The Verwoerd who Toyi-Toyied. Melanie Verwoerd
Wilhelm’s grandfather, the architect of apartheid, the symbol of oppression, who had banned the ANC, and it was during his time as prime minister that Mandela had been incarcerated.
Wilhelm started to talk politics, and then tried to apologise for his family’s role in Mandela’s personal suffering.
But Mandela stopped him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you only need to remember that with the surname you both carry, you have a voice. People will listen to you. So you have to think carefully what to do with that power.’ He paused for a moment, then said: ‘By the way, how is your grandmother?’
Slightly taken aback, Wilhelm explained that she was well, even at 92, and, slightly embarrassed, admitted that she had moved to Orania, a whites-only enclave in the Northern Cape.
Mandela looked at us earnestly and said: ‘If she will not get angry at you, please send her my regards. Tell her from an old man that I am happy that she has reached such a great age.’
By now I was shaking. What an extraordinary man: no bitterness, no anger. After 27 years of being unfairly imprisoned, he did not seek revenge. In fact, the opposite: he sent his sincere regards to the wife of the man who was behind his incarceration. How could we have been fed such lies all our lives? Mandela the terrorist. Mandela the dangerous, evil monster. Mandela who hated everything white. I vaguely registered that a photographer took a photo and that journalists were eavesdropping.
That night I could not sleep; over and over I heard Mandela’s words: ‘You have a voice. People will listen. Think carefully what you do with that power.’
The next day there was a piece on the ‘Verwoerd–Mandela meeting’ in the Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger. Before long, we were summoned to the Verwoerd house. Wilhelm’s father took Wilhelm into his study, where they remained for hours. As the wife, I was not to be involved in the political discussion, which was seen as men’s business. When Wilhelm finally emerged, I could see that he was tired and shaken, but also angry. His father had lectured him on his naivety, the danger of people such as Mandela, the need for separation of the races, and of course the need for loyalty to the family. Wilhelm felt patronised, but also misunderstood, and remained in an angry, introspective mood for days.
Having been excluded from the conversation, I took note of it, but did not reflect on it too much. I tried to speak to Wilhelm, but, as was his usual practice, he withdrew into his own world of reflection. I continued with my work in the library and, on my free days, with the domestic workers. But Mandela’s words stayed with me.
Two days after our meeting, I drove home after yet another infuriating meeting with a potential employer. It was around 5pm, and as I drove into our neighbourhood, Paradyskloof, I watched the regular exit of black women to Kayamandi township on the outskirts of Stellenbosch. These women did not ‘live in’, but worked during the day in the luxury houses of the white women. At night they left to go home to their little tin shacks. Many recognised me by now and waved and gave me big smiles, shouting: ‘Kunjani sisi?’
Mandela’s voice rang in my ears: ‘You have a voice, you have a voice.’ A deep sense of sadness and tiredness came over me. ‘Sikona, mama, enkosi!’ I replied, waving back. But I knew that, even though they called me ‘Sisi’ and I respectfully called them ‘Mama’, it was still ‘us’ and ‘them’. Us whites, them blacks. Us in the affluent neighbourhoods, the good schools, the good churches. Them in the shacks, the overcrowded schools, the outdoor churches. Even my R5.60 an hour at the university library was a fortune compared to what they were earning.
‘I am so tired of these divisions,’ I said aloud. And then I knew I had to do something big, to step across this divide. I loved these women; they had become my friends; they were kind, caring and gentle. They were politically skilled and informed, even though very few of them had formal education. These were the people I felt at home with – in contrast to the women I worked with in the library or met at the mother-and-baby groups. The women from Kayamandi talked about Mandela, economic oppression, and their hopes for their children’s future – while always singing and laughing. The white women complained about their maids, the horrible possibility that the blacks would take over, and how we all had to emigrate, for our children’s sake.
I wanted to cross this us-and-them divide, and the only way I knew how to do that was to join the ANC, the only truly non-racial party in South Africa at that stage. I had for years read their policies and met with their members and leadership. I knew I would feel at home there. I also knew that joining the ANC would probably cause more trouble with Wilhelm’s family, but being ‘the wife’, they probably would not notice – and we certainly would not be drawing it to their attention.
Back home, I discussed my plan with Wilhelm, who was fine about it. He would not join yet, because of his fear about his family’s reaction, but he agreed – not that anything would have stopped me. So later that evening, I drove over to Zelda’s house, filled in the yellow membership form and paid my R10 fee. With these few simple actions, I became a member of the ANC. I asked them not to say anything about it, not that they intended to. After all, I was not a true Verwoerd, so no one would be interested – or so I thought.
For the next six months, I regularly went to ANC meetings at Zelda’s house, where we were briefed on political developments. I was still working at the library but, increasingly, I was leading a double life, with ANC meetings and domestic-workers business at night and serving white Afrikaner students by day. Passing some of the black or coloured workers in the library or on campus, they would now quietly say ‘Hello comrade’, but nobody said anything openly. I was also pregnant with our second baby and dealing with morning sickness and tiredness; but thankfully, this time all was going well.
On 17 March 1992, President FW de Klerk called for what was to be the last white referendum. The question (asked of the white voters) was whether he had a mandate to continue negotiating with the ANC. I was working that day and the atmosphere was tense, with more than the usual irritable and racist comments about where the country was going. The ‘comrades’ kept passing me little notes on the way to the bathroom with information they had received from various places around the country. After work, I went down to the town hall to vote. I met Wilhelm and Wilmé there. Wilmé had on a little sun hat that some campaign worker had given her, with the word ‘Ja’ on it. A photographer took a shot, and she was in the local paper the next day. As I left after casting my vote, I bumped into Annie Gagiano. She was on her way to the annual general meeting of the ANC in Kayamandi and insisted that I come with her. I agreed.
In the township, it was of course business as usual, since the referendum was only for the whites. I was met by the now-familiar smell of fires and the sight of raw, fly-covered meat being sold at the side of the road. Radios were blaring everywhere, and people shouted greetings and news to one another – sometimes from several blocks away. There was a buzz and liveliness, and a sense of community in the townships that is hard to describe.
We parked the car on the road and wove our way through the rows of shacks. It was dark, so we had to step carefully to avoid the raw sewage running between the shacks. We finally came to a spot where a few shacks were put together, with a sign proclaiming ‘Community Hall’ above the door. Inside, it was spotlessly clean. There were rows of benches and the place was packed. Annie, Rudolf Mastenbroek and I were the only white people there.
As always, the meeting was opened with prayers (so much for the ANC being anti-religious, as we were always told by the government) and the singing of ‘Nkosi Sikelele’. I had heard it sung many times before and knew most of the words, but I had never stood among a hundred or more African people, all singing it with deep emotion. I had goosebumps and felt tears in my eyes. After the chants of ‘Viva ANC!’, ‘Long live Nelson Mandela!’ and ‘Amandla!’, we settled in for various speeches and reports. We all sat tightly squeezed on the backless benches with rain pelting on the corrugated-tin roof. Every fifteen minutes or so, the light coming from a single bulb hanging from the roof would go out. Exasperated exclamations would follow, and a child would be sent out to fix the problem.
Kayamandi was linked to the electricity grid, but only a handful of older houses, the municipal building and the police station had electricity. Frustrated, people would hack