History > 20th, early 21st century > South Africa

Pro-apartheid vs. Anti-apartheid activists

Helen Suzman in Johannesburg

in November 2007

Photograph: Alexander Joe

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

January 1, 2009

Helen Suzman, Anti-Apartheid Leader, Dies at 91

NYT

January 2, 2009

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/
world/africa/02suzman.html

Eugene de Kock

convicted death-squad leader

widely known as Prime Evil

because of his abuses

of black activists

during the apartheid era

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/world/africa/
eugene-de-kock-south-african-death-squad-leader-is-granted-parole.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/
world/africa/eugene-de-kock-
south-african-death-squad-leader-is-granted-parole.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/30/
south-africa-eugene-de-kock-released-prime-evil

Johnny Clegg   1953-2019

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/
738065415/johnny-clegg-a-uniting-voice-against-apartheid-dies-at-66

Nadine Gordimer   1923-2014

South African writer

whose literary ambitions

led her into the heart

of apartheid to create

a body of fiction that brought her

a Nobel Prize in 1991

(...)

Ms. Gordimer did not originally

choose apartheid as her subject

as a young writer, she said,

but she found it impossible

to dig deeply into South African life

without striking repression.

And once

the Afrikaner nationalists

came to power in 1948,

the scaffolds of the apartheid system

began to rise around her

and could not be ignored.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/
books/nadine-gordimer-novelist-and-apartheid-foe-dies-at-90.html

http://www.theguardian.com/books/
nadinegordimer

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/
books/nadine-gordimer-novelist-and-apartheid-foe-dies-at-90.html

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/14/
nadine-gordimer-dies-90-johannesburg-nobel-prize

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/14/nadine-gordimer

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/14/nadine-gordimer-a-life-in-quotes

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2014/jul/14/
nadine-gordimer-a-life-in-pictures

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-10-28-gordimer_x.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/01/home/gordimer-july.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/01/home/gordimer-sport.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1966/09/11/books/gordimer-bourg.html

Ellen Kuzwayo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/apartheid/7214.shtml

Playwright Athol Fugard:

a man of obstinacy and courage        3 June 2012

A new documentary charts

the struggle of Afrikaans playwright Athol Fugard

against the violence of apartheid.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jun/03/
athol-fugard-playwright-apartheid-documentary

Julius Malema

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/10/
julius-malema-south-africa-anc

Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mbeki succeeded Nelson Mandela

as South African president

http://www.theguardian.com/world/
mbeki

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/22/mbeki-fears-south-africa-directionless

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cable-thabo-mbeki-thinskinned

http://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/1541

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/10/nelsonmandela.southafrica

exiled African National Congress leaders in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/26/
uk-anti-apartheid-activists-movement-south-africa-protest-30-years

Eugene de Kock

policeman nicknamed “Prime Evil,”

who had led a covert

counterterrorism unit dedicated

to the torture and killing

of anti-apartheid activists

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/theater/a-bit-of-south-africas-ugly-past-comes-to-the-stage.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/
theater/a-bit-of-south-africas-ugly-past-comes-to-the-stage.html

Dirk Coetzee    1945-2013

Dirk Coetzee (...)

led a South African police hit squad

that killed antiapartheid activists,

(... he) eventually confessed to his crimes

as his country began shifting away

from official racial segregation

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/world/africa/dirk-coetzee-dies-at-67-led-apartheid-era-killings.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/world/africa/
dirk-coetzee-dies-at-67-led-apartheid-era-killings.html

Magnus Malan / Magnus Andre De Merindol    1930-2011

South African general and defense minister

who in the 1980s helped devise and carry out

his nation’s last-ditch strategy

to preserve its system

of rigid racial segregation,

including ordering raids

into surrounding countries

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/world/africa/19malan.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/world/africa/19malan.html

Eugene Ney Terre'Blanche,

white supremacist leader    1941-2010

https://www.theguardian.com/world/
eugene-terre-blanche

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/22/terreblanche-trial-end-south-africa

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/may/22/terreblanche-verdict-reactions-video

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/22/
eugene-terreblanche-murder-farmworker-guilty

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/10/south-africa-murder-trial-terreblanche

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/09/eugene-terreblanche-south-africa-funeral

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/04/eugene-terreblanche-obituary

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/03/south-african-
white-supremacist-eugene-terreblanche-killed

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/11/southafrica 

Pieter Willem Botha / P W Botha, politician    1916-2006

Former leader of South Africa,

committed to state terrorism and murder

to stop majority rule

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/nov/02/guardianobituaries.southafrica

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/nov/02/
guardianobituaries.southafrica

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/nov/01/
southafrica.davidberesford

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jan/19/
southafrica.broadcasting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/
truth_and_reconciliation/203927.stm

Arthur Chaskalson    1931-2012

Justice Chaskalson (...)

helped write that Constitution

and create the court

that would be its safeguard.

He had earlier been part of the team

of defense lawyers

that saved Mr. Mandela

and other antiapartheid activists

from the death penalty

at the infamous Rivonia trial in 1963-64.

Mr. Mandela,

convicted of sabotage and other crimes,

spent 27 years in prison

before being released in 1990.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/world/africa/arthur-chaskalson-south-african-chief-justice-dies-at-81.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/world/africa/
arthur-chaskalson-south-african-chief-justice-dies-at-81.html

Alf Kumalo    1930-2012

one of South Africa’s

leading documentary photographers.

He had no formal training with a camera

and began using one in the 1950s

only because the newspaper he worked for

as court reporter was so small

that he was expected to take the photographs

for his own articles.

But he was soon captivated

by the power of still photography,

and after meeting

and photographing Nelson Mandela,

then a trial lawyer,

in courtrooms and elsewhere,

Mr. Kumalo headed off in a new direction,

to become one

of the indispensable chroniclers

of the cruelties of apartheid

and South Africa’s eventual emergence

as a multiracial democracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/world/africa/alf-kumalo-south-african-photographer-of-apartheid-dies-at-82.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/world/africa/
alf-kumalo-south-african-photographer-of-apartheid-dies-at-82.html

Basil Lewis D'Oliveira, cricketer / batsman    1931-2011

Basil D’Oliveira,

who was classified

as colored under South African apartheid,

wanted only to play

at the highest levels of his sport, cricket.

His struggle to do that in a country

of government-enforced racial segregation

became a powerful symbol

in the ultimately successful fight

against apartheid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/sports/cricket/basil-doliveira-a-symbol-for-cricket-and-for-equality-dies-at-80.html

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/
basil-d-oliveira

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/
sports/cricket/basil-doliveira-a-symbol-for-cricket-and-for-equality-dies-at-80.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/nov/19/basil-doliveira

Arthur Goldreich    1929-2011

Arthur Goldreich lead the armed struggle

against apartheid in South Africa

and once posed as the operator

of a farm where Nelson Mandela,

masquerading as his houseboy, plotted revolt

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/africa/27goldreich.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/africa/27goldreich.html

Nico Smith    1929-2010

white Minister who fought apartheid

white minister who defied

his racist upbringing in South Africa

by living in a black township

and leading a congregation there

while organizing protests

against apartheid

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/world/africa/22smith.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/world/africa/22smith.html

Helen Suzman    1917-2009

campaigner

who single-handedly carried

the anti-racism banner

in South Africa's apartheid parliament

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/01/helen-suzman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Helen_Suzman

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/world/africa/02suzman.html

David Hepburn Craighead    1918-2008

actuary and anti-apartheid campaigner

South African anti-apartheid campaigner

forced into exile

by the Afrikaner nationalist government

in the 1960s.

As an actuary,

he later left his mark on the City of London

by devising the "Craighead curve",

a statistical tool used

to estimate insurance claims.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/27/southafrica

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/27/southafrica

Zenzile Miriam Makeba    1932-2008

singer, songwriter and activist

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/
miriam-makeba-singer-banned-from-her-native-south-africa-
for-fighting-apartheid-1009604.html - 11 November 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/10/miriam-makeba-dies-76

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/10/miriam-makeba-obituary

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/world/africa/11makeba.html

Michael Denis Alastair Terry    1947-2008

anti-apartheid campaigner and teacher 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/08/
obituary-mike-terry-south-africa

Adelaide Frances Tambo    1929-2007

human rights campaigner

Adelaide Tambo, (...) widow

of the former ANC president Oliver Tambo

(...)

One of the best known figures

in South Africa's liberation struggle,

she worked as a nurse

for much of her life.

"Ma Tambo", as she was known,

was born Adelaide Tshukudu

outside the town of Vereeniging,

south of Johannesburg.

Her introduction to politics was brutal;

at the age of 10,

she witnessed her 82-year-old grandfather

being publicly whipped

until he collapsed in the town square.

As she was to recount later in life:

"His brutal and humiliating treatment

at the hands of the police

was the trigger, the deciding factor."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/feb/02/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/feb/02/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/01/southafrica.nelsonmandela

Ben Bousquet, political activist    1939-2006

Ben Bousquet (...)

was a migrant from St Lucia,

who became a Labour party local councillor

and parliamentary candidate

in London's North Kensington,

as well as an internationally renowned campaigner

against South African apartheid.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/jun/26/guardianobituaries.politics

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/jun/26/guardianobituaries.politics

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/jun/26/guardianobituaries.politics

Raymond Mhlaba    1920-2005

anti-apartheid campaigner

Raymond Mhlaba (...)

dedicated his formidable talents

to the struggle against apartheid.

A member of the Rivonia group

with Nelson Mandela,

he was sentenced to life imprisonment,

but emerged to take office in 1994

after South Africa's

first democratic elections.

His kindly manner

brought him the nickname "Oom Ray"

- Uncle Ray in Afrikaans.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/feb/25/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/feb/25/guardianobituaries.southafrica

Allan Hendrickse    1927-2005

politician and minister

Allan Hendrickse (...)

is best known for a swim he took.

In 1987, Hendrickse,

then a minister in PW Botha's cabinet,

swam at a beach reserved for whites

in a protest against

the Separate Amenities Act,

which allegedly meant

separate facilities for each race,

but in practice kept most of them

exclusively for the use of whites.

PW Botha was incensed

by this act of defiance

- Hendrickse was of mixed race -

and delivered a tirade

against him on television.

Hendrickse

promptly backed down and apologised.

This act of half-hearted rebellion

was typical of Hendrickse,

who spent his political career

in and out of bed

with the ruling National Party.

But, to be fair, he was also leader

of a group of disparate people

thrust together by what they were not

- neither white nor black -

and who were themselves deeply ambivalent

about which side they were on.

The three million-odd "coloureds"

were deemed better

than black Africans

but not quite as good as whites

under apartheid racial hierarchy.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/21/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/21/guardianobituaries.southafrica 

Abdullah Mohammed Omar    1934-2004

lawyer and government minister

The human rights lawyer Dullah Omar (...)

was an anti-apartheid activist

and former political prisoner

who went on to serve

in every South African government

since his country's

first democratic election in 1994.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/mar/16/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/mar/16/guardianobituaries.southafrica

Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé    1915-2004

Afrikaner cleric who turned on apartheid

https://www.economist.com/obituary/2004/09/16/
beyers-naude 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/sep/08/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/08/southafrica.religion

Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu    1912-2003

It is impossible for anyone

who has not shared the experience

to fathom the psychological suffering of those born

into the no-man's land of "coloured" status

in apartheid South Africa.

But, whatever the hardship

his mixed parentage brought

to the life of Walter Sisulu, (...)

South Africa can give thanks

to the white foreman of black road workers

who came to the Encobo area of the Transkei

early in the last century and fathered

one of the undoubted heroes

of the liberation struggle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/may/06/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/may/06/guardianobituaries.southafrica

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/may/06/southafrica

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/15/world/after-25-years-pretoria-frees-sisulu.html

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

becomes the first black leader

of the South African Anglican Church        7 September 1986

http://www.theguardian.com/world/1986/sep/08/southafrica.davidberesford 

Oliver Reginald Tambo    1917-1993

The quiet man

of the South African liberation movement,

who toiled in the shadow

of his charismatic comrade Nelson Mandela

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/18/southafrica.world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/18/southafrica.world

Chris Hani    1942-1993

Mr. Hani was revered for his bravery

in fighting against the apartheid government

and for his internal dissent

within the liberation movement.

In 1990, after Nelson Mandela

was released from prison,

Mr. Hani questioned the decision

to suspend the armed struggle

in favor of a negotiated political settlement.

He worried that the men

who had upheld

a racist system for decades

could not be trusted

to simply hand over power.

Mr. Hani was gunned down

in the driveway of his home

in front of his 10-year-old daughter

on April 10, 1993.

White supremacists Clive Derby Lewis

and Janus Waluz admitted to killing him.

Their intention was to destabilize

the country’s transition to democracy

— and they very nearly succeeded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/the-end-of-the-rainbow-nation-myth.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/
opinion/the-end-of-the-rainbow-nation-myth.html

Neil Aggett    1953-1982

Neil Aggett,

a young South African doctor,

was the only white anti-apartheid activist

to die in detention.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/
death-anti-apartheid-campaigner-neil-aggett

Moses Mauane Kotane    1905-1978

Kotane was general secretary

of the South African Communist party (SACP)

and a member of the ANC’s

national executive committee,

and is credited

with aligning the two organisations.

Born in poverty in 1905,

he started life as a herdboy

and only began school

when he was 15, leaving at 17.

He found work as a photographer’s assistant,

domestic servant,

miner and bakery worker.

In 1928 he joined the ANC

and a year later the SACP,

which sent him to study in Moscow.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/
anti-apartheid-hero-moses-kotanes-remains-repatriated-russia

Steve Biko    1946-1977

murdered anti-apartheid leader        FR, UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/background/37448.stm

https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/carnet/2007-09-11-
Steve-Biko-la-conscience-noire

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/14/
steve-biko-dies-in-south-african-prison-cell-1977

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/18/
steve-biko-south-africa-struggle 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/2/
newsid_2516000/2516663.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/12/
newsid_3573000/3573054.stm

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/mar/02/
guardiansocietysupplement.southafrica 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/background/37448.stm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/03/
biko-inquiry-south-africa-apartheid
- Originally published on 3 December 1977

Behind the Scenes

with the President & The First Lady

at Robben Island    2 July 2013

White House > On Board:

Behind the Scenes with the President & The First Lady at Robben Island

Video    2 July 2013

Go behind the scenes with President Barack Obama

and First Lady Michelle Obama as they visit Robben Island.

From the 1960s through the 1990s,

this Island housed a maximum security prison.

Many of the prisoners there

were activists who worked to bring down Apartheid,

the South African government's

policies that discriminated against people of color

including Nelson Mandela

and current South African President Jacob Zuma.

Narrated by the First Lady, Michelle Obama.

 June 30, 2013

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m0CME8oLvU 

Basil D’Oliveira,

a Symbol for Cricket

and for Equality,

Dies at 80

November 26, 2011
The New York Times
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Just as Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson pursued their athletic dreams and developed superlative skills before altering history, Basil D’Oliveira, who was classified as colored under South African apartheid, wanted only to play at the highest levels of his sport, cricket. His struggle to do that in a country of government-enforced racial segregation became a powerful symbol in the ultimately successful fight against apartheid.

D’Oliveira had to move far from South Africa before his experience could shine a light on its system of racial injustice. Unable to perform there in competition commensurate with his skills, he moved to England, became a British citizen and joined England’s national cricket team. He rose to international prominence when, in 1968, South Africa canceled a much-anticipated visit by the English team because it wanted to include him in the contests, against whites.

Because of its refusal, South Africa, long a cricket power, did not play another international cricket match until 1994. Nelson Mandela, who led the fight against apartheid, called the D’Oliveira episode decisive in his movement’s eventual triumph.

D’Oliveira, who had Parkinson’s disease, died at 80 on Nov. 19 in England, according to the governing organization Cricket South Africa. Because he may have lied about his age, he may have been as many as three or four years older. Cricket South Africa gave no other details.

D’Oliveira was an accomplished player for England, participating in 44 major international competitions, or test matches. A powerful, focused batsman, he scored 19,490 runs in the top English cricket league and 1,859 in test matches. The numbers are considered impressive, but experts reckon that he could have doubled them had he immigrated to England sooner.

Paul Yule, who made a 2006 documentary about the D’Oliveira episode, “Not Cricket,” said in an interview on D’Oliveira’s Web site that his significance came from his role in “a pivotal point in 20th-century politics,” not from his sporting skills, though they were indisputable.

“Here was a man who didn’t look particularly dark-skinned,” Yule said, “but the inequality of the South African system meant you were classified either white or nonwhite, and since he was classified as nonwhite, he could play no part in the national sporting life of his country.”

D’Oliveira, who was of Indian-Portuguese heritage was easily classified as colored. Many other nonwhite cricketers were subjected to what was called the pencil test to determine which segregated league they would play in. A pencil was placed in a player’s hair, and if the pencil fell out, the player was called colored and placed in the colored league. If it stayed put, he was judged black and placed in the black league.

South Africa was ostracized in global sports beginning in the 1950s with table tennis. By 1964 antiapartheid organizers had succeeded in getting the country barred from that year’s Olympics, and in 1970 the International Olympic Committee expelled the country from the Olympic movement.

The country’s absence from international sports rankled South Africans; by 1977 they ranked it in a poll as one of the three most damaging consequences of apartheid.

South Africa had been selecting exclusively white cricket teams for test matches since 1889. As the game blossomed in places like the Caribbean, India and Pakistan, South Africa found itself playing only all-white teams from England, Australia and New Zealand. Peter Osborne, in the 2004 book “Basil D’Oliveira, Cricket and Conspiracy: The Untold Story,” said the cricket authorities justified this by saying that cricket was a sport for whites, and that if blacks or coloreds did take it up, they “played at an abysmally low level.”

Basil Lewis D’Oliveira, a tailor’s son, disproved this by excelling on the cricket fields around Cape Town, where he was most often said to have been born on Oct. 4, 1931. He went on to become a star performer on nonwhite teams, in one year captaining a black team on a trip to Kenya.

But he was well into his 30s when he realized he had no hope of taking part in top competition in South Africa. A vaunted West Indian team was scheduled to tour the country in matches against a team composed of blacks and coloreds, of which D’Oliveira was captain, but when antiapartheid forces protested that such a high-profile sports event might give credibility to the regime, the trip was canceled.

Deciding to leave the country, D’Oliveira wrote to John Arlott, a prominent cricket commentator in England, asking for help. Arlott got him a contract with a minor league team in the Lancashire League.

At first D’Oliveira was lonely and poverty-stricken. Having lived so long under apartheid, he found himself searching in vain for playing-field entrances and facilities for nonwhites. After a slow start, his play picked up, and his wife and son, who survive him, joined him. He eventually earned a spot on England’s national team.

When he sought to join the squad for the trip to South Africa, however, the sport’s governing body in England, the Marylebone Cricket Club, turned him down. Its officials said he had been passed over for athletic reasons, an assertion British newspapers called outlandish. It later emerged that the president of South Africa, John Vorster, had threatened to cancel the event if D’Oliveira was part of the team.

Still, when another player was injured, the cricket club had a change of heart and named D’Oliveira to replace him. D’Oliveira said the South African government offered him a sizable bribe and a coaching job in South Africa if he would withdraw. When he refused, it terminated the competition rather than accept him.

Queen Elizabeth made D’Oliveira an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1969 and promoted him to a commander in 2005. In 2000 he was named one of the 10 South African cricketers of the century, despite not having played for South Africa. The trophy for the test series between England and South Africa is named for him.

D’Oliveira played in the top division of English cricket into his late 40s. Most cricketers retire in their early 30s. He just wished that he could have hit the big stage sooner, say in his 20s, he said in 1980.

“I was some player then,” he said. “I was over the hill when I came to England.”

Basil D’Oliveira, a Symbol for Cricket and for Equality, Dies at 80,
NYT,
26.11.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/
sports/cricket/basil-doliveira-a-symbol-for-cricket-and-for-equality-dies-at-80.html

April 28 1994

Vote of the century opens era of hope

From The Guardian archive

April 28 1994

The Guardian

As dawn broke over Zone 9 of Meadowlands, Soweto, yesterday, the Mwale family was preparing for power.

First there was water to boil, since the rumour had spread that the rightwing AWB might poison Meadowlands' main tank. Esther Mwale said "most people with sense" in Zone 9 were boiling water. Then, there was the huge pot of mealies to cook. Finally, there were the ID documents to find. No one could say the Mwales were not ready for democracy.

As they set off at 7am, joining a stream of hundreds on the main road, it seemed that all of Zone 9 had the same idea — first watch Nelson Mandela cast his vote in Durban on the television and then get down to the polling station at Maponyane school quickly to beat the rush.

The clientele of Johannes' shebeen had discussed this the night before. At the beginning of the evening, Jacob's solution to avoiding Tuesday's chaos was to get there early. A few beers later, the prospect of waking up at 5am and queuing for two hours looked unattractive.

Johannes said he was voting ANC "for his children". But nobody else was prepared to say. The talk was of logistics, not politics. Nevertheless, the sight of a white woman, who had cast her vote abroad, saying tearfully on television, "I'm just scared about the future", aroused fierce emotion.

"What are you scared of? That a black man will run the country," shouted Mzimasi, slightly blowing his cover.

If Mzimasi was right about the woman's fears, the sight at Maponyane school yesterday morning would have confirmed them. Long queues of black people were waiting to have a say in their country's future. Many had dressed up for the occasion as if they were going to church.

People queued for about two hours before they could vote. There was a keen sense of relief. "It was easy. Just like they have been telling us on the television. I feel good now it's over," said Esther.

By the time the Mwales had finished voting, the queue was twice as long. On the way home we saw Jacob, looking the worse for wear and being ribbed by friends at the bus stop. He had woken up late but was insisting he would make it to the polling booths.

At the shebeen, Johannes had devised a plan to make sure Jacob kept his promise. No beer would be served to people without the white, fluorescent strip on their hand, which proved they had voted. With a smile, he said: "How can there be a free and fair election if drunk people are going to vote?"

Gary Younge

From The Guardian archive > April 28 1994 >
Vote of the century opens era of hope, G,
Republished 28.4.2007, p. 34,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/04/28/pages/ber34.shtml

April 27 1994

The day apartheid died

From The Guardian archive

April 27 1994

The Guardian

South Africans defied organisational chaos, personal hardship and long queues to throng polling stations yesterday for the historic all-race election that crowned their long march towards democracy.

While the authorities were under pressure last night to extend the three-day poll after serious problems in the first day of voting, the momentum for freedom looked unstoppable, with a new nation coming into effect at midnight when the old flag was lowered and the new constitution took effect.

'Today is a day like no other before it … today marks the dawn of our freedom,' said Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader who is expected to become the country's first black president. Mr Mandela spent 27 of his 75 years in jail for fighting apartheid.

'Years of imprisonment could not stamp out our determination to be free. Years of intimidation and violence could not stop us and we will not be stopped now,' he said.

President F. W. de Klerk, whose decision in 1990 to abandon apartheid opened the way to the new South Africa, said: 'I wanted this election to take place … that is what I have been working for.'

Around the country, the infirm, elderly and sick defied a rightwing bomb ing campaign and problems at polling stations in an extraordinary demonstration of hunger for the franchise.

The poll commission vice-chairman, Dikgang Moseneke, said [it] had hopelessly underestimated the problems of running free and fair elections, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal.

Problems with polling resulted largely from delays in the delivery of indelible ink to mark voters' hands, ballot papers and even polling stations.

A member of the Inkatha central committee, Joe Matthews, said: 'In quite a large number of polling stations the administration didn't turn up and the stations were closed. Then we started getting reports that the IFP sticker wasn't there. It affects other parties too, because if the sticker's not there it's a spoilt paper.'

President De Klerk promised action to smooth the next days of voting. 'We dare not deprive any South African of the right to vote,' he said. The Transkei leader, Major General Bantu Holomisa, an ANC candidate, joined in appeals for an extension to the election, reporting that 602 polling stations in the homeland had no voting equipment.

But the ballot went on. In hospitals, patients clutching their saline drip bags queued to vote. Nurses were seen holding patients upright.

Friday Mavuso, aged 45, crippled by a police bullet when he was 22, added: 'I have said all my life we shall overcome, and we have.'


David Beresford

    From The Guardian archive > April 27 1994 >
    The day apartheid died, G, Republished 27.4.2007, p. 34,
    http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/04/27/pages/ber34.shtml

April 17 1970

*Why I'm off the air

From The Guardian Archive

April 17 1970

The Guardian

I shall not broadcast on the matches of the South African cricket tour of England arranged for 1970. The B.B.C. has accepted my decision with understanding and an undertaking that my standing with them will not be affected.

This action has not been dictated by mass influences. Apartheid is detestable to me, and I would always oppose it. On the other hand, I am not satisfied that the cricket tour is the aspect which should have been selected as the major target. It would have seemed to me more justifiable, and more effective, to mount a trade embargo or to picket South Africa House. Surely the Nationalist South African Ambassador is a thousand times more guilty of the inhuman crime of apartheid than Graeme Pollock who, throughout the English summer of 1969, played cricket for the International Cavaliers XI with eight or nine West Indians and, before he went home said: "What great chaps — there couldn't have been a better bunch to play with."

Jack Plimsoll, the manager of this touring team, was an intimate friend of mine on the South African tour of England in 1947, before the election of the first — Malan — Nationalist Government and the introduction of apartheid. Every South African [player] of my acquaintance has already played with, and against, non-white cricketers. Only a multi-racial match before the Vorster (Verwoerd) Government banned such fixtures for ever, provided the expert assessment of Basil D'Oliveira's ability which enabled me to persuade Middleton to give him a contract to play in England. Not all South Africans are pro-apartheid

Crucially, though, a successful tour would offer comfort and confirmation to a completely evil regime. The Cricket Council has failed fairly to represent those British people — especially cricketers — who genuinely abominate apartheid. The council might have determined — and been granted — terms which would have demonstrated its declared disapproval of apartheid. It did not do so. To persist with the tour seems to me a social, political and cricketing error. It is my limitation and advantage that I can only broadcast as I feel. Commentary on any game is pleasure; it can only be satisfactorily broadcast in terms of shared enjoyment. This series cannot, to my mind, be enjoyable. It seems unfair for me to broadcast about the tour in a manner uncritical of its major issues, while retaining the right to be critical of them in this newspaper.

It is my hope to write and talk about cricket in which the minor issue of a game is not overshadowed by the major issue of principle.


John Arlott

From The Guardian Archive > April 17 1970 > Why I'm off the air,
G, Republished 17.4.2007,
p. 34,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/04/17/
pages/ber34.shtml

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