The tunnel - and through to the other side
What is it that makes us feel obliged to right wrongs, to take up causes that aren’t ours, or to risk our lives for something we are not even sure we understand? What makes us stand and fight, when we could simply walk away and leave others to battle on?
Looking back, it was a seemingly insignificant event in my youth that set my life on a crash course with oppression. In those days, my family used to make an annual holiday trip from Bulawayo to the Natal coast in South Africa. That was in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Our inquisitive young minds found things that were so bizarre that not even the pounding waves, the amusement parks, the myriad sweets, toys or gaudy trinkets, could distract us from asking our parents countless awkward questions like: Dad, why do they have signs on all the park benches? Mom, what does “Net Blankes” (Afrikaans for “Whites Only”) mean? Why are there only eight people in this blue bus, but in all those green buses where there is standing room only? Why can’t we get into this carriage - It’s the right train isn’t it?
Even as children in those days, the inequities and injustices of apartheid seemed so blatant and alien to the way we had been raised. The hushed explanations of our embarrassed parents did not make any sense either. Why couldn’t an African person sit on that bench, or the old coloured man for that matter? Were our parents joking? Certainly their faces didn’t look like they were.
Then one day, some years later, when I was probably about 16, it all finally all became clear to me. The event was trivial, but something changed inside me that day. We were at a Caravan Park, close to the beach and, to get into town, we had to cross the railway line. I was looking for a safe place to cross. There were some African labourers trudging off down a path to a distant crossing, even though there was a short tunnel under the line quite close by! I just couldn’t figure it. I went into the tunnel and saw why.
It was one of them - one of those ever-present, all-controlling “Net Blankes” signs. The realisation of the importance of those pathetic, offensive signs finally hit me - a simple injustice that was just the tip of the omnipotent iceberg of oppression. I lost it!
Never one to so much as raise my voice in public, I attacked that sign. I found it was loose, and I ripped it from the wall of the tunnel. I bent it. I jumped on it. I bashed it. I threw it at the wall. I continued until it was barely recognisable, then I threw it as far as I could into the bushes. That was the day that the fire started - the fire still burns inside me tonight.
It was an act of bravado that day, but to me it was statement - small though it was. To me it meant that the bastion of apartheid was just a fraction closer to being breached. From that day on, I reasoned, people would notice that the sign was gone and ask: Where has it gone? Why has it gone? or: Does this mean that things have changed? Well, if it’s not there, then it means they can’t stop me using the tunnel! And so on…
In reality, my action that day didn’t bring apartheid crashing down, but I learned that even the smallest act of defiance in the face of oppression makes a difference. It may not have changed anyone else’s life, but it changed mine forever, and the day will come that the mugabe regime will regret it. Be sure of it. Be sure that the fire still burns!
May 22nd, 2007 16:48
It is because some of us have a Soul of God in us. One does not get that from the church or from fasting and praying for forty days and nights. It is a gift from God - a biblical gift - so treasure it because no amount of money or gold can buy it. It is that fulfilment that we get when we do the sacred work on God’s behalf - fighting for His downtrodden.
I do not know about you, but I shall never sell mine for a bowl of soup like Esau. Together we shall make this a better world. And always remember that what you regard as trivial like throwing the apartheid and KKK sign ‘No blacks or dogs allowed’ is in reality the first step to travelling a million miles. Well done - because we are nearly there in putting this world - our world right once and for all. Mugabe will be the choirmaster of hell - and it will be ‘thanks’ to that first act that you did as a child!
May 23rd, 2007 17:08
Solidarity!
May 24th, 2007 00:38
I agree that apartheid was horrible, a terrible injustice. I am glad it is over now.
I grew up in Zimbabwe and was born after Apartheid, in the mid 80´s. My experience is limited in this matter, but i know one thing. Just before i fled Zimbabwe at the begining of this year, i felt the most intense racsism i have ever felt. In the rural area´s Mugabe is telling people that the West, the Whites are stealing the rain, are causing all the harship in Zimbabwe… i was spat at, asked why i was walking on the streets, told to get out of Zimbabwe, and more than once genuinely had the fear of God in myself. Have the tables turned? Can i now in 20 years write a post such as you have done? I would be very sad if this happened, and being a citizen of Zimbabwe, is it not my right to walk on the streets? To drink in the bars? Eat fruit from the roadside vendors (the survivors)? Mugabe has taken away “human rights” and replaced it with “The Gospel According to ZANU-PF” and Satan is played by a white man.
May 24th, 2007 14:01
Lawrence,
I agree with you in calling Mugabe’s actions the ‘Gospel according to ZANU-PF’. I believe it is history that has taught you to come to this conclusion. Mugabe himself is following the history before him. He is repeating history. Unfortunately this is bad history - one not to be ever repeated, neither should it be forgotten. History is there to teach us. Now that you and I agree that both apartheid and Mugabe’s gospel are the two evils of this world as there aim is to dehumanise another human being - let us not repeat these two evils. Do not lay your blame on those who spat at you - just as I will not lay a blame on the white people who might have done the same to my fore - parents. Both these people are victims of apartheid and Mugabe’s doctrine.
Now that we agree that there is no black or white person, it is our duty to educate all human beings and free them from the doctrine of Mugabe and the apartheid mentality. You and me will find that 90% of those following Mugabe’s doctrine and the apartheid regime are just victims like us. I can assure you as a Ndebele woman who now lives in UK - that I regard myself as 1. human being 2. British 3. Ndebele/Zulu.
Hope you use your experience constructively so that it does not happen to someone else. Good luck