The Verwoerd who Toyi-Toyied. Melanie Verwoerd
than Wilmé. He had colic and I had many sleepless nights. Of course, my political activities got the blame. Thank God for Emily, who would arrive in the morning and put Wian in a blanket on her back. Wian loved this and would quickly fall asleep. As he grew older, Emily would swing him onto her back, then throw the blanket over him and tie it tight in the front. And, Pavlov-like, he was often asleep before she’d tied the blanket.
In the meantime, I went back to work, and continued to attend ANC meetings. One comrade said afterwards: ‘You were at one meeting with a tummy and at the next meeting without a tummy. So we assumed the baby came in between?’
As with Wilmé, I was determined to breastfeed Wian exclusively until he was six months old. Since there were no cell phones yet, I got a pager, and Emily would page me when Wian needed to be fed. I hated expressing milk and fed him on demand, so I was dashing between work, breastfeeding and ANC meetings. It was exhausting.
5
In May 1993, Allan Boesak, the head of the ANC in the Western Cape, asked Wilhelm to speak at an ANC rally to be held in the Parow Civic Hall. We discussed it for a few days before Wilhelm agreed.
His participation in the rally was announced at a well-attended press conference. Immediately, the death threats increased. A few of the threats suggested that we would not make it home alive after the meeting. We were warned by intelligence sources that things were ‘extremely hot’. I was worried, and asked friends around the world to keep us in their thoughts.
The afternoon before the meeting, Wilhelm was outside in the garden with Wilmé in his arms. The sun was shining brightly on both of them – both father and daughter had very blond hair – creating a halo effect. Wilhelm was whispering in Wilmé’s ear, and she was quietly listening with a serious expression on her face. It dawned on me that Wilhelm was saying goodbye, in case something went wrong that evening. It shocked me, but I knew we had to go to the meeting. Once you give in to the threats of bullies, you will never stand up for what is right. There will always be those who hate others who are different and do not share their views. But if we allowed hatred to paralyse us with fear, there would be no Mandela, Tutu or Gandhi, and no struggles for freedom.
On instructions from the organisers, we left the house early. As we got closer to the venue, we noticed that the police and military presence increased dramatically. Around the venue it looked like a battlefield, with armoured vehicles, ANC marshals and mobile medical units. No one could get into the meeting without going through metal detectors and being searched. People were already filling up the hall two hours before the meeting was due to start.
Allan Boesak was chairing the meeting and he was joined by ANC spokesperson Carl Niehaus, an Afrikaner who had spent seven years in jail for his membership in the ANC. I sat in the second row on the stage, behind Wilhelm. Allan is a fine orator and could get a crowd going in minutes. He introduced the people on stage and there were many ‘Viva’s’. When he introduced Wilhelm, the audience exploded. ‘Viva Verwoerd, viva!’ they chanted. ‘Long live Verwoerd, long live!’
Hearing those words said together was like a bolt of electricity through all of us. I became aware of Wilhelm shaking in front of me. I bent forward to ask if he was okay and realised he was overwhelmed with emotion. I was concerned that he would be unable to make the speech, but he did. At the end of his carefully crafted words, the audience exploded again. Suddenly someone shouted: ‘Verwoerd for president!’ There were a few seconds of shocked silence, before laughter – and a huge cheer – erupted.
In contrast to the happy scenes inside, things were tense outside. The AWB had arrived, fully armed and in uniform. There was a huge crowd of ANC supporters who could not find space inside the hall; they were furious and impatient. To make matters worse, word spread to the townships that the AWB was trying to break up an ANC meeting. People piled into minibus taxis armed with sticks, petrol bombs and whatever else they could find, and rushed to the venue. The police, peace secretariat and army found it difficult to contain the situation.
At some point, the AWB broke through the police cordon, and from inside the hall I could see them beating against the glass doors to get access before the police regained control.
In the end, we made it home safely. We only heard weeks later that the peace secretariat had had to position people on the roofs of the buildings in the area to calm down AWB snipers.
After the Parow meeting, Wilhelm was frequently asked to speak at ANC rallies. I was happy working at grass-roots level. A few months later, Allan Boesak’s wife Elna asked if we would participate in a video they were producing. We agreed and went to their Bishopscourt home to be interviewed for the video. Most of the questions were directed at Wilhelm, but then Elna asked me a question. Allan had just entered the room and was quietly watching the interview. I could see that Elna was impressed with my answer. She asked another question, and Allan walked forward to hear my answer better. I saw him and Elna exchange glances. Afterwards, they both said how impressed they were, but I did not think much of it.
A few months later, while I was at work at the university, I got a call from someone in the ANC provincial office. She explained that Mandela was going to have an election tour in Cape Town and that they were putting together a list of speakers for the closing rally of his visit. Conscious of the disapproving looks of my co-workers, and assuming that they were actually looking for Wilhelm, I impatiently told her to phone Wilhelm directly.
‘No, no!’ she said. ‘Comrade Boesak wants you. He thinks you will be fantastic.’ I was dumbstruck. I had never done any public speaking. What would I say? Would I cope with the big crowd that was bound to be there, given that Mandela would be present? But how do you say no to Mandela? You can’t. So I agreed.
On the day of the meeting, I had to fly to Johannesburg to participate in a TV recording on feminism, and then back to Cape Town. I went straight from the airport to the rally. I had written the speech over a few days and thought it was fine. What I had not anticipated was the size of the audience. The meeting was indoors in the Civic Hall Concourse in Cape Town. It was estimated that there were more than 4000 people present: the place was packed to the rafters. Of course, the press was also there in full force. When I was introduced, loud cheers went up. Wilhelm (who was this time sitting behind me) was also introduced, and Mandela turned around to shake his hand. When it was time for me to speak the huge crowd became quiet; you could hear a pin drop.
‘Comrades,’ I started. The crowd erupted. ‘Viva Melanie, viva!’ I waited for the noise to die down, then began again. I told a few funny stories to lighten the mood, and they went down well – especially this (true) story about Wilmé. A few weeks earlier, I was keeping a watchful eye over Wilmé and a few of the Afrikaans children from the neighbourhood playing outside our house. I heard three-year-old Wilmé announce loudly: ‘I am Mandela!’ There was a stunned silence from the other little Afrikaans children. Expecting some negative reaction, I stood ready to intervene. But then the little boy from next door, whose parents were very conservative, announced defiantly: ‘No! I am Mandela.’ A huge argument developed, with all four children demanding to be Mandela. Eventually, it was agreed that all four could be Mandela, and then the four little Mandelas marched around on the grass, singing the traditional Afrikaans song ‘Aanstap rooies, die pad is lank en swaar.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mandela shaking with laughter.
At the end of the speech, I was astonished when the crowd jumped to their feet and gave me a long and boisterous ovation. As I turned to go back to my seat, Mandela was standing behind me. He gave me a big hug. Enfolded by his arms, all I could think of was how tall he was. ‘Baie, baie dankie,’ he said in Afrikaans. ‘You are very loved and will make a big difference.’
As I left the stage at the end of the meeting, various ANC branch chairs from across the Western Cape came to ask if I would speak at their branch meetings. Still bewildered by all the attention, I agreed. Allan Boesak came too. ‘There’s something special in you,’ he said. ‘Please think about making yourself available for the regional executive.’
Despite the positive feedback, I was still unsure about my speech. I often felt intellectually inferior to Wilhelm, and, as we drove home, I asked him if it was okay. He said it was, but I could see that something