Sometimes, history can be written by ordinary people. Here's my little slice, 20 years on: I first wrote it for an Ithaca, NY, community paper back in about August of 1990; it has subsequently survived many PCs and hard drive purges, and one update (in 2000). For what it's worth....
Were you there on The Day [11th February 1990]?
Were you one of the thousands who came to the Cape Town Grand Parade, expecting Nelson Mandela at 3 PM sharp, and stood in the hot sun from early on?
We weren't.
We read that it would all be televised; so we had lunch under the trees, mowed the lawn, then stopped gardening about 10 to 3, got out the cool drinks, and switched on SATV.
And waited. And waited.
It turned out we were waiting for Winnie. So was Nelson waiting for Winnie. And it seemed that the world-famous Victor Verster Prison, 35 miles from Cape Town, was perhaps the most beautifully situated prison in the world. And it appeared that Clarence Keyter was not one of the world's better continuity announcers, even if he does drink from a tap with the masses.
And Mandela came out, looking tall, and dignified, and elderly, and awkward. And the masses welcomed him, and the cars drove away, and it was 20 past 4.
We decided, then, that we should share in the moment; that we should feel a little of the history that was being made that day. We said "there won't be any violence, people can't misbehave today, can they?". So we put on hats, left the lawn-mower outside, jumped into the second car, and hit the N2 on the way to town.
So did the rest of the Cape Flats hit the N2 - and they were in minibuses and stationwagons and in old Chevvies and bakkies; and they all had their lights on; and they all had clenched fists and The Flag flying; and they were all over the road - and they were happy.
We met the richer, whiter pilgrims from the Southern Suburbs in their BMWs and Cressidas around Hospital Bend, and it was a Sunday Freed Mandela rush-hour all the way into town. We peeled off early so as to get a parking away from all of the crush. We walked for ten minutes through the old District Six to get to the Parade - and it was like a carnival all the way, with families carrying picnic bags and blankets, and kids running around all over. We passed an elderly man in a Free Mandela T-shirt, selling sew-on ANC patches, R5 each. We thought of the Weekly Mail "Who's Left" cartoon, about people cashing in on the struggle, and we laughed. And the crowds were happy, and we didn't feel like ousiders, not at all.
Close to the Parade on Darling Street we met people walking the other way, looking tired. Closer still we met the Young Lions toyi-toying the other way, with a bow-wave of people following. We asked a UDF-shirted man what was happening, and he smiled, and said "they are just exercising, you must go that way", pointing at the Parade. We went up as close as we could to the front of the City Hall, where we could see the microphones, and we waited. The crowd got thicker, and we waited. People were excited, happy, and they waited. There was a loud series of pops, and people laughed nervously, and said "firecrackers", then settled down, and waited.
A volley of sharper bangs, gunshots they sounded like, rang out, echoing shockingly between the station and the City Hall. People ran about, nervously. A young white girl in front loudly and firmly told her mother that it was all right, we were all safe. Eventually her mother believed her. The crowd calmed down, and got thicker still, and we waited. Allan Boesak appeared, and told us it could be a very serious situation, and that we must all keep calm, and that we must sit down. "Sit down, comrades, sit down. Sit down, comrades, sit down. Sit down comrades..."
The crowd was very good-natured, where we were. They had to be - we were packed so tight that to sit was a co-operative effort between you and all six or so neighbours. Slowly a large section of the crowd was induced to sit. Then came the "pop-pop-pop" from the station again, and everyone surged ponderously to their feet. Allan called us "Comrade" again and again: he seemed mainly to be addressing the crowd directly in front of him; our bit was very civilised in comparison. It was also the bit with all the people who had come late, and parked in District Six. And we were all still happy, even if a little scared, and everyone made jokes, and laughed.
The people were amazing. All ages, all colours. Mostly T-shirted, most with sun visors or hats. There were the worker contingents and UDF stalwarts; there were the radical shabby elements from the politically aware student communes. There were the radical weirds from who knew where (one had a pseudo-camo Noddy hat, complete with bell, and pantaloons to match); there was a radical chic element from the Southern Suburbs and the University. There were ANC flags in abundance. There was one beautiful SACP flag, flying proudly with the sun shining through the red-and-gold; and I remember thinking "never thought I would see that, here". There were three little girls who would have looked more at home in the mall in Cavendish Square, with designer-radical shirts and jeans, all with home-made approximations of the SACP flag. There were their bigger brothers and sisters too, all white, all very well-groomed and coiffured, all hammer-and-sickleing, and "comrade"-ing everyone in sight. There were beggars and bergies; there were bleary-eyed youngsters with tattoos pushing aimlessly through the crowd ("gangsters!" muttered the woman next to me). There was the smell of too many people in one place, of cheap wine and cigarettes; and occasionally, of dagga.
The people around me were getting a little despondent. They had mostly been waiting since 2 or so, many since 12. One marshal passing by said he was sick of this, they must bring Nelson on now. Even Jesse Jackson was waiting, he said. I told them I had seen Mandela on television, that he had already left Paarl, that he was coming. "How did he look", they implored, "how was he?". "Like a thinner, more handsome Matanzima", I said, and they laughed. The crowd was very thick now, and the marshals were trying to help Allan Boesak move people out of directly in front of the Hall. We blocked people from pushing forward, and the press got very tight. "Are you someone special, comrade?" said the designer radicals in front of me, unofficial marshals all, again and again. Allan kept imploring us to move back, to move back, to unblock that car, to get that car out of here, now! now!; no, not to do that, comrades, not to provoke. Helicopters kept appearing, and the crowd kept muttering "he is coming now", but he didn't. We smiled at our neighbours, and said how bad it was, that these youngsters thought this was a concert or something, that they could keep pushing to get to the front. And we were not unhappy, mostly, but voices were raised occasionally, and people were pushing back at the shovers-through.
"I am very tired" said my now-longtime crowd associate from Langa; "they must bring him now". Later he asked "what is this place?", and I told him, realising that this was a foreign city to him even if he lived near it. Allan talked to us again, and an elderly thick-set man in front of me said "Fokkoff Boesak!", then shook his head, and said "We are waiting too long now, I want to hear Nelson". There was a rumour that Nelson would only come at ten; another that he wasn't coming, that "they" had stopped him. Allan said "if I had organised this, he would be here by now", and later: "you all think I'm keeping him from you" ("Yes!" they shouted). Later still, it was "believe me, when you see me again, it will be with Nelson Mandela", and of course, it wasn't. Now we were resigned, and people didn't speak much any more, and nobody laughed.
People were leaving in droves now, as the sunshine on the face of the City Hall turned golden. Soon one could actually move around without standing on people. Still the occasional "pop-pop-pops" came from over at the station, and now, out of the press of people, we could see the little figures on the station roof running to and fro. The helicopters came back: one police, two military. A shabby radical (white) took aim at one with his (SACP) flag, shot it down, and smiled around at a job well done.
Finally, with the sun nearly gone, a buzz - he was coming now, they said. They thronged back into the now-familiar press; we took our places once more. Allan spoke to us again, and again nothing. I heard someone saying "what amazing timing!", and I asked why, and he said he'd been leaving two minutes earlier, and behind the City Hall a car had pulled up, and this grey-haired guy in a suit had got out right in front of him. So he came back, and waited, and we thought "this must be it now!", and it was after seven.
Suddenly, he was there: tall, grey-suited, bent over to listen to the advisers pressing him close on the balcony. The crowd roared, surged, short people got onto shoulders, and jumped up to see. But most had gone home already, and we were thin on the ground now. And they stood on the balcony, and they stood, and they stood. Then it was announced that Sisulu would introduce Mandela, and he did, and suddenly, in the growing dark, here was The Man, and here was The Speech.
"He definitely has a gift for this", I remember thinking. We moved back in the now-thin crowd, because you could actually see better from there; the PA system was working well, and we could all hear the powerful, slightly gravelly voice, rolling out over the so-silent crowd. My friend the marshal was entranced; eyes shining, he watched the tall figure reading his speech. The crowd "VIVA!"ed all the catchwords: Umkhonto we Sizwe got a big "Viva!"; the SACP and Joe Slovo also; the Young Lions got a roar and a "Viva!". But the Black Sash was passed over; so was NUSAS, and the Transvaal and Natal Indian Congresses. We didn't salute for the "Amandla!s"; we didn't know the responses to the other calls.
Our friends from the crush had dispersed now; people were looking around to see if you "Viva!"'ed, if you saluted. Suddenly we felt like outsiders, us from the suburbs, from liberal academia, and we were a ittle depressed. We were not part of His audience; we were not the people he was thanking; we were not really His constituents. We started drifting back, out of the fringes of the crowd. We paused, at the edge, near the first police I'd seen all afternoon. We heard the commitment to the armed struggle; the call for continued and increased sanctions, and the second or third "Viva!" for Umkhonto, and we quietly left. We had seen the Man, we had caught the atmosphere, we had our piece of history.
We caught the rest of the speech on TV later on: but it wasn't the same; my mind kept drifting off to what I'd heard and seen *there*; to what it had been like, *there*.
The next day our char told us how taxis and cars had been hijacked in Crossroads and Khayelitsha; we read and heard how people had run amock and looted, and had been shot at all afternoon (no, not firecrackers after all); we heard condemnation of the appalling organisation of the whole event, and we agreed whole-heartedly. We listened to others feeling despondent; we discussed the imminent collapse of academia as we know it, the certainty of dwindling support for academic excellence. We discussed where there was left for us now; whether The Speech had been just rhetoric, tailored for The Masses. The stock market, buoyed up by De Klerk, fell like a stone with Mandela. People asked if we were crazy, didn't we know it was dangerous, and how was it anyway?? And yet, we left on sabbatical in August of that year, to the States (where I wrote this) - and we came back, which we hadn't been planning to do.
And the years have rolled on, twenty (20!) since those heady days, and some things have got worse (violence, theft), and some have got better (the economy, international acceptance, tourism, wine sales...I’m sure I should be able to think of more...), Mandela has gone, to make way first for Mbeki, then for Zuma; the Young Lions of the UDM are largely sidelined, while the MK vets seem to be rewriting history, and we are almost as uncertain now as we were then. But we are still here. And people say: “Why?” And the answer is: because of That Day.
What could we say then, and now, but "I tell you, comrade, you had to have been there...".
Ed Rybicki
February, 1990 and 2010
