'I have never voted since'
05/05/2008 08:26  - (SA)  

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Jon Qwelane

The week of many holidays began on Freedom Day, when South Africans of many walks of life celebrated the day in 1994 as millions of us, including those of us who had hitherto never had occasion to cast a ballot to choose those whom we would have rule over us, voted for a government of our choice and not the bantustan figurines who had regularly been foisted upon us.

Sadly, the "freedom" which April 1994 promised, has been grossly abused and Desmond Tutu's "rainbow people" have never really enjoyed the freedom which the day had ushered in.

But who can ever forget that clear, autumn day (in Gauteng, at least) when long queues formed from early morning and snaked round blocks of buildings, lengthening by the hour?

The day had a picnic air about it: where I live in Dawn Park, outside Boksburg, the shopping centre which SACP secretary-general Chris Hani had visited before he was murdered by white racists a year earlier, had been turned into a polling station.

I had earlier in the day been driving in many parts of Gauteng (then called the PWV complex) to gauge the mood and turnout; it was decidedly no different wherever one went.

I went to Dawn Park shopping centre at about 10:00 deciding to come back some two hours later to cast my vote.

Long time coming

In 1992 my family had been among the first few blacks to buy property in what the erstwhile Conservative Party had declared "white man's land". Indeed Boksburg, along with Carletonville on the West Rand, were the last bastions of apartheid racism in the province.

When eventually I made it to the polling station - the queue kept lengthening each time more people disappeared inside to vote - I found an atmosphere quite out of place with the South Africa of the time, an anachronism of a moment in history!

We all stood patiently in the long queue, awaiting our moment with destiny. So, one might have asked, where were the thousands of doomsaying racists who had stocked up on rolls of toilet paper, soap, baked beans and soup powders before heading off into the hills to escape the prophesied and feared swart gevaar?

Boksburg had been full of posters at many lampposts with cartoons depicting then President de Klerk kneeling in front of a seated Nelson Mandela, with the caption: "Mandela en sy klerk". The National Party objected and the posters were removed, but quickly replaced with others: "One Man One Vote - Once!"

Perhaps it was a final realisation that they would never stop the revolution, perhaps the failure by rightwingers to unleash a bloodbath by murdering Hani had eventually convinced them they would never again win anything; or, better still, their half-witted assault on the Codesa conference in Kempton Park - led by one Constand Viljoen and Eugene Terre'Blanche - had shown them the wheel of destiny would crush them if they stood in its way.

Terre'Blanche, provocative as ever, had attempted to stop De Klerk addressing a meeting in Ventersdorp and one Boer was killed in the skirmish; Terre'Blanche, ever given to senseless hyperbole and clearly craving a greatness he will never have, dubbed the little confrontation "die oorlog van Ventersdorp".

The pathetic Terre'Blanche then led a motley crowd of bearded, potbellied, beer-swilling sods to kill innocent people in Mafikeng, my hometown, in a futile attempt to prop up the hated bantustan puppet "government" of Lucas Mangope.

He failed miserably: Mangope fell, and the murderous slobs butchered more than 50 unarmed people - a crime for which they were never punished. The plaasjapies then returned with their tails hanging between their miserable hind legs.

In the polling booth I held the two cards - one for the provincial legislature, the other for the national assembly - and said a silent prayer in memory of my father, who had constantly told my siblings and I that one day we would be free. He had chosen self-exile to teach in Botswana, rather than continue as a teacher in South Africa because he hated Bantu Education with a passion.

I shed tears of relief when I made my crosses, saying: "Dad, this is for you."

I have never voted since then, and doubt it very much if I ever will again.

Jon Qwelane's column is published each week on News24, courtesy of Jon Qwelane and the editor of Sunday Sun, which originally carried the article.

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