privileged to live in
his New South Africa, free to be free. My skin colour can not bind me to racism
anymore, and if I choose, like him, to live the change I want to see in the
world, his message and work lives on in me.
I do not like confrontation, I do not
like to fight. I don’t have the courage and tenacity of spirit that he had. But
if I can display even an ounce of the love he had for friends and foes alike, I
will be able to do some good in this world too. And if there ever was a pair of
shoes I would like to attempt to do my bit to fill, let it be those of the
father of my nation.
“We can change the world and make it a
better place. It is in your hands to make a difference” – Nelson Mandela
Rest in Peace, Tata Madiba.
Cherry Blossom
