Letters from the Other Side

3. The year of Nelson Mandela and Kurt Cobain

1994 was a historic year 

Most foreigners I talk to are interested in South Africa's past. So let me interject here and add my two cents' worth for posterity. Seeing as it happened round about the bridge between my childhood and teenage years, this is my experience of how events unfolded.

In 1994, when I turned 14 and was in Grade 8 (or Standard 6 as it was called back then) South Africa had its first free and fair, democratic election. Nelson Mandela had been released from prison, and a year later he became our first, black president.

I remember as a Pre-schooler in the 1980s, how black people were not allowed to sit in the same restaurants as white people. I remember how my mother used to rage and rebel against the patriarchal, Apartheid government and show kindness to our domestic worker (called "ausi" in South Africa, the Northern Sotho word for "older sister") who lived in an outside room in our yard. 

Lettie's husband, Lucky, was a drunk, who beat her. He had numerous affairs and eventually ended up getting AIDS. He died, but not before he infected Lettie and two of their babies with AIDS, a lot like the Oscar-nominated, South African film "Yesterday".

My mom helped her a lot. Mom always had a heart for battered wives especially abused women with children. The lot of women, not even to mention women of colour, in South Africa is a hard one. Today, gender-based violence is rampant in our country.

My mother would alsovisit her Indian friend from church, Maud, ather home in a township. Though my mother and father's car got showered with stones, that did not deter her fromshowing small kindnesses. Big acts of defiance would land you in jail. Rebellion was seething just under the surface.

When we were small my mother would take us to "Wimpy", the local, fast-food joint. We were poor and my mom would order one toasted, cheese sandwich and one waffle and divide it into four quarters. Then she would take a scoop of ice-cream from the waffle and add it to our kiddies-sized, bright green, Cream Soda drinks to make floats for us. She was always very original in stretching our paltry, shoe-string budget.

It invariably incensed and saddened her to see the wealthy Indian women, sitting outside on the bench with their children, eating their meals in the hot sun. The Indian women would have three times more money than we did but they would have to sit outside. She always said petty Apartheid was wrong. It was, petty!

On that April night in 1994, when the African National Congress (ANC) won the first, democratic election, we were sitting in front of the television and we were crestfallen. Most white people thought they had lost their country forever and would get murdered in their beds within the next year.

President Nelson Mandela was not only a great revolutionary, he was also a great statesman. His main purpose was to unite the land, not divide it any further. He advocated peace (please watch "Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom").

First he hired awhite, Afrikaans personal assistant, Zelda le Grange (recommendedread; "Good Morning, Mister Mandela"). Then he insisted on having amixed race group of people working for him, fromhis secret service to his administration staff. In fact, many black people feltleft out because Madiba tried so hard to be fair andsoothe the white man's burning fears.