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Post date: Oct 22, 2014 1:32:38 PM
‘To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that enhances and respects the freedoms of others’
Nelson Mandela, Icon of Forgiveness
From birth until a few months beyond my 45th birthday I was a prisoner in my own country and only finally set free - along with millions of others - when I placed an X on a piece of paper during South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.
In recent days I shared some of that journey with my elder daughter Bonnie as we entered the initially sombre and brooding atmosphere of Johannesburg’s award-winning Apartheid Museum, which tells a story of tyranny, tragedy, violence, heroism and ultimately the triumph of the human spirit.
For me it was a pilgrimage to my past - lest I forget - and for Bonnie the opening of a door into a tortured history she knew little of. She was eight years old when Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison, and her sister Tammy was just six.
Setting the scene, museum visitors are arbitrarily issued with a ticket classifying them either as white or non-white, and enter through the gate allocated to that specific grouping. I walked through the white entrance, Bonnie entering as a non-white in a reminder that racial classification was the foundation of apartheid. Society was then divided into four groups determined largely by skin colour: Bantu (black), Asian, coloured or white.
Our exploration of the museum triggered a flood of memories and transported me back to my days as a young reporter almost four decades earlier when I’d been at the epicentre of the cataclysmic events that ultimately emancipated and united all South Africans in a common destiny.
Geoff and Bonnie against the backdrop of the South African flag
It was on June 16, 1976, that black outrage at an unfair education system that discriminated ruthlessly against children of colour, finally spilled over, intensifying the struggle that would one day see the world’s most famous prisoner taking his place at the head of South African society.
To truly get to grips with the soul of democratic South Africa I heartily recommend a trip to the museum - or better still, make it part of what I think of as the Freedom Trail, spending at least a day going back in time and attempting to follow in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela and other struggle heroes.
A few years ago it was activist-turned-tour guide Joe Motshogi who introduced me to the idea of a struggle pilgrimage, driving me from the leafy suburbs of Sandton to the vibrancy and squalor of Soweto, Johannesburg’s younger and less affluent sibling.
And far from being simply a serious history lesson, it turned out to be a celebration that was often characterised by fun and laughter, especially when we tuned in to the heartbeat of Soweto, the country’s largest and most famous black township.
My ideal itinerary starts at Liliesleaf in the plush Sandton suburb of Rivonia, where a number of Mandela’s co-conspirators were arrested, followed by the Apartheid Museum, the Hector Pietersen Memorial, Freedom Square, the Regina Mundi Church and Vilakazi Street, the Soweto equivalent of Hollywood Boulevard where you might easily spot celebrity stars of the freedom struggle.
Vilakazi residents proudly claim that their street is the only one in the world that has been home to two Nobel laureates, Mandela and his friend Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town who headed the pioneering Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
A grim reminder that so many political prisoners were executed during the apartheid regime
But mostly the street is about having a good time and on past visits I’ve found myself in animated conversation with locals and a sprinkling of enthusiastic international visitors at lively restaurants and shebeen bars. At one called The Shack, the drink of choice was chilled Windhoek lager drunk straight from 750ml bottles, a group of women gyrating to loud music while the menfolk played a game of pool, amid much good-natured merriment.
I’m always struck by the great warmth and sense of community that’s missing in many cities where neighbours don’t know each other and live behind high security walls. The friendliness is in sharp contrast to my earliest memories of Soweto as a roving reporter on the Rand Daily Mail, witnessing running battles between heavily armed police and protesting schoolchildren armed only with stones.
Of course, no visit to Vilakazi Street is complete without a tour of the modest ‘matchbox’ home that Mandela shared with his former wife Winnie, the original facebrick house now dwarfed by a huge museum façade.
If you’ve started at Liliesleaf, you’ll recognise the simple and effective architectural style that has been adopted for recent apartheid memorials, recapturing the dark, brooding mood of life under a repressive regime.
It was at Liliesleaf Farm that a police raid in 1963 dealt a major blow to the leadership of the African National Congress and the struggle for liberation. Mandela, wearing blue overalls and posing as a servant named David Motsamayi, was arrested along with 11 others, the now-famous Rivonia Trialists including Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki, father of former President Thabo Mbeki.
Antoinette Sithole alongside the 1976 photograph of her and her dying brother Hector Pietersen
The accused had anticipated the death sentence, laughing with relief and disbelief when life sentences were handed down at the end of the courtroom drama.
At an earlier visit to the Hector Pietersen Museum I met the sister of the 13-year-old schoolboy who was among the first to succumb to a police bullet on June 16, a famous photograph showing the dying boy being carried by a teenage youth while she runs alongside, her horror and grief captured in that awful image.
Today, she’s Mrs Antoinette Sithole, a respected member of the community, who says: “I can forgive the people who did this, but I can’t forget.” Now she insists: “We must mix all God’s colours, including black and white, to create something quite beautiful.”
That spirit of reconciliation is a theme at the Apartheid Museum, where we’re invited to choose a favourite Mandela quotation which corresponds with a colour, the idea being to ‘plant’ a stick of that colour in a garden of appreciation.
Bonnie and I linger over the many famous quotations, among them two favourites about courage and resilience: “I learnt that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear” and “There are few misfortunes in the world that you cannot turn into a personal triumph if you have the iron will and the necessary skill.”
We also admired the former president’s unwavering commitment: “I will pass through this world but once, and I do not want to divert from my task, which is to unite the nation.”
In the end I chose a green stick that corresponds with the observation: “Deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity.” Thanks Madiba for persevering and enduring that long walk to freedom.
Bonnie plants a stick in a colour that corresponds to a favourite Mandela quotation
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