The Mother City of the Nation (December 2023)

The Mother City of the Nation - the redemptive character of Cape Town Content 1.Swimming against the Stream of Racial Prejudice 2. Special Church Planters at the Cape 3. Cape Female Movers of the Nation 4. Foreigners who Assisted the Under-Privileged 5. Politicians for the Underdogs 6. The Cradle of a Language 7. Leaders in Human Rights Propagation 8. A Special Slum Area 9 . A Breeding Ground of Opposition to Repression 10. An Island blesses the World 11. The Blood of Cape Martyrs 12. Marches to Freedom 13. ‘Squatters’ Resist Injustice 14.The Aftermath of Violence 15. Spiritual Battle on the Mountain Tops 16. Cape Flats Townships in Transformation 17. ‘Down and Outs’ in Mission 18. The Pulling of the Trigger? Introduction: I returned to Cape Town, the city of my birth in January I992 - after being overseas for almost twenty years as an (in)voluntary exile because of the prohibition of our marriage according the laws of the country at the time. I was sometimes challenged, but more often blessed as I experienced and researched one of the most exciting periods in the history of the Mother City of South Africa. I pray that the reader will be blessed in a similar way. Having been involved in missionary work and in the prayer movement here at the Cape for the over thirty years, I jotted down some of the things we experienced over the years. I was born in Bo-Kaap in 1945 and raised in District Six and Tiervlei (later the ‘Coloured’ section of this suburb was called Ravensmead). I spent my first nine years in the bubbling cosmopolitan District Six when Christians, Muslims and Jews were still rubbing shoulders there harmoniously. I am sure many Capetonians will be surprised to read how the citizens of those parts of our city - and others from the disadvantaged communities of the apartheid society - have been impacting the rest of the Cape Peninsula and even the country. I am very well aware that the Cape has sad legacies as well, but in this treatise I consciously choose to emphasise the positives. In the parallel booklet - Mysterious ways of God - I touch on some of the negatives, nevertheless trying to get some balance. South Africa has been the pariah of the world for a long time. It is high time that its Mother City become a blessing to many in the nation and perhaps even in regions much further afield. With regard to terminology I am aware that the notion Coloured has given offence to the group into which I was classified in this country where race has been a hot potato, . In this study I endeavour to put ‘Coloured’ consistently between inverted commas and as capitals when I refer to the racial group. To the other races I refer respectively as 'Black' and 'White' - written in capital letters - to indicate that it is not normal colours that are being referred to. I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my wife for the encouragement to get my material published on the internet. First and foremost however, I wish to give to God all the Glory for his enabling!! The bulk of the material has been taken from hitherto unpublished manuscripts, viz. Spiritual Dynamics at The Cape, Some Things Wrought By Prayer. and The Road to the Global Day Of Prayer. Along with other titles, this material is accessible at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com. I pray that the reader will be blessed and challenged as I have been in the course of the research and the collating of the material. Ashley D.I. Cloete Cape Town, December 2009, Revised December 2023 Abbreviations AAC - All African Convention AE - Africa Enterprise ACVV - Afrikaanse Christelike Vrouevereniging (Afrikaans Women’s Guild) AEF - Africa Evangelical Fellowship ANC - African National Congress APO - African People’s Organisation AWB – Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging AZAPO - Azanian People’s Organisation CAD – Coloured Affairs Department CAFDA - Cape Flats Distress Association CRC - Coloured Representative Council CCM - Christian Concern for Muslims CCFM - Cape Community FM (radio) CSV - Christelike Studentevereniging CPTA- Cape Professional Teachers Association CPSA – Communist Party of South Africa DEIC - Dutch East India Company DRC - Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk) Ds. – Dominee (equivalent of Reverend) DTS - Disciple Training School GCOWE - Global Consultation for World Evangelisation ICU - Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa IDASA – Institute of Democratic Alternatives of South Africa IFP - Inkatha Freedom Party LMS - London Missionary Society MECO - Middle East Christian Outreach MERCSA Muslim Resource Centre of South Africa MJC – Muslim Judicial Council NEUF - Non European Unity Front NEUM - Non-European Unity Movement OM - Operation Mobilization PAGAD - People against Gangsterism and Drugs PAC – Pan African Congress PCR - Programme to Combat Racism SACC -South African Council of Churches SAMS - South African Missionary Society SIM - Society of International Ministries SPG - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel TEAM - The Evangelical Alliance Mission. TEASA -The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa TEPA - Teachers’ Educational and Professional Association TLSA - Teachers’ League of South Africa UDF - United Democratic Front UNISA - University of South Africa UCT - University of Cape Town UWC - University of the Western Cape V.O.C - Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagne = United East India Company WCC - World Council of Churches WEC -Worldwide Evangelization for Christ YWAM - Youth With a Mission YMCA -Young Men’s Christian Association Z.A. Gesticht - Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (South African Foundation) 1. Swimming Against the Stream of Racial Prejudice As a rule, European colonists came to the Cape with racial arrogance. The prowess of Western civilization served to entrench racism, which had already been prevalent for centuries. The Greek classification of ‘Hellenes and barbarians’, which was fairly neutral with hardly any racial connotation, was replaced by ‘Christians and heathens.’ The former were Europeans and the latter the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa and all new areas that were being discovered. It needed a ruling from Pope Paul III with his edict of 1537 to decide that Indians were human! And yet, ‘Bushmen’, ‘Hottentotten’ and slaves at the Cape remained sub-human. A theology developed in which racism was rationalized and defended. Thus dark-skinned people were distinguished from 'Whites' because they were said to have been created with the animals on the sixth day. Hence, according to this theology, they were excluded from the Garden of Eden, which was a 'White' paradise! Esterhuyse suggests that ‘racism as a racial ideology owes its origin in our Western cultural history to attempts at a moral justification of slavery as a social institution’ (Esterhuyse, 1979:22). From this basis it naturally developed in South Africa to a defence mechanism and justification for racial prejudice and apartheid, in order to preserve and safeguard vested (in this case 'White') interests. Yet, the Mother City of South Africa played a significant role as vanguard in the fight against the dignity of indigenous people and in opposition to the trade of human beings. Providence at Work One senses indeed that Providence had a hand in developments at the Cape of Good Hope at the beginning of the settlement. In fact, even before Jan van Riebeeck set his foot on our shores on 6 April 1652, God had intervened. In 1619 the Dutch had already intended to create a half-way station between Europe and the East and the British had also had similar ideas. However, it was the shipwreck of the Haarlem in 1647 which gave the decisive input. Significantly, in their memorandum to the East India Company in Amsterdam, Leendert Janzoon and Nicolaas Proot, two from the stranded crew, motivated the beginning of such a station with the need of bringing the Gospel to the indigenous Khoikhoi. These primal people made a very favourable impression on them. The ship-wrecked Dutch were forced to stay here for five months, until another homeward bound ship could pick them up. It is very special that the Remonstrantie, which was written by the two Dutchmen, contradicted the common view held of indigenous people of their day and age, referring to ‘a popular error’: ‘Others will say that the natives are savages and cannibals, and that no good is to be expected from them.’ The Khoikhoi at the Cape impressed them as possible candidates for ‘the magnifying of God’s Holy Name and to the propagation of the Gospel.’ Before this, the interest in the Khoi was completely mercantile, occurring at a time when spices and profits came before souls and patriotism. Of course, there was economic interest as well, especially when the Dutch discovered that the soil at the Cape was fertile and that the indigenous people, because of their cattle, could be an asset. In different parts of the world Christian missionaries played a major role not only in the fight against ideologies and barbarism, but also in protecting the indigenous people against colonial exploitation. South Africa was no exception. Early Evangelistic Beginnings in the Mother City The first serious effort of swimming against the stream of racial and religious prejudice in the 18th century to evangelize the Cape slaves – many of them Muslims - is said to be that of the Dutch Reformed Ds. Henricus Beck, a Groote Kerk minister, after his retirement in 1731 (Haasbroek, 1955:58). A group of evangelical Christians gathered around Ds. Beck. His pioneering labour provided the spadework for the first missionary to South Africa, the dynamic German Moravian Georg Schmidt, who started lively Christian groups after his arrival in July 1737. The prayerful Schmidt was initially mocked by the colonists for wanting to reach out to the Wilden, the indigenous Khoikhoi, whom they disparagingly called Hottentotten. The widow Aaltje van den Heyden, one of Beck’s church members, played an important part in the mission work to the slaves after the death of her husband in 1740. She supplied the bulk of the funds for a sanctuary in Long Street a Christian oefenhuis (practicing house). This would decisively influence religious life at the Cape for the ensuing decades. It has been reported that Georg Schmidt soon had a small congregation of 47 and that he was in contact with 39 'Whites' (Schmidt, Afrika en die Evangelie [pamphlet], Genadendal, 1937). The evangelical group in the Mother City laid the foundation for what was meant to be a sanctuary for the slaves, the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (Z.A. Gesticht), on the corner of Long and Hout Streets. 1 Schmidt refused to be side-tracked through conversions among the colonists, preferring to go to those people who had not heard the Gospel at all. He toiled hard amongst the resistant Khoikhoi. Only after five years did the first of them came to the Lord, at first two men. To his own surprise also an intelligent strong-willed woman wanted to become a follower of Jesus. Schmidt had to overcome his own sexist prejudice. At first he found only three men suitable for baptism. Quite prejudiced towards females, he did not expect much, but Schmidt was very surprised by the answers of the woman whom he gave the name Magdalena at her baptism. A second female was baptised with the name Christina. The baptism of five Khoi caused a huge problem among the Reformed clergymen at the Cape. Schmidt was harassed and asked to leave because he was not properly formally ordained. The Count Zinzendorf, the leader of their Moravian Church at the time, had ordained Schmidt by letter. He left in 1744. Cape residents described the impact of Schmidt’s ministry to Nitschmann and Eller, two Moravian missionaries en route from Ceylon in 1742. In their assessment they stated that Georg Schmidt had accomplished in three and a half years ‘what others would not have affected in thirty years’ (Du Plessis, 1911:56). Georg Schmidt hoped to get a Dutch Reformed ordination in Holland, which would have enabled him to return to the small flock he had to leave behind in the Overberg. But that was not to be. Schmidt died before he could hear of the resumption of the missionary work in Baviaanskloof in 1792. Impact of Schmidt’s Converts Georg Schmidt must have impacted the lives of his Khoi congregants in Baviaanskloof quite intensely. His prayerful example continued to influence events at the Cape long after he had been all but forced to leave. It has been reported that Schmidt continued to pray for his Khoi flock without a shepherd in Africa until old age in the East German village of Niesky, where he went to be with his Lord in August 1785 'with a prayer for South Africa on his lips'. The seed that Schmidt had sown at the Cape during his stint of not even seven years germinated, both in the Mother City and in Baviaanskloof, the later Genadendal. Schmidt was said to have been ‘a man of strong faith and a prayer warrior’. Apparently this example rubbed off on his converts, e.g. on Vehettge Tikkuie, who received the name ‘Magdalena’ at her baptism. Khoi Christians reported that she was often found on her knees in prayer. On top of this she taught the believers from the copy of the ‘New Testament’, which she had received from Georg Schmidt before his (en)forced departure. On Sundays ‘de oude Lena’ would walk to the pear tree where Georg Schmidt had preached, to read the ‘New Testament’ and pray with her folk. Almost 50 years after Schmidt had left, Khoi witnesses said that they came together at her home every evening where she prayed with them. If one takes the finance minister of Ethiopia mentioned in Acts 8 as the absolute first indigenous evangelist, we can now say that Magdalena was definitely the first of Sub Saharan Africa. But she also became the first known indigenous female church planting evangelist of all time. Magdalena Vittuie was definitely the first indigenous church planting evangelist of Sub Saharan Africa. Quite soon after the arrival of the dynamic Ds. Helperus van Lier at the Cape in 1786, the legacy of Schmidt worked through when Van Lier was present at the deathbed of another convert of the missionary pioneer. He saw how the Khoi believer died ‘in volkome rus en vrede van sy siel en in vertroue op die Here.’2 It made such a deep impression on Van Lier that he mentioned this in one of his letters to his uncle Professor Petrus Hofstede, an influential academic in Rotterdam, who was at that stage still an opponent of the Moravian brethren. Van Lier became a major instrument not only in getting the Moravians back to the Cape in 1792, but he was also instrumental in sowing the seed for the first mini-revival at the Cape.3 A Cape Social Revolution As a result of the vision of the young reformed pastor, Dr Helperus van Lier, about 60 Christians in Cape Town and its surroundings set aside one day in the week as early as 1788 for the religious teaching of ‘the heathen’ at the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht in Long Street, which is now a missionary museum. Cape Town evangelicals were among the worldwide leaders in this regard at that time. A ‘revolution’ in which the Lord used Ds. van Lier, was the change in the attitude of many 'White' believers towards slaves and other people of colour. In those days slaves were initially not allowed near the entrance of the church after the closing of services and they were punished if they dared to attend the funeral of one of the colonists. Prejudice against missionaries was still prevalent when Van Lier arrived, but the youthful minister dared to challenge the church through his fiery sermons and personal example. The young dominee literally caused a spiritual revolution at the Cape, shortening the duration of sermons and prayers during church services. He also increased house visitation. Believers were encouraged to get involved with the spreading of the Gospel. The historian Theal reports that when Van Lier was in the pulpit, people hardly dared to sleep in church because ‘at times it seemed as if he would jump from the pulpit’. Furthermore, his preaching was full of earnest appeals and ‘…women were often moved to tears, and sometimes fell into hysterics’. Van Lier was very zealous, spending much of his time visiting people from door to door ‘...holding prayer meetings and encouraging works of benevolence.’ Van Lier was a great visionary, seeing the need for learning the heart language of the people to be reached with the Gospel. He was one of the first to start learning Malayu, the trade language, with the object of reaching out to the Cape Muslim slaves. International Influence of Van Lier Almost single-handedly Van Lier set the evangelical world ablaze. His letters from the Cape to Europe were very influential. His testimony - in the form of six letters to Rev John Newton - was originally written in Latin and translated by the well-known poet William Cowper. The title of the booklet: Power of Grace, illustrated in six letters from a Minister of the Reformed church to the Rev John Newton was published in Edinburgh by Campbell and Wallace in 1792. Van Lier’s story of the influence of divine grace in his life seems to have made a lasting impression on Newton who belonged to the ‘inner circle of (slave) abolitionists.’ This is verified when one considers that the famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ came from Newton’s pen. Van Lier’s humility came through when he insisted that a pseudonym Christodulus, (slave of Christ) and not his own name be used with the publication. Several of Van Lier’s letters were directed at getting the Moravians back to the Cape. In Europe there was a significant increase in missionary interest towards the end of the 18th century. The 24-hour Moravian prayer chain in Herrnhut that started in 1727 was still going strong and in England evangelicalism was gaining ground. The effect of William Carey’s book, “An enquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathens “(1792) had a tremendous effect in Britain and North America.4 Intensive prayer preceded the revival of 1792-1820, when no less than twelve mission agencies came into being. In London and Rotterdam two interdenominational missionary societies were founded in 1795 and 1797 respectively. Van Lier’s correspondence continued to have an impact in Europe. Through his evangelical zeal Van Lier, along with William Carey’s book laid the foundations for the founding of a missionary society at the Cape. Van Lier’s letter may have influenced his uncle not only to attack the internal ‘onverdraagzaamheid’ (intolerance) in the church in Holland, but also to challenge the general arrogant attitude towards ‘de heidenen’ (the pagans). God used Hofstede to such an extent that religious tolerance increased significantly in the Netherlands towards the end of the 18thcentury. A Cape Minister With a Heart for Slaves and Khoi A special result of Dr van Lier’s ministry was when South Africans started going to the mission fields themselves. Ds. M.C. Vos cannot however be regarded as one of Van Lier’s ‘trophies’. He had been called by God independently as a juvenile whose ‘heart was grieved at the neglect of the immortal souls’ of the Cape slaves. As an orphan with a sizeable inheritance, he had a yearning to study theology. To this end he resorted to the unusual step of getting married to a lady, on condition that he would leave after two years to go and study in Holland. In 1794 Dominee Vos returned from Holland. There he had been touched anew by the Holy Spirit to return to his home country to minister to the slaves and the Khoi. Ds. Vos took up the legacy of Dr van Lier. 5 Although he soon moved to Roodezand (Tulbagh), his influence was felt all over the Western Cape. In the Mother City itself, Mechteld Smith, a widow who had been discipled by Van Lier, was performing a similar role to that of Magdalena Tikkuie in Genadendal. God used her - along with Ds. Vos as the main role players to advance the evangelical cause. The SAMS was formally constituted in 1799. The first missionaries of the SAMS at the Cape were significantly not ordained in the Groote Kerk or even in Stellenbosch, but in Roodezand (Tulbagh) where Vos was the minister. It comes therefore as no surprise to find that a second missionary was inducted there on 3 October 1799 in the home of Mechteld Smit(h), in the presence of forty-seven SAMS members. The use of new methods of evangelism and his positive view of people of colour was not appreciated by all and sundry. In 1802 he left Roodezand, returning to Holland, from where he was sent as a missionary to India and Ceylon (called Sri Lanka today) in 1804. 2. Special Church Planters at the Cape The vision of Dr Helperus van Lier (and after him Dr van der Kemp of the South African Missionary Society), to see indigenous missionaries going out to spread the Gospel and getting them involved in church planting, was blocked and stifled by the tendency of missionaries and clergymen from Europe and North America, to dominate proceedings. It would take more than another hundred years after Van der Kemp’s death before genuine church planting by indigenous believers would took place at the Cape. It occurred very much in protest against 'White' domination. (The bulk of the churches among people of colour were started at the Cape by missionaries from overseas or as offshoots from already existing mission stations.) Andrew Murray’s Closing Days The spiritual giant Dr Andrew Murray would under normal circumstances not be associated with church planting. In view of his world-wide influence, he just cannot be overlooked as a major contribution from the Mother City of our country. In February 1865 Andrew Murray started with services in Roggebaai every Thursday evening with a ‘full house.’ On the other side of the Groote Kerk, Murray pioneered with services in a house in Van de Leur Street in District Six. Soon a parish of the mother church evolved in Hanover Street, at that time called Kanaalstraat, where race and class discrimination started to play a role. The ‘Dreyerkerk’ as the church became known later, was obviously intended for poor 'Whites' and ‘Coloureds’. Nevertheless, especially for the parishes of Roggebaai and Hanover Street, ‘the services could not be long enough in duration.’ In 1904 Andrew Murray founded the Prayer Union, which was open to believers who had pledged themselves to devote at least a quarter of an hour daily to praying for others and also for the furtherance of the Kingdom. Andrew Murray ended his life on earth on 18 January 1917 in typical fashion, praying and urging others to pray. Few men have ever impacted more people for the cause of the Spirit-filled life than Andrew Murray. He was, undoubtedly, the Church’s most prolific writer on the subject of prayer and the deeper life, publishing over 240 titles between 1858 and 1917. Several of his penned works have been translated into as many as fifteen different languages. Indigenous Leadership Blocked and Stifled The vision of Dr van Lier, Dr van der Kemp and the Moravian Bishop Hallbeck at Genadendal to empower Khoi and slaves for leadership diminished significantly during the 19th century. The gifting of people of colour was simultaneously not appreciated sufficiently. A sad development of the last decades of the 19th century was that this combined with ambition and rebellion by a few ministers of colour who evidently did not understand the nature of the Gospel properly. 'Black' dislike of 'Whites' was a common characteristic of those ministers who broke away to start their own denominations. It is natural to deduce that they had bad examples of 'Whites' who lorded over them, not allowing their understudies to develop their full potential. A case in point is Reverend Joseph John Forbes. Starting off as a teacher, he was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1918 at their Buitenkant Street fellowship on the outskirts of District Six. He withdrew from the church owing to differences on the colour question, accepting a call to the Congregational Church soon hereafter. There he did not last long before leaving to start his own church and denomination, the ‘Volkskerk van Afrika’, in Gray Street (District Six) on 14 May, 1922. This visionary had the courage of his conviction to start a denomination for the uplifting of the poor from the Cape to Cairo. That is the reason he gave his church a continental name. His leadership qualities had clearly been overlooked and spurned because thereafter he became one of the greatest church planters at the Cape. A strong element of ‘Coloured’ Nationalism was present when Joseph Forbes started his ‘Volkskerk van Afrika’. In only 14 years there were already 13 branches, 6 normal schools (as opposed to night schools) and the orphanage at Jonkersdam, which was later transferred to the Lawrencia Institution, Kraaifontein. What is very significant of this denomination was that they have a special anthem, which is still sung at their annual commemoration, hailing the protea, ‘blom van ons vaderland.’ (Flower of our fatherland). The denomination made inroads in geographical areas where the traditional churches had become slack. They even started a church in Genadendal, the first mission station of the Moravians. The new denomination was later governed from Stellenbosch, and expanded to places like Oudtshoorn and far-away Kimberley. In the case of Alec Kadalie, he went to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, whose leader since the 1930s – the Cape–born Dr Frances Herman Gow from a ‘coloured’ mother and an Afro-American father – was all too eager to use people of colour. That denomination - with its origins among the Negroes of the USA - was a great propagator of the indigenisation of the church at the Cape. Under Dr Gow’s leadership – he became their bishop in 1956 - the church expanded rapidly, at least numerically, with churches in different parts of the Peninsula. The Kadalie clan would nevertheless to play a substantial role in the second half of the 20th century in the Cape Town City Mission. Another Cape-bred church plant grew out of evangelism in the 1930s. The depression of the early 1930s appears to have caused a new fire for evangelism. When John Crowe listened to a Salvation Army open-air service in Adderley Street in 1932, he was touched. How happy his prayerful mother was when he shared that he had decided to follow Jesus! The ‘slightly Coloured’ family - as those with a fair complexion from that racial group were called - attended the Baptist Church in Wale Street. Almost immediately the 18-year old Crowe wanted to share the Gospel with other people in the neighbourhood of Roggebaai, near to the ship dockyard. He struck a partnership with his namesake John Johnson, getting involved in open-air services at different places. Later they were especially active on the Grand Parade, Cape Town’s Hyde Park corner, where various political groups and others had their meetings. Harold, John Johnson’s brother, joined them at a later stage. When people started committing their lives to Jesus through their ministry, they received permission to conduct meetings in one of the Railway cottages, which soon became too small. They then rented a wood and iron construction called the ‘Tin Shanty.’ An evangelistic outreach was gradually picking up via Bo-Kaap and District Six in the first half of the twentieth century. Soon also the ‘Tin Shanty’ had become too small. In the 1950s the fellowship was allowed to use the hall adjacent to the Holy Trinity Church in Harrington Street that belonged to the Church of England in South Africa. Starting their outreach in the Dockyard, the church group which had started operating from the ‘Tin Shanty’, called themselves the Docks Mission. From its earliest years prayer and fasting belonged to the practises of the denomination. Many a Friday night was used for an all night prayer meeting. No wonder that God gave the new denomination phenomenal growth. Not only were new churches started on Brown’s Farm (Ottery) and Factreton, a new housing scheme, but also in rural areas at Wellington and Grabouw. Life-Changing Ministries An evangelistic outreach was gradually picking up via Bo-Kaap and District Six, two residential areas predominantly inhabited by people of colour in the first half of the twentieth century. Open-air services were prominent in this drive - with the Salvation Army, the Docks Mission, the Cape Town City Mission and the Baptists of Wale Street and Sheppard Street (District Six) in the forefront. From their early beginnings the Docks Mission also started outreaches at the prison in Tokai, at the nearby Porter Reformatory, at the Brooklyn Chest Hospital, and later at another institution for delinquents in Wynberg called Bonnytown. Many lives were changed through these ministries. After the services at the Docks on Sundays, some members went to Somerset Hospital to pray with nurses there. A branch of the Hospital Christian Fellowship (now called Health Care Fellowship). which operated at Somerset Hospital for many years, benefited greatly from this assistance. Docks Mission members made a national impact through ministry to prisoners on Robben Island. Docks Mission's Pastor Walter Ackerman thus witnessed to and challenged Nelson Mandela. After his release in 1990, Mandela often referred to the Christian teaching that he received over the years as an important contribution to his emphasis on forgiveness and refraining from revenge. 3. Cape Female Movers of the Nation Until well into the 20th century women were hardly expected to make any contribution in society, least of all in missionary and church work. Typical of this time is that one of the most famous female South Africans, Olive Schreiner, wrote her famous book The Story of an African farm in 1883 under the male nom de plume Ralph Iron. All the more it is surprising what individual women had achieved at the Cape in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Olive Schreiner – a Forerunner In Many Ways The contribution of descendants of missionaries could fill volumes. The Schreiner siblings have a special place in this regard. Interesting personalities at the Cape were the novelist Olive Schreiner and her brother, William Philip Schreiner, who was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony for a few years. (Olive possessed strictly speaking only a tiny linkto Cape politics through her husband Samuel Cronwright Schreiner, who was a Cape parliamentarian for a few years. During this time they lived in Hanover and De Aar, but it is very interesting that her husband assumed her name. She died in Wynberg in 1920). The close links between Judaism and Christianity in the Cape Colony before 1875 is represented in the ancestry of the Schreiner siblings. Their father Gottlob Schreiber was a German missionary at the Wittebergen Mission Station. Their mother was British and said to be of Jewish descent. If the Schwabian-born and Basle (Switzerland)-trained missionary seemed to have been quite dull, quitting the ministry and thereafter venturing unsuccessfully into retail business, the devout mother, born Rebecca Lyndall, should go down into mission annals as one of those special unknown women who raised exceptional children. The memory of Olive Schreiner would surpass her brother by far, even though her contributions to humanity were only really discovered late in the 20th century. South Africa is indebted for this especially to Ruth First, the wife of Joe Slovo. Ruth First was killed by one of the most brutal of the apartheid machinations - a letter bomb. That tragedy helped perhaps to highlight the Olive Schreiner biography, which Ruth First and Ann Scott wrote in 1980. Their study provides testimony of Olive Schreiner’s ‘continuing ability to speak to new generations’ (Rive, 1987:vii). All her life she fought against injustice, including discrimination of women. Writing in 1954, D.L. Hobman (1954:2) said that ‘there was a time when this woman was acclaimed as poet, prophet and pioneer.’ Olive Schreiner’s prophetic role in human relations – which was accompanied by ‘the reformer’s zeal’, is noteworthy. In a continent where the separateness of English, Dutch, Jews, Indians and native 'Black' inhabitants was rife, ‘her voice proclaimed that all in the world is one’ (Hobman, 1954:2). Long before anybody dreamed of a rainbow nation she discovered the marvellous diversity of of races among us’ (Cited in First and Scott, 1980:194). In a letter to her brother, William Schreiner, dated 24 April 1909, she stated her intention to read a paper to 'White' workers, urging them to stand by the African in the coming years (First and Scott, 1980:253). Even on world politics Olive Schreiner wrote prophetically, for example in 1919: ‘But America and Russia are the two points at which the world’s history is going to be settled.’ Her keen interest in science made her prophesy atomic energy in 1911, albeit that it was still to take a few decades before Albert Einstein made the breakthrough: ‘Already today we tremble on the verge of a discovery … through the attainment of a simple and cheap method of controlling some widely diffused … natural force.’ More accurate was her suggestion in the same book Woman and Labour, ‘The brain of one consumptive German chemist who, in his laboratory compounds a new explosive, has more effect upon the wars of modern people that ten thousand soldierly legs and arms’ (All quotes from Hobman, 1954:3). Through her novels Olive Schreiner put South Africa on the literary map of the world. She distinguished herself through her love for the Afrikaners. The family furthermore had an ear and eye for the underdogs of Cape society. Olive did much towards reconciliation between the two main 'White' people groups of South Africa, a fact which became widely known. However, few know of her contact with Anna Tempo, a daughter of Mozambican slaves. Tempo went on to start the Nanniehuis in Bo-Kaap, a ministry of compassion to ‘fallen’ young women and prostitutes. The married surname Stakesby-Lewis of the lesser-known eldest sister of the Schreiner iblings (H)ettie, passed to posterity the Stakesby-Lewis Hostel of District Six’s Harrington Street. Spiritual Vitality of Praying Women Under the category of women shakers and movers I would like to group together many unknown heroines, of whom more than 90% could be found in one of the church prayer groups. The spurning and suppression of women with regard to leadership was very common. Instead of becoming bitter and resentful, however, 'Black' women especially appeared to have accepted male leadership gracefully. Until the late 1940s, church groups organised activities among these women. The manyanos (the Xhosa word for prayer unions) tended to focus at the Cape around church-based voluntary associations. They would often allow the men to formally open meetings, in which women participated as speakers. Thus one finds included in a report of the Primitive Methodist Church an evangelistic campaign by Johannesburg women in the Free State. Thirty-three people were impacted under the preaching of three different women from Saturday evening the 22nd, to Monday, 24th September 1919 (cited by Deborah Gaitskell in Elphick et al, 1997:253). The manyanos turned out to be instruments of 'Black' empowerment second to none. Here women leaders would not only pray and preach, but also dignity and political awareness developed. The practice and hurts of apartheid society was possibly the reason in the 1950s for the reshaping of their meetings to provide more practical instruction and community activism. Whereas 'White' and some ‘Coloured’ church women’s groups concentrated on fund raising, 'Black' women amended their name soon to ‘Prayer and Service Union.’ The social and mutual support offered by prayer groups helped compensate for the isolation and poor social structures which Western missionaries held up as models. Testimonies, preaching and spontaneous prayer became the lifeblood of 'Black' Christian groups. In the prayer groups they could develop their potential as orators without first having to be literate. By accepting a role in moral teaching of their adolescent children, 'Black' Christian women turned their backs on certain pre-Christian norms, for example those by which female relatives other than the mother had provided sex education. In general, the spiritual life of manyano women appears to have been more creative and vital than that of the other racial groups. Dawn prayer meetings and nights of prayer were quite common. The Removal of ‘Coloureds’ From the Common Voters’ Roll If it was ever said that women are generally less sensitive about political injustice, this was proved wrong when the rights of ‘Coloureds’ to vote was taken away in the most crude way. The National Party government created a situation via the Senate to change the Union constitution to achieve this. The attempt of the new Nationalist government of 1948 to get ‘Coloureds’ removed from the common voters’ roll ushered in the defiance campaign of 1952. The Supreme Court nullified the initial legislation of 1951, heightening awareness to the shrewd moves of the Nationalist Party to bulldoze through the abhorrent legislation. Fairly wide-spread indignation over the events led to the founding of the mother organization of the Black Sash. The Group Areas legislation, Bantu Education passes and other laws joined groups which had previously differed on minor issues. We salute a small group of 'White' heroines, who bravely swam against the stream of race discrimination under the common denominator of The Black Sash. Women rose up in protest, forming an organization that became known as the Black Sash, their black robes signifying their mourning over the erosion of justice in the country. Six 'White' English-speaking women, gathering for a tea party in a Johannesburg suburb on 19 May 1955, decided to ‘do something’ about the proposed legislation authorizing the government to enlarge the Senate. The moral indignation was the result of another effort to get the ‘Coloureds’ removed from the Common Voters’ Roll. The Women’s Defence of the Constitution League was started, an organization which became known as the Black Sash. Over a period of decades this group – easily discernable through the symbols of mourning over the rape of the constitution6 - developed a sustained campaign of public education, examining the legality and morality of the laws. Significant was that the women also organized a national prayer day for Wednesday, 10 August 1955. The weakness was that the women limited themselves to ‘citizens’, meaning that they excluded 'Blacks'. Although the initiative was started on behalf of the ‘Coloureds’, they failed to catch the imagination of these people. It was surely no co-incidence that a broad representation of protest gathered the same year on 24 and 25 June in Kliptown, Johannesburg where the Congress of the People formulated its Freedom Charter. Battles On the Front of Compassion Compassion became the hallmark of the Black Sash. The Athlone Advice Office – very near to the township of Langa, was the brainchild of Noel Robb, a resident of Bishopscourt. This was a Western Cape model serving as an example for compassionate work elsewhere. The Athlone Office was started in 1958 as a bail fund facility, to enable mothers who had been arrested and imprisoned, to return to their homes and children. In a sense it was an extension of another Black Sash Western Cape initiative, the Cape Association to Abolish Passes for African Women (CATAPAW), which was founded in 1957, in co-operation with a few other groups. CATAPAW collected evidence for submission to the Secretary for Native Affairs to show the hardship and injustices of the pass laws. The June/July issue of Black Sash of that year was devoted entirely to the analysis of the pass system with a projection of its effects on family life. The scheme to extend the system of passes to include women was responsible for widespread unrest, which matured into dramatic conflict when the government used brute force to put down passive resistance demonstrations of 'Blacks' protesting against passes. A special supportive move of the Black Sash occurred after Alex La Guma had been imprisoned in Worcester, just over 100 Kilometres from the Mother City. They organized transport for the families on a regular basis, giving an example to the South African Council of Churches of support to political detainees. Deservingly the Black Sash has been dubbed ‘the conscience of the nation’, being an essentially women’s organisation committed to the protection of human rights and liberties. Noelle Robb was very much involved with both the Black Sash and the Christian Institute. She assisted 'Blacks' who experienced problems because of the many legal entanglements spawned by the apartheid society. Over the years Black Sash campaigning against oppressive legislation continued unwaveringly. Alongside such campaigns, Noelle Robb and others were actively involved with the victims of apartheid. The Advice Offices have been playing a unique role. South Africa may walk tall in the tradition of these women who have trodden difficult paths but who paved the way for a nation that can now boast with one of the highest ratios worldwide of women in Parliament and in the Cabinet. 4. Foreigners Who Assisted the Under-Privileged Foreigners played a positive and negative role at the Cape down the centuries. The early Dutch and German settlers brought with them social evils which fortunately found an effective counter and correction with the first French Settlers. Theft, land grabbing, drug and alcohol addiction were evils that have been treated rather one-sidely in South African history books. We concentrate in this work on the positives. More than any other city in South Africa, Cape Town profited from an influx of foreigners in the two decades around the turn of the 20th century. An interesting feature of the resistance against oppression of all sorts was the assistance rendered by foreigners. Social Evils and a Response in Protest In the primal Khoi society theft was severely punished. The thief would be beaten over the back till blood flowed down the body. Typical of the branding of Khoi is that of the mission historian Du Plessis, stating that the Khoikhoi were ‘unmitigated thieves’ (1911: 26). Spilhaus (1949:96f) points to the other side of the coin: Dutch colonists inciting Khoi to steal from English ships and setting a bad example with bribery in bartering. Spilhaus concludes that it must have been difficult for Khoi to appreciate the enormity of theft as a crime in European eyes. Underdog Protest Spurious legislation led to a cycle of violence and repression. By 1808 it was easy for two Irishmen James Hooper, a labourer and Michael Kelly, a sailor - along with two slaves Abraham and Louis - to incite slaves of the Swartland wheat farms for a protest. According to Van der Ross, the slave Louis, who originated from Mauritius, actually led the revolt. The light-skinnned mulatto slave Louis, who had already been a mulatto at time of his enslavement, was accepted as a leader by other slaves. He purportedly pretended to be a Spanish sea captain, promising freedom to all when they incited other slaves and Khoi. Hooper and Kelly deserted the group on 24 October 1808. The march to the Mother City, demanding emancipation from the governor, seems to have been the first of its kind (worldwide?). Unfortunately, also the pattern of government oppression in later centuries took shape when the British arrested 326 men. Louis, Abraham and Hooper were hanged. The battle by the missionaries Dr van der Kemp and Dr Philip against the maltreatment of Khoi and slaves in the early 19th century paved the way for legislation towards the equality for all people in South Africa and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. The compassionate work of London Missionary Society (LMS) missionaries like Rev James Read, Dr Johannes van der Kemp and Dr John Philip on behalf of the underdog slaves had the moral power of biblical truth on their side, but they were often opposed by their missionary colleagues. They were furthermore very unfortunate to have to battle against the pace that the Moravians had set at Genadendal. Compassion Towards the Socially Downtrodden Nevertheless, the battle that raged at the Cape around the Khoi and the slaves – in which Dr Philip and Dr Van der Kemp had a big hand - had worldwide ramifications when it aided the cause of the abolition of slavery. Dr John Philip discerned that the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 caused the price of slaves to rise, leading to the enserfment of the Khoisan. Between 1808 and 1826 the price of slaves rose by 400% (Theal, RCC, 29:427). In a letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Earl Bathurst, Dr Philip called attention to several hardships suffered by the Khoi, such as the pass regulations, which prevented them from settling where they chose and sometimes led to the splitting of families. These were felt to be legitimate grievances, which would ultimately lead to the Ordinance 50 of 17 July 1828. During Dr Philip’s visit to England in 1826, he met the evangelical parliamentarian Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. The latter had close links to William Wilberforce, the staunch fighter for the complete emancipation of slaves. In his subsequent correspondence with Buxton, Philip linked the slave issue to the situation of the Khoisan in the Cape Colony already in his first comprehensive report on the LMS stations although he made a distinction between the problems with the Khoisan and those pertaining to slaves (Walker, 1964:153). Ordinance 50 of 1828 and last not least the publication of Philip’s two-volumed Researches in South Africa were major factors in the run-up not only to the Great Trek of colonists to the interior, but also to the final emancipation of slaves worldwide.7 Dr Philip’s role in the proclamation of Ordinance 50 has sometimes been exaggerated. John Philip however definitely played a crucial role in the run-up to this ordinance and he became a prime mover both in the eventual formal abolition of slavery in 1834 and in its implementation at the Cape in 1838. Yet, this decree dramatically changed the legal standing of the Khoisan, putting them on an equal footing with the colonists. It is doubtful if William Wilberforce would have been able to die with satisfaction after his half a century of pioneering fighting of slavery, if he did not receive the support from the Cape. Dr Philip undermined his own efforts by the unloving way in which he presented his case. His writing - painting the picture at the Cape in a distorted way, exaggerating things here and there - became one of the causes of the Great Trek, as expounded by the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief in his manifesto. All London Missionary Society (LMS) emissaries of the Gospel were hereafter suspect in the eyes of the colonists, while the Moravian mission at Genadendal became the model. This diabolic situation was a direct result of Dr Philip’s harsh criticism of the colonists. Not so long before him the Moravian missionaries had also been villains in the eyes of colonists - accused of corrupting the Khoisan and encouraging laziness. The Moravian missionaries stayed clear of the debate, cleverly theologising around it. Thus their leader Hallbeck called slavery the blackest of evils, which must certainly lead to the destruction of any country (Krüger, 1966:195). But the brethren did not feel themselves called to fight it. ‘To became slaves to the slaves and free men to the free, in order to win some for Christ’, was their attitude (An adaptation of 1 Corinthians 9:19ff). The absolute distancing themselves from politics was a tradition of the Moravians, which was not always helpful, making it difficult for the LMS missionaries to make a clear prophetic stand on ethical and racial issues. Because of their a-political role they suddenly became the role models. The precedent was set for the unbiblical notion ‘not to mix politics with religion.’8 Anglican Missionary Work Impacting Cape Islam The first Anglican Bishop in South Africa, Robert Gray, came to the Cape in 1848. Within a matter of weeks he rented Protea Estate, which once had been Bosheuvel, when Jan van Riebeeck lived there. Almost immediately Bishop Gray implemented his vision to reach out to the indigenous people and to the Muslims with the Gospel. A major evangelistic coup on Bishop Gray’s part with regard to the Muslims was to bring in Rev. Michael Angelo Camilleri, who arrived on 9 December 1848. He was the first missionary sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) who was scheduled to operate specifically among the Cape Muslims. Unfortunately he was working at the Cape only for a short period. Furthermore, other responsibilities made it difficult for him to concentrate on the actual loving outreach to the descendents of the slaves. Quite a few years elapsed before a successor to Camilleri on behalf of the denomination became responsible for such outreach among the Cape Muslims. Through ministry of Christian compassion during the smallpox epidemics, many a Muslim heart was opened up for the Gospel. The charitable concern of Dean Thomas Fothergill Lightfoot of the St Paul’s Church during the smallpox epidemic of 1858 was e.g. making a deep impact, preparing many a Bo-Kaap Muslim for the Gospel. Lightfoot referred to an increase of ‘catechumens’ (candidates for confirmation) after the epidemic. Gray and Grey at the Cape The education and the training of the indigenous people was being advanced by two influential men in the middle of the 19th century whose surname sounded almost the same – the governor Sir George Grey and Bishop Robert Gray. The latter visited Genadendal shortly after his arrival. Bishop Robert Gray was especially interested in the training school, considering soon, to see Anglican students trained at Genadendal. He planned to establish mission stations among the 'Blacks', with a missionary, a teacher, an artisan and an agriculturist for every station, combining spiritual and temporal education such as the Moravians were involved with. Very much led by the notion of British imperial hegemony, as the church of those who governed, they should eventually take the lead (Janet Hodgson in Saunders et al, 1981:4). He believed that a group of African royal chiefs would have a far greater influence in evangelising his countrymen than foreign 'White' missionaries. Bishop Robert Gray hereafter made his own arrangements, establishing Zonnebloem College at Cape Town for the sons of 'Black' chiefs. The combination of Gray and Grey was vey significant in this venture which led to the beginnings of 'Black' writing at the Cape, so much so that Janet Hodgson described Zonnebloem as the cradle of 'Black' writing in the country. Sir George Grey had similar plans. He visited Genadendal a month after his arrival, conversed with the Moravian brethren about his plans, expressing the hope that they would also make educational contributions. The result of the advance of education under Sir George Grey was that many requests were received in 1856 and 1857 by candidates for the training school from different churches. In many other ways the reign of Sir George Grey at the Cape was formidable. His contribution in the medical and educational fields deserves special recognition, making the most modern care available for the poor. Inspired by Florence Nightingale’s ideas on hospital design the New Somerset Hospital was opened in 1862 (Worden et al, 1998:181). In and around Cape Town he was the initiator or guiding spirit of many developments like the revision of the judiciary, a new monthly mail service between the Cape and England and his proposal of two railway lines. Very significant was also his idea to improve the harbour by building a(nother?) breakwater. Abrahams (1955:39) gives the greater due in this regard to the great Cape parliamentarian Saul Solomon: ‘It was due to his vision and determination that an early start was made on the construction of the Docks and breakwater.’ Grey’s independent thought was however his downfall. His conciliatory gesture towards the Dutch-speaking Afrikaners, by initiating a federative union with the two Boer Republics, was not appreciated in England. He was promptly recalled. The new government under Lord Palmerston acknowledged the fallacy to recall the exceptional governor, sending him back to the Cape. But also Palmerston’s government was adamant that a federation with the two Boer Republics was not on. If the advice of the far-sighted Grey had been heeded at that time, the history of the country would surely have taken a different course. When London repented via the efforts of Lord Carnarvon, it was too late. Due to Grey’s rich experience in Australia and New Zealand, before he came to the Cape, he surely was equipped for the job to try and quell the war on the Eastern Frontier. There he however overreached himself. General South African history reports that ‘Grey’s genius shone at its brightest’ (Picard, 1974:105) after the unexpected Xhosa uprising in 1857 and the vision of Umhlakaza and his 13 year old niece to invite the tribe to kill their cattle. In more recent research it has been shown that it was not that simple at all; that Grey and his men had a sad role in the spreading of the rumour of the cattle-killing and thus in the misery when 50,000 men, women and children perished. In September 2001 the British government apologized to the Xhosas in a rare gesture of modern times, when a conference in Durban looked into reparations for colonial guilt. The terrible episode did confirm in Grey’s mind however a resolve to guide the Xhosas away from superstition and build with them a country in which all races could live in harmony under British tutelage. The mission station started by Bishop Robert Gray at Abbotsdale near Malmesbury in 1870 would bear fruit in a special way in the 20th century. Pan Africanism at the Cape A move at the Cape supplied the seed for the birth of Pan Africanism on South African soil. F.Z.S. Peregrino was a Ghanaian who had an office in Tyne Street, just off Hanover Street in District Six. As a recruiting officer for Jamaicans, he not only looked after their interests, but he also sought to promote broader Africanism. In the draft constitution of the ‘Coloured Men’s Protectorate and Political Association…of the Cape of Good Hope,’ which he founded in 1890, an article states that the organization endeavoured to ‘become part of the Pan African Association of England.’ The slogan ‘Africa for the Africans’ has often been branded as Black racism. It is hardly known that a 'White' missionary from New Zealand was actually one of the first protagonists of the principle. Joseph Booth, who was born in Derby, England, wrote a booklet with the title Africa for the Africans in 1897. He worked as a farmer in New Zealand until he experienced a missionary call in 1892. His unorthodox approach to mission work and his schemes for African self-help and advancement eventually created friction with colonial authorities. He was barred from Central Africa around 1903 as an alleged supporter of African religious separatism (Karis and Carter, Volume 4, 1977:10). Joseph Booth was in Cape Town in 1912-13, living off rent from boarders in his home. One of these boarders was the great Dr Don D.T. Jabavu. Booth drew up an ambitious scheme which would train 'Blacks' in modern skills and give them a base for greater self-assertion. He enlisted support from Sol Plaatje and Rev. John L. Dube, who were to become two prime movers towards the formation of the African National Congress (ANC). But nothing came of the schemes. In 1914 Booth went to Basutoland (today’s Lesotho), where he worked as an independent missionary. Apart from the local version of 'Black' Consciousness which was forged by the Peregrino’s, father and son, the other version was imported, the one wielded by the Jamaican Marcus Garvey. By the end of 1921 there were four branches of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the Peninsula. Eventually divisions existed in Goodwood, Parow, Claremont, West London (Rondebosch) and Cape Town. 'Black' unity, 'Black' consciousness and 'Black' liberation were the slogans of the movement. Paternalism Breeds Secession All along there was a lot of goodwill among 'Whites'. The problem was that even radical thinkers among them hardly ever consulted people of colour. Proper consultation could possibly have averted many a crisis. From the earliest days at the Cape the ‘natives’ were regarded as inferior, their culture despised. Paternalism was rife. This gave rise to the secessionist ‘Ethiopian Movement’. The ‘Ethiopians’ have been typified by the sentence: “We have come to pray for the deliverance of Blacks’ (Cited in Elphick et al, 1997:212). The ideological link went back to the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8 and the church, which developed in that country without the mediation of western churches. The term ‘Ethiopian’ was derived from the concept that the first indigenous church on African soil started in Ethiopia. By 1902, Ethiopianism was used for the entire indigenous church movement. For the ‘rebel’ 'Black' churchmen, Ethiopia was the model land where 'Blacks' were ruling their own country. In the US a separate church had been started among Negroes as the American Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC). It was only natural that the ‘Ethiopian’ Methodists of South Africa would link up with them. Bishop Levi Coppin was sent here as the first 'Black' bishop. The AMEC headquarters were to be in District Six. The ‘Ethiopian’ movement started in different parts of South Africa as breakaway congregations from the Methodist mission churches. In a sense the good teaching of the Methodists backfired when they tried to make the indigenous independent, because the missionaries kept on patronizing their congregants of colour. The AMEC played a significant role in the liberation struggle by enabling South Africans of colour to study in the USA. Among the very prominent ones were the social worker and teacher Charlotte Maxeke and Frances Gow. Charlotte Maxeke toured the USA in the 1890s with an African choir. She remained in the States to study at Wilberforce University in Ohio, where she graduated with in 1905, the first 'Black' woman from South Africa to earn a bachelor’s degree. Overseas she married Dr Marshall Maxeke, a fellow South African.  After her marriage to a South African overseas and their return they impacted many 'Blacks'. The couple came to the Cape where they opened a Bible School on behalf of the AMEC in 1908. This was surely of one the first instances worldwide for indigenous folk to do this. One of the persons impacted by them at the Cape was Rev Zaccheus Mahabane, who would become an influential personality in the ANC for many decades. He joined the ANC in 1917 after hearing political speeches by Charlotte Maxeke and her husband Marshall Maxeke, Charlotte Maxeke founded the women’s league of the ANC. Cape-born Frances Gow returned from the USA with a doctorate, becoming a bishop in the denomination in 1956. Another influential figure was Henry Sylvester Williams, a 'Black' lawyer who hailed from Trinidad in the West Indies. He came to Cape Town in October 1903, with the intention to build Pan-Africanism and to see British status coming into being for all 'Black' people in the British Empire. When he and Bishop Levi Coppin saw how the ‘Coloureds’ were distancing themselves from the ‘Africans’, they thought that the ‘Coloureds’ might be the next to be segregated residentially ('Blacks' had been dumped in Ndabeni in 1901). They saw all the ingredients of divide and rule when John Tobin, one of the early leaders of the African Peoples’ Organization (APO), looked for reconciliation between ‘Coloureds’ and 'Whites' who also spoke Afrikaans. Tobin and his supporters were angered by what they regarded as the betrayal of the British in the run-up to the Anglo-Boer War. Malawi and the Caribbean join the Cause of Equality Clements Kadalie, a national of Nyassaland, as Malawi was called, was a teacher who did not remain in Johannesburg like his compatriots. He met Alfred F. Batty in 1918, who was about to contest the Cape Town harbour constituency as a Labour candidate. Batty suggested starting a trade union in the Cape Town docks for non-'White' workers. At that stage workers of colour were not yet fully organized, whereas their 'White' counterparts had been flexing their muscles in a big way.9 After World War I there were serious food shortages in Europe. South African stockists thought this was their chance to push up prices. They now learned the hard way to reckon with 'Black' labour power. Clements Kadalie started the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (ICU) in 1919. The dock workers decided to refuse to handle export produce in response to the spiralling food prices. The annual address of Selby Msimang in 1921 at the meeting of the ICU in Ndabeni even received press coverage, albeit that the 'White'-owned papers did not rise above the familiar ‘Natives and their grievances’. A rare exception was the S.A. Outlook (August, 1921), which noted his moderation ‘and some evidence of statesmanship’, and that ‘it offers the skeleton frame, at any rate, of a policy.’ By 1922, the Western Cape leaders of the ICU were making efforts to contact workers on the countryside. Also 'Blacks' at the Cape were now subjected to all the degrading laws under which the Transvalers had already been suffering for decades. Josaiah Ngedlane, an active Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) member, was on hand to launch a CPSA branch in Ndabeni. Kadalie built the ICU into the first modern mass movement of 'Blacks'. At times, as in the 1924 election, the ICU was thrust into the arena of 'White' politics. Walter Winckler, the son of German missionaries, who was born in Jamaica and who laboured in Surinam (South America) as a missionary, worked alongside indigenous ministers of the Moravian church to achieve independence from Germany. Winckler, who later ministered in Mamre, linked up with a gifted ‘Coloured’ minister, Daniel Joorst, in the battle of the South African branch of the denomination to receive autonomy from Germany. Another stalwart in this fight was Rev. Daniel Wessels.the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) pioneer, Their efforts were crowned with success when the Western Cape Province of the denomination was given the status of autonomy in transition in 1949, worldwide the first of the former missionary dependencies. They would be granted 450 pounds sterling annually, to be decreased gradually until 1960, when they would receive full independence. The Western Cape Moravians in South Africa thus became the first of the former mission fields worldwide to be granted independence in 1960. 5. Politicians for the Underdogs In this chapter we look at four male politicians and a few women from the most diverse backgrounds. The first male was born on the island of St Helena and raised in Cape Town. The second was the son of a German missionary, who was married to a British woman with Jewish ancestry. The third male Cape politician highlighted here was raised in the Mother City but studied medicine in Glasgow, Scotland, and the last one hailed from the Cape Anglican Mission station Abbotsdale. Saul Solomon One of the greatest politicians of the nineteenth century in Cape Town was the Jew Saul Solomon, who came to the Mother City from St Helena. He was one of the first students at the South African College (School), the parent institution of the University of Cape Town. The Solomon clan was one of the most distinguished families at the Cape for decades, many of them involved with the philanthropic movement, in which Christians and Jews worked cordially side by side. Influential Jews like the bulk of the Solomon clan turned to Christianity – without however severing their Jewish roots. Henry Solomon, having learned Hebrew in his youth, went on to study Arabic and he devoted much of his energy at one period to social work amongst the Cape Muslims – notably together with the Rev. Joel Rabinowitz, another gigantic Jewish personality at the Cape. The Jewish-raised Saul Solomon, a product of the Lovedale educational heritage of the Glasgow Mission, became a prominent politician. ‘His leading characteristic was his desire to champion any section suffering under any disability whatsoever – civil, political, or religious… He was an earnest and powerful protector of the natives, and was frequently referred to as the negrophilist member…’ (of parliament). Against the background of the traditional legacy of the deceit and lies of politicians, he was known to have ‘less cunning but more foresight.’ Already in 1855 it was said of him: ‘If ever he loses the support of his constituency … it will be in consequence of his being too truthful to his convictions and too uncompromising to expediency’ (Hermann, 1935:87). This breed of Jewish background Christians, who was linked to St George’s Cathedral, was rare indeed. Saul Solomon was described as a ‘fearless negrophilist’, hosting at his home the Zulu king Cetswayo, who was defeated by the British in 1879. William Philip Schreiner Olive Schreiner became so famous as a pioneer of positive feminism worldwide and as authoress that she would dwarf her brother William in due course, although he was the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony for a few years. Very little is known about the contribution to racial reconciliation by Olive Schreiner’s brother William Philip Schreiner, who became Attorney General in the Cabinet of Cecil John Rhodes. Her husband Samuel Cronwright Schreiner and her brother William brought the rare touch of integrity back into Cape politics. In the intense discussion prior to and during the National Convention it was these two who fought valiantly for the franchise of people of colour. In 1893, probably when William P. Schreiner was considering entering politics, Olive wrote to her brother: ‘… the very number of opponents you have… makes me feel how straight and independent you have stood…You have none of the vices that are almost indispensable to a successful politician…’ (Rive, 1987:227). It surely was a compliment to his integrity and impartiality that she wrote – probably referring to his practice as a judge. ‘I really shouldn’t be afraid of being tried by you if I were a Kaffir’ (Rive, 1987:227). South Africa profited greatly that he did not heed her advice not to enter politics, albeit that a bit more negotiation at entry into politics might have stood him in good stead. The Prime Minister, Cecil John Rhodes, had declined to demand the resignation of Sir James Sivewright, a Cabinet Minister. The latter had fraudulently given a railway contract to a friend, Mr J.D. Logan, for bars and refreshment rooms along the railway line from Cape Town to the Free State. Within a few months the first Rhodes Cabinet broke up. He lost the services of James Rose-Innes, the Attorney-General, Jacobus W. Sauer, the Colonial Secretary and John Xavier Merriman, his treasurer. Rhodes invited Schreiner to become Attorney General not long after the three moral musketeers of Parliament had resigned from the Cabinet in protest. Not only did William P. Schreiner enter politics, but he also took the extraordinary step of joining the Afrikaner Bond. He however quarrelled with Rhodes because of the unfortunate Jameson Raid. The Cape Times (1 January 1896) denounced the move, which Rhodes had sanctioned, as ‘a colossal blunder.’ A leader of the same newspaper at the time turned out to be quite prophetic, warning that it might bedevil relations between the Afrikaner and English. This tension eventually led to the South African War in 1899. In 1898 Schreiner became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, succeeding Cecil John Rhodes. He however resigned after only two years in office. His cabinet split because of the disenfranchisement and treatment of the Cape rebels in the South African War and the application of martial law in the Colony. (Influential men were being arrested arbitrarily – even in districts where no military operations were in force – and were being imprisoned without trial.) Schreiner blotted his copy-book when he resisted the request of the Coloured Men’s Political Protection Association, a group which resented their exclusion from defending the city. When the ‘Coloureds’ forwarded a resolution, asserting their loyalty and willingness to ‘repel the treacherous foe’, Schreiner did not dare to take the risk of offending the 'White' electorate. Another error occurred when Schreiner referred to 'Blacks' as ‘our greatest enemy’. Yet, the quality of the trust he enjoyed amongst influential 'Blacks' was shown when John Tengo Jabavu bailed him out on this occasion in his Zulu newspaper Imvo. Schreiner amply made good these lapses in his valiant fight for the franchise of all people. In the reaction to the first session of the National Convention, he agreed with his brother-in-law Samuel Cronwright Schreiner that northerners were only too anxious to disenfranchise the Cape Natives. Therefore he fought with much realism, asking ‘that the Cape non-'Whites' should retain their existing right to sit in Parliament’ (Thompson, 1960:341). Merriman, the Cape Prime Minister, who opposed every motion in this direction, sarcastically jotted in his diary: ‘… after Schreiner had expressed his opinion 64 times’ (Thompson, 1960:345). This shows how passionately William P. Schreiner fought the cause of the voting rights of people of colour. When the draft South Africa Act was put to the vote in the Cape Parliament, it was carried with ninety six for and only two against, the votes against were cast by W.P. Schreiner and J. Gordon Sprigg, another valiant principled Cape politician, who was Prime Minister four times in his career. A Costly Catch-22 Situation In 1908 W.P. Schreiner defended Chief Dinizulu after the Bambata Zulu Rebellion. In order to do this, Schreiner resigned from the work of the National Convention. This must have been one of the most difficult decisions ever for him. The Zulu rebellion was caused by the poll tax, which was an effort to relieve the shortage of labour on the 'White' farms and the mines. From 1 January 1906, the government of Natal had ordered every male over the age of eighteen years – irrespective of race - to pay one pound sterling per year. Disaffection and resistance grew throughout Natal because of this. 'Blacks' were charged and sentenced for trivial reasons, which of course increased the discontent which grew into a rebellion. Schreiner’s ‘quixotic decision’ to defend Dinuzulu - and not attend the first sessions of the National convention - proved costly for all people of colour in the country. The staunch supporter of 'Blacks' would have stuck to his guns in the National Convention (Thompson, 1960:146). He would have put up a much better fight for a Federation of States, where each province would have kept decisive powers in important matters. Only the Natalians fought for this course, but they did it so unconvincingly that those in favour of Union – instead of Federation – easily won the day. The memory of W. P. Schreiner should be honoured by all South Africans. For the second time he led a non-racial delegation to London in 1909, this time to fight the colour bar in the Union constitution. The mission was unfortunately unsuccessful. Schreiner became a Senator after Union and from 1914 until his death he was High Commissioner in London. Dr Abdullah Abdurahman Enters the Political Arena The influx of 'Whites' to the Mother City due to the War (1899-1902) - following on the earlier increases, because of the discovery of diamonds and gold in other parts of the country after 1869 - significantly diminished the proportion of Muslims. A spirit of antagonism against 'Whites' amongst ‘Coloured’ people hereafter spread like wild fire. Thus even on the Moravian mission stations, such as at Mamre, a faction led by a certain Johannes Adonis, openly opposed the missionaries. The first political party among the descendants of the indigenous of the country, the Coloured People’s Organisation, started there in 1902. Furthermore, the number of Cape Muslims had been significantly reduced because of various epidemics. Suddenly the Cape Muslims had become a minority in the city by a big margin. Not so long before this, Dr Abdullah Abdurahman returned from Scotland, where he had qualified as a medical doctor. The plight of people of colour influenced him to get politically involved at the beginning of the 20th century. The stature of Dr Abdurahman, the dynamic medical doctor, grew meteorically as a politician after he had witnessed the merit of 'Blacks' during the Bubonic plague in 1901. He became one of the ‘plague doctors’, treating many of them. Abdurahman saw how this issue was abused,when the 'Blacks' were dumped in the ‘location’ of Ndabeni. After a protest in which a few imams were involved (the names of Mogamat Taliep, Maji Mahomed and Imam Adukeep are mentioned), concessions were issued to them with a stern warning: ‘if disturbances continued, Muslims would also be placed in a location’ (Van Heyningen, 1984 [1981]: 101). In politics things sometimes turn around very quickly. Dr Abdurahman gained a seat in the Cape Town City Council through the backing of the Afrikaner Bond (Davids, 1980:181). Calling the party he started in 1904 the African Peoples’ Organization (APO), the roots in the 'Black' continent was emphasised. Non-racialism was to be the hall-mark of the District Six-based party. Abdurahman would dominate the politics for the disenfranchised at the Cape for more than 30 years. Co-operation of Disadvantaged Races Sometimes the impression is still spread superficially that apartheid only started in 1948. However, 'Blacks' were excluded from participation in the politics of the country already in the run-up to the formation of the Union in 1910. After a draft constitution was made public in February 1909 at the deliberations of the National Convention, 'Black' leaders formally came together in March 1909 for the South African National Convention. Their objections were echoed by the APO in Cape Town, who decided to send a protest delegation to England. They agreed for the first time that ‘The time has arrived for the cooperation of coloured races’ and to unite to protect the rights of all ‘Coloured’ races and ‘secure an extension of civil and political liberty to all qualified men irrespective of race, colour or creed throughout the contemplated Union’ (Cited in Welsh, 2000:370). Abdurahman wrote a letter on 31 May 1910, the day in which the Union formally came into being. Referring to the ‘insertion of a colour line into the Constitution Act,’10 Abdurahman noted that the 'Whites' could commemorate the event ‘by making the day one of thanksgiving.’ However, ‘… no Coloured person could do otherwise than regard the day as one of humiliation and prayer.’ After his second marriage with Maggie Stansfield, a local Christian, Abdurahman appeared to have become fairly accommodating with regard to racial segregation and less principled. He co-operated in the government ‘Commission of Enquiries Regarding the Cape Coloured Population’ without even a single note of dissent, albeit that through this co-operation he achieved the building of the Schotsche’s Kloof flats for Muslim occupation. This was the beginning of Bo-Kaap becoming a Muslim stronghold. The recommendations of this commission laid the foundation for Group Areas legislation for different races. Bad compromise – if not collaboration itself - is unfortunately known of Dr Abdurahman in the twilight of his illustrious career. From Abbotsdale to District Six It is interesting that the Malmesbury geographical area from which hailed the great statesman Jan Smuts and the arch protagonist of apartheid, Daniel Malan, also gave the country one of its greatest unsung heroes. (These two hailed from Riebeeck Kasteel) The Anglican mission station Abbotsdale, once started by Bishop Gray, produced a boy with the name of Johnny Gomas, who would influence matters at the Cape and countrywide in no small way. John Stephen Gomas was born in 1901 in the rural Abottsdale, in the Malmesbury district in the Western Cape. He was educated at the Anglican mission school until his mother moved to Kimberley in 1911 in search of work. It was there where he received his formal schooling. In Kimberley he was attracted to the militancy of the African National Congress (ANC), Gomas joined the African National Congress (ANC) at the age of 17 in 1918 and the International Socialist League in 1919. In 1923, he became a full-time organiser for the Cape-based Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) and joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). He was elected its provincial secretary in 1925 and began organising for a closer alliance between the ICU, the ANC and the CPSA. When the Communist Party of South Africa moved their party newspaper Umsebenzi to Cape Town, Johnny Gomas became a regular contributor. At this time, the existence of a large number of unskilled and unemployed ‘poor Whites’ posed a danger to the state. Because of mechanised production, there was resistance by 'White' artisans who now saw unskilled 'Black' and ‘Coloured’ workers as an even greater threat. 'White' trade unions rejected co-operation with 'Black' unions after 1924, producing strong anti-'Black' worker policies instead. Johnny Gomas was very much of an optimist, thinking that 'White' and 'Black' workers could unite in opposition to the ilk of Jan Smuts, who epitomized to them the mine magnates who exploited the workers. Gomas’ hope was smashed in the aftermath of the 1924 elections. One of the first laws of the 1924 Pact Government was the Native Administration Act. This law equipped the Native Affairs Department with enormous powers, e.g. to control the free movement of 'Africans', i.e. those who had black skin pigmentation. This was basically a law to divide and rule, to keep the control the majority of the nation. The Pact government of 1924 had set out to protect the 'Whites'. According to the ‘Civilized Labour Policy’, it was now made sure that 'Blacks' were hired last and thousands of them were sacked to make way for ‘poor Whites’. Gomas displayed exceptional optimism, ignoring anti-'Black' attitudes and social exclusiveness of the 'White' unions. In his writings via the pages of Umsebenzi, he emphasised the temporary nature of the obstacles to class solidarity. Three months after the Native Administration Act11 was passed in December 1927, three 'Blacks' were accosted in Paarl by one Bleeker, a 'White' policeman, who demanded to see their passes. When they ran away instead, shots were fired; one of them was killed. A second person was seriously injured, dying in hospital ten days later. Johnny Gomas created a tradition of political agitation at the commemoration of the dead at funerals, by distributing pamphlets for a meeting on Christmas Day, 1927: ‘Show your respect to your dead and injured comrades by attending in thousands’ (Musson, 1989:36). This led to a public meeting in Huguenot, near to Paarl, attended by about 400 people of colour, addressed with words which were described as ‘highly inflammatory.’ Along with two other speakers Gomas was imprisoned under the ‘hostility clause’ of the new law, under which anyone ‘inciting hostility between black and white’ was liable to prosecution and punishment. In the midst of the great economic depression of the early 1930s, Smuts and Hertzog buried their differences temporarily, forming an alliance in 1934. The Bills, which were intended to remove 'Blacks' from the common voters’ roll in the Cape and entrench segregation, jolted the ANC to life. Dr Pixley Seme and Dr D.D.T. Jabavu, its leaders at this time, initiated a convention to challenge the Native bills. Unity among the oppressed was indeed called for as never before. Rise of the Capetonian Worker Class The trade union work initiated at the Cape by Nyasaland-born Clements Kadalie and his colleagues in 1919 with their Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) was short-lived, but it succeeded in giving 'White' South Africa a fright. Gomas also joined the ICU of Clements Kadalie, of which he became a full-time organizer in 1923. The militant language of the ICU eclipsed the ‘prayers and deputations’ of the ANC (Musson, 1989:30), making it a mass movement after 1923. At this time Gomas was back in the Cape, operating from his home in Sussex Street in Wynberg. He worked closely with James la Guma in 2 Rodger Street in District Six. The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (ICU) nevertheless left a legacy: ‘the flame of revolt which it had fanned’, especially in rural Western Cape areas. But also in the new townships of the Mother City the flame was ignited under the direction of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and for a while by a revived ANC. Gomas, who had really put the ICU on the map in the Western Cape, also rose in rank in the ANC. During Gumede’s absence in Russia in early 1927, Gomas was the national acting president. The communist influence in the ANC was considerably extended at this time. Until 1925 the ICU was a Cape-based trade union. Through the dynamic leadership of Clements Kadalie, membership of the ICU spread throughout the length and breadth of the country and beyond. However, when the ICU leadership became increasingly under the influence of liberals, the communists were seen as a threat. Gomas, together with the other Communist Party members, was something of a headache to Kadalie because Gomas wanted to transform the ICU into a mass movement. When Gomas and La Guma refused to resign from the CPSA, they were expelled from the ICU. That back-fired on the ICU, which hereafter declined sharply. Tabata (1974:10) had no doubt that the bureaucratic methods of the leadership crippled the organization. Trade Unionists Committed to Justice and Non-racialism Johnny Gomas and his mentor James la Guma, another prominent Cape ‘Coloured’ activist, were trade unionists who were committed to justice and non-racialism from an early stage of their lives. La Guma called his Fifteen Group for a special meeting in 1935 when the threat of 'Blacks' being deprived of their franchise became stronger. He concluded: ‘We need an organization of all the oppressed.’ And a new organization was promptly formed - the National Liberation League (NLL). In Cissy Gool they had a ready-made president. The NLL became one of the main forces in the All African Convention (AAC), which met from 15 to 18 December, 1935, with more than 400 delegates, including the District Six-based NNL as a major faction. The AAC can be regarded as the precursor of the UDF of the 1980s. That congress in 1935 was characterised by great enthusiasm and determination. As one of the radicals at the convention, Johnny Gomas proposed that mass protest meetings should be organised throughout the country. His proposal was unanimously accepted. In the face of the unprecedented unanimity, the rulers had to act. Instead of implementing the convention’s proposal, Seme and Jabavu walked into Prime Minister Hertzog’s trap at a meeting in 1936 as part of a delegation. Hertzog claimed that the two leaders had accepted concessions, although some of the delegation vehemently denied it. Perceived by many to be African acceptance of Hertzog’s Native Representative Council (NRC), many 'Blacks' regarded the ANC leadership as stooges. This Council later had indeed many resolutions passed, of which the government took no notice. The Council contact to the government had become what many scathingly called a ‘toy telephone.’ The ANC proper went ‘into hibernation until after the war’ (Musson, 1989:77), when the party was resuscitated by young radicals like Anton Lembede and Nelson Mandela. After the expulsion of James la Guma from the ANC, Johnny Gomas became the new advocate of the Black Republic slogan. The idea was that South Africa was to be governed by 'Blacks' in leadership positions. New Trade Union and Political Role Players Sam Kahn was a leader of the Communist Party and a lawyer who earned his LL.B degree at UCT in 1932. He organized several ‘Coloured’ trade unions and in 1935 was one of the organizers of the National Liberation League (NLL). He was popular with 'Blacks' and defended many clients of colour in the course of his legal career. A member of the Cape Town City Council from 1943 to 1952, he was elected to Parliament by the 'Blacks' of the Cape Western District in 1949. He was however expelled three years later on the grounds that he was a Communist. Reginald September, born in 1923 as the son of working class parents, joined the NLL in 1938. From factory work he moved into full-time trade unionism, organizing textile and distributive workers in the Mother City and Port Elizabeth in the 1940s. When ‘Coloureds’ were threatened with disfranchisement, he helped to organize the Franchise Action Council, serving as its secretary at the time of the protest strike of May 7, 1951. After spending two years abroad, Reginald September returned in 1953. He became one of the principal founders of the South African Peoples Organization (SACPO). From 1954 until 1961 he was the general secretary of SACPO. After being imprisoned in 1960 and 1961, he fled the country in 1963, after which he became the chief representative of the ANC for Western Europe. A Special District Six Trio Goolam and Jane Gool, along with Isaac Tabata, became involved in the establishment of a new body – the Spartacist Club out of which arose the Workers Party of South Africa (WPSA). The 'White' members of the WPSA were barred by their very skin colour from playing an active organisational role amongst the 'Black' population. This task fell mainly on the backs of the above trio but they would not be alone for long. The organisational thrust of the WPSA took place on two fronts. The first opportunity was presented by the introduction of the notorious Hertzog Bills in 1935, which brought new restrictions on access of the 'Black' population to the land, their total disenfranchisement and the creation of the dummy Native Representation Council (NRC). When people rallied to oppose these drastic new measures in an historic conference in 1935, Jane, IB Tabata and Goolam were present to campaign vigorously for the total rejection these new bills, a boycott of the NRC and the building of a national unity of the oppressed. Tabata has related that the very presence of Jane and Goolam brought about an intense debate on how this body was to be named. Thus, instead of being called the the All Native Convention it became the All African Convention (AAC). Deep-Seated Divisions Within the AAC In his enthusiasm for a united front for the oppressed, Gomas under-estimated the deep-seated divisions within the AAC. He, as the General Secretary of the AAC, was accused in April 1936 by Dr Pixley Seme, the ANC leader, of trying to turn the AAC into a ‘permanent national organization’, an effort to undermine the ANC. Gomas responded in typical fighting fashion: ‘…What is all important now is to harness the giant wave of enthusiasm for Unity and Action, created in its unanimous opposition to the Native Bills’. What made Johnny Gomas so exceptional was his conscious decision to step back so that new leaders could come through. This he did for instance in December 1937, to allow Moses Kotane to be delegated to the AAC conference, where Kotane became a rising star. He had already succeeded in getting Kotane elected as General Secretary. In similar vein, Gomas withdrew - after contesting one of the most bitterly fought municipal elections in Ward 7 (a part of District Six) - to prevent a split vote. The AAC was hereafter considerably weakened when the ANC disaffiliated. It was tragic that even after the elections of 1948, which led to the apartheid government - which was so catastrophic for the oppressed - the two groups still could not reunite. This only happened in 1983 with the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF). Gomas continued to make things happen. He and James la Guma had been at the cradle of yet another move of opposition to the 'White' rulers in 1935. In the preamble to the draft programme of the National Liberation League (NLL), which called ‘for Equality, Land and Freedom’, there was the gist of the pamphlet ‘The Emancipation of Slaves’, written by Johnny Gomas. The founding members of the District Six-based NLL included Gomas and the new rising stars of District Six, Alex La Guma and Cissie Gool. The latter two were children of two seasoned politicians. While waiting for the next conference of the AAC due in December 1937, Gomas concentrated on the activities of the NLL. He moved to 27 Stirling Street in District Six, from where he gave much support to Cissie Gool, the daughter of Dr Abdurahman. Opposition to Fascism and Anti-Semitism In 1933 Adolf Hitler was elected into office in Germany. Hitler made no secret of his intention to build an empire with his anti-Semitic ideology. South African Fascists found their way into Parliament via the Purified National Party, led by the Cape politician and former DRC clergyman Dr D.F. Malan, who later became the first NP Prime Minister. He announced publicly: ‘We are not race-haters, but anti-Semites. We shall follow the same course as Germany, Austria and Italy...’ (Cited in Berger, 1979:53). Dr Malan introduced to Parliament an outspoken anti-Semitic resolution, aiming at stopping the ‘influx’ of German Jewish refugees. Malan demanded that the Jews be kept segregated in order to protect the Afrikaner nation from foreign influence. Pro-Hitler demonstrations became fashionable, organised throughout South Africa already in 1934. Swastikas appeared on walls in different places. In the Koffiehuis next to the Groote Kerk the country’s largest fascist organization, the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement was founded in 1933 by a National Party parliamentarian. Cape Nazi's did not have it quite their own way. Malan's challenge to the House - that South Africa has a Jewish problem - received a firm rebuttal by Jan Hofmeyr, the Deputy Prime Minister, denouncing anti-Semitism as something hateful. ‘It is in conflict with the feelings of humanity, without which we cannot build up the soul of a nation’ (Cited in Berger, 1979:56). The minister of the Interior, Mr R. Stuttaford, characterised Dr Malan’s motion as unabashed racialism. An interesting development was the formation of various anti-Fascist organisations including the ‘Friends of the Soviet Union.’. Anti-semitism however did not fade out of South African public life in the late 1930s as Prime Minister Smuts apparently hoped. By September 1938 J. H. Hofmeyr, Minister of Education, Social Welfare and Mines, still described it as a ‘national menace’, addressing the inaugural meeting of the Society of Jews and Christians in the Zionist Hall, Hope Street in the centre of the Mother City. The New Era Fellowship The strongest opposition to Fascism and anti-Semitism came from a group of young UCT students who came together in 1938 to form the New Era Fellowship (NEF) - along with a few other intellectuals who were likewise influenced by the Trotzkyist variation of Communism. The movement which had its hub in District Six, reacted strongly against all the ‘ja baas’ men, who had links to the United Party of Jan Smuts and company, which they dubbed collaborators. William Peter van Schoor, a teacher who was born in Salt River in 1913 and who graduated through private studies, was the principal speaker at the inauguration of the New Era Fellowship. Johnny Gomas, James La Guma and a few other Marxists had much in common with the NEF rebels, but they detested their intellectual debates. Yet, in the NLL they found common ground in their abhorrence of Dr Abdurahman’s APO, who ‘steeped so low’ as to co-operate in the government ‘Commission of Enquiry Regarding the Cape Coloured Population’ - without even a single note of dissent. The recommendations of this commission laid the foundation of apartheid legislation like Group Areas for different races. Bennie Kies, a UCT alumnus, was part of this group of young, radical Cape Town intellectuals who questioned and challenged colonial authorities and made important contributions to social and political theory. He stood alongside a group of radical men and women who were also not household names in South Africa: Archie Mafeje, Kenny Jordaan, IB Tabata, Dora Taylor and Neville Alexander, to name a few. “But even in the midst of these people, Kies stood out,” said emeritus Professor Crain Soudien in a UCT summer school lecture. Cape Women Leading the Way The Cape indirectly played a role in the fight for voting rights for women globally. The wife of Saul Solomon, the giant parliamentarian who was tiny physically, got involved in this movement after their emigration to Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century. The worldwide feminist movement received a major push through a book by Olive Schreiner entitled Woman and Labour (1911). Olive Schreiner was so much of a pioneer of positive feminism that Vera Brittain referred to that book as the ‘Bible of the Woman’s Movement.’ Brittain saw this book as ‘insistent and inspiring as a trumpet-call summoning the faithful to a vital crusade’ (Cited by Hobman, 1954:2). At the Cape itself, the Non-European Women’s Suffrage League got underway as early as 1938 in District Six, with Ms Halima Ahmed as the leading light at a time when women were hardly found in politics anywhere in the world. She became better known as Halima Gool after she married Goolam Gool. In August 1938 she delivered the inaugural address of the Women’s Suffrage League in the Cosmopolitan Hall in Pontac Street, District Six. She became the first secretary of the national Anti-Coloured Affairs Department (CAD) movement in 1943. Even more famous was her sister-in-law, Zainunissa (Cissie) Gool, who became a respected (and sometimes hated), outspoken and controversial City Councillor for 24 years on behalf of the National Liberation League. Cissy Gool was someone with stature, one of the country’s first female persons obtaining a Master of Arts degree, but also someone who was critical of the APO policies of her father Dr Abdurahman. The League started a periodical, The Liberator, in 1937, which was hailed as being ‘part of a worldwide movement against imperialism’. In the municipal elections of September 1938, Cissie Gool unseated Mr Mc Callum, a member of the City Council. The two siblings of the prominent Gool family, Jane and her brother Goolam, attended lectures of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) when a young man from Transkei, Isaac Bangani Tabata, met with Goolam who introduced him to these discussions and debates. This naturally led on to his acquaintance with Jane, the beginning of a lifelong partnership and political collaboration. Cape women were also pioneering in the field of publication when a people’s history booklet on Claremont was produced by the United Women’s Organization as part of its campaign against the Group Areas removals. The New Era Fellowship A group of young UCT students came together in 1938 to form the New Era Fellowship (NEF) - along with a few other intellectuals who were likewise influenced by the Trotzkyist variation of Communism. The movement, which had its hub in District Six, reacted strongly against all the ‘ja baas’ men, those who had links to the United Party of Jan Smuts and company, whom they dubbed collaborators and quislings. The whole APO, including Dr Abdurahman as well as the Native Representative Council, was reckoned by the NEF to belong to this group, as well as the likes of Dr F. Gow and George Golding, who were in the eyes of many the arch collaborators. On Easter Monday 1938, the Non European Unity Front (NEUF) was started. It was officially launched in January 1939, with Cissy Gool as President and James La Guma as the organising secretary. Already on Easter Monday, 27 March 1939, twenty thousand people gathered on the Grand Parade for a rally of the NEUF, the biggest demonstration the Mother City had seen up to that moment. In a moving ceremony, Cissy Gool lit a torch which was passed on to the masses, who likewise had torches. The NLL anthem, which was written by James La Guma and Johnny Gomas, was sung as the crowd marched to Parliament, led by the Moravian Hill Brass Band. Dark folks arise, the long, long night is over… Dark folks are risen and the DAY is here. When James La Guma discerned that 'Whites' were usurping leadership in the NLL, he asked them to step down. This led to some infighting, resulting in the NLL becoming a spent force by the early 1940s, although Cissy Gool-Abdurahman was still a City Councillor on that ticket. The illustrious Cape female politician served in that capacity until her death in 1963. It is to the credit of Dr Malan was that he did not follow through on his intentions when he became Prime Minister in 1948. But that was after World War II when Hitler was merely a bad memory. In a very strange summersault, Malan became the first foreign statesman to visit the new state of Israel in 1953. With an obvious change of heart, he thereafter continued a policy of friendship towards the Jewish State. An Incubator of a New Culture The New Era Fellowship (NEF) was, in the words of Professor Crain Soudien, an incubator for “an incredible new culture” in Cape Town. It began as an initiative of the Workers Party of South Africa – of which Kies was a member – and evolved, with the help from the young Cape radical, into an “intense intellectual space of study”. Towards the end of the 1930s, NEF intellectuals assessed South Africa, concluding that they needed a political vehicle for formal organisation. The opportunity arose in the early 1940s when the United Party proposed a Coloured Advisory Council (CAC), like the Native (later “African”) Advisory Council that was established in the mid-1930s. The Native Advisory Council, of which the African National Congress was a part, and the CAC evoked a great deal of resistance in this NEF political community and like-minded people. They argued that these were essentially sites for legitimating the disenfranchisement of people of colour. Out of this resistance came Anti-CAD, which stimulated a great deal of political activity in Cape Town. 6. The Cradle of a Language A sad legacy of the Cape is that language groups were suppressed almost from its beginnings in combination with religious prejudice. It honours Afrikaners that from their ranks, Theo du Plessis dared to point out, through his research into the history of Afrikaans, that the monument for the start of the language should have been built in Bo-Kaap and not in Paarl. Dr Achmat Davids, a resident of Bo-Kaap, hereafter showed in his doctoral dissertation how Afrikaans was first written in Arabic script in Bo-Kaap. Forging of a Written Language Opposition to the policy of Anglicization has been recorded as early as the 1830s. Ds. Herold, who came to Stellenbosch from George, wrote a letter to the Colonial Secretary, stating that the Dutch parents were not prepared to send their children to a teacher incapable of conversing in the Dutch language. Yet, the language issue did not weigh that heavily yet. At the private school which was started by the Rhenish Mission society in Stellenbosch, German and English were used. Arnoldus Pannevis, a Dutch school teacher who came to the Mother City in 1866, noticed that the people at the Cape were speaking a language which was quite distinct from Dutch. He was driven by a passion to see the Bible translated into the language spoken by the people. However, he was met with derision for his idea to have the Bible translated into a patois, a kombuistaal.12 Pannevis’ plea with the British and Foreign Bible Society was flatly refused: ‘We are by no means inclined to perpetuate jargons by printing them.’ Ds. S. J. du Toit, one of his pupils, was joined by Casparus P. Hoogenhout in the founding of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners. The Jewish-background Ds. Jan Cachet later became one of the stalwarts in the fight for the formal recognition of Afrikaans. It is significant that this warrior - who was born and raised in Holland - encouraged Afrikaners to fight for the preservation of the language. He did this at a time when the Afrikaners were about to give up the fight for their language (Dekker, Afrikaanse Literatuurgeskiedenis, 1980:32). When they discovered that an Afrikaans Bible would be useful for 'Whites' as well, Pannevis’ idea suddenly was good enough to pursue. The Genootskap’s official organ, Die Patriot, written in Afrikaans, gave the fledgling language its decisive push. In 1889 Ds. S.J. du Toit made it his life’s work to translate the Bible. Because many South Africans opposed his political views, his Bible translations were unpopular. An important contribution to the movement for recognition was that of the Capetonian Melt Brink, who was born on the corner of Long and Strand Streets of the Mother City. Significant was that he had actually only had three years of formal schooling. A work of prose by Gustav Preller in 1906 about Piet Retief, the famous Voortrekker, seemed to give some new breath to the movement. With the death of Ds. S.J. du Toit in 1911 however, it seemed as if the momentum was lost, as if it as had run out of steam. The first Afrikaans translation of the Qur’an occurred at the Cape. Imam Mohammed Baker, who qualified as a teacher from Zonnebloem College in District Six, was responsible. After becoming principal of the Muslim Mission School in Simonstown, he started with the translation in 1956, completing it in 1961 (Mahida, 1993:80). The Idolising of the Language It is tragic that the Afrikaners made an idol out of the language, even building a monument for it in Paarl. In terms of spiritual ‘warfare’, it is not difficult to discern how easily satan could turn a worthy cause into idolatry,13 which is often linked to lies and deception. This was also the case with the monument in Paarl. The deletion of Nederduits from the name of the Dopperkerk, the Gereformeerde Kerk, signals the effort of an indigenization process, which was surely a healthy development. However, the way in which Ds. Jan Lion Cachet and his Cape colleague, Ds. S.J. Du Toit went about matters was not lovingly enough to prevent tensions with other Afrikaners. Du Toit and his compatriots like ‘Onze Jan’ Hofmeyr, who started the Afrikaner Bond in 1881, could not prevent an ugly racism and xenophobia being fostered. The germ of resentment - against verengelsing, i.e in opposition to British imperialism – provided the breeding ground for the Uitlander problem, fifty years after Somerset’s enforcement of English as the only official language. When Indians and East European Jews entered the country in numbers of consequence, the foreigners were seen as a problem, instead of regarding them as a blessing and a challenge for mutual enrichment. That should have been the biblically inspired reaction. The idolising of the language and the mythologizing of the Dutch-Voortrekker heritage - along with the British imperialist spirit, which had one of its most ardent proponents in Cecil John Rhodes - would ultimately combine to lead to war between the two main European language groups of the subcontinent at the end of the 19th century, the South African or Anglo-Boer War. 7. Leaders in Human Rights Propagation The Cape has been the cradle of the freedom of the press in South Africa with Ds. Abraham Faure, Thomas Pringle and John Fairbairn as the leading lights. Stellenbosch-born Ds. Abraham Faure, the Groote Kerk minister, who started a second Dutch Reformed congregation, the Nieuwe Kerk, ignited the flame in Pringle. Before attending Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Faure spent two years at the training school of the London Missionary Society (LMS), where he was strongly influenced to advocate the power of the printed word in Christian work. Thomas Pringle settled in the Mother city in 1822, working as a librarian. The time on the frontier sharpened Pringle’s sense of justice which led to his fight for the rights of the settlers, and still later to his appointment as secretary to Britain’s Anti-Slavery Society. At the Cape he initially seemed ‘obsessed with a comfortable life for himself and his wife’ (De Kock, 1982:34), on the surface ‘observant of authority to the point of obsequiousness’. It could never remain like that because as Wessel de Kock (1982:28) described the passion of the exceptional Scotsman: ‘…. He burned with a lifelong rebellion and outrage against injustice.’ In Dr Philip, the missionary fighter for justice towards the slaves and Khoi, he had a ready-made ally. The Struggle for the Freedom of the Press An interesting dynamic at this time was the tactics employed by the governor. Writing from Genadendal where he had to stay longer than intended when he fell ill there, Pringle wrote to John Fairbairn at the Cape that he was sending his letter by ‘other channels’ irregular means, encouraging him to do the same. The practice of tampering with mail, which became so common in the apartheid era, appears to have had a significant precedent. Thomas Pringle was one of the 1820 settlers, the country’s first poet in English. The brutality of life on the frontier where he initially settled with his wife, father and brothers in May 1920 did not blunt his sensitivities, which he encapsulated so well in his best known poem Afar in the Desert: …When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life, Wits scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife, And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly, Dispose me to musing, and dear melancholy… (The full poem is printed in De Kock, 1982:26). Thomas Pringle wrote to Abraham Faure and John Fairbairn separately more or less at the same time. He had no intention to anger the authorities. He and Faure hereafter decided to initiate a paper without delay, agreeing to exclude political or controversial matters. The importance of the role of Ds. Abraham Faure at this time in the struggle for the freedom of the press has by and large not been recognised sufficiently, albeit that André Olivier (Bode op die Spoor van die Woord, 150 jaar met Die Kerkbode, 1998:11) mentions that Faure was hailed in the Afrikaans language as ‘die vader van die kerklike joernalistiek’ (the father of the church journalism) and even ‘die vader van die Suid-Afrikaanse literatuur’ (the father of the South African literature). Not even two years after his return to Cape Town Faure (in Dutch) and Pringle started editing the unique parallel bilingual periodical 'Het Nederduitsch Zuid-Afrikaansch Tijdschrift' and The South African Journal. Together with the British journalists Thomas Pringle and John Fairbairn, Abraham Faure fought for the freedom of the press, but whereas Pringle's South African Journal merely appeared twice, Faure persevered with his paper for 20 years. In Pringle’s letter to Fairbairn it was all about making money. With only the Government printing-office’s Cape Gazettte and Cape Calendar available to colonists, ‘we would have all the profits in our own hands’ (De Kock, 1982:38). Fairbairn was enthusiastic, dreaming already of becoming the Benjamin Franklin of the Cape in respect to the Freedom of the press. As the sole owner of The South African.Commercial Advertiser, John Fairbairn became a national figure and heralded as ‘the Father of the South African Press’, labouring for many reforms through his paper. Aided by Dr Philip, Thomas Pringle and his friends ultimately won their struggle for the freedom of the press against Lord Charles Somerset, the governor. Joseph Suasso de Lima, a Jew who came to the Cape in 1816, wrote profusely in different genres, including poetry. From his hand appeared the first manual of Cape history published at the Cape, Geschiedenis van de Kaap de Goede Hoop in 1825. About the same time as John Fairbairn, De Lima started De Versamelaar, a weekly paper.14 Yet, for the first time in the history of South Africa, the public could voice its opinion within certain limits on all matters of public concern. The weekly newspaper, the South African.Commercial Advertiser – printed in Cape Town - was however not only a blessing. A colonist abused the new medium to air his personal grudges against his neighbours, the missionaries of Genadendal. Writing under the pseudonym of Rusticus in the Advertiser of 12 August 1826 (Krüger, 1966:162), the colonist asserted that the missionaries enriched themselves by exploiting the poor Khoikhoi. The Moravian mission leader Peter Hallbeck reacted with a long letter, pointing out that the work was not generating profit, but was supported by subsidies from overseas. This was followed by another polemical reaction from Rusticus. Written Protest by People of Colour Possibly the first known written protest by an indigenous African happened at the Cape. This was made possible through the existence of a library in the Mother City, in combination with the foresight of the Moravian missionaries in Genadendal. The Cape of Good Hope Literary Gazette of the 1830s records ‘the best country library, perhaps, that may be in the colony’ (Cited in Balie, 1988:54), with a section apiece with German, English and Dutch books. A direct result of the library and the desire for learning was that the inhabitants of Genadendal picked up that they had civil rights. In The Cape Standard it was argued that the missionaries exploited the inhabitants. In August 1850 one of the Genadendal inhabitants, Titus Vergele, wrote from the Mother City in a beautiful handwriting15 that he had done some research in the City Library. Vergele came to the conclusion that the mission station belonged to the Khoikhoi. He requested his friend Johannes Jass to call the inhabitants together so that they could stand up for their rights. On 19 September of that year a four man delegation from Genadendal went to Cape Town with a memorandum to the Department of the Interior, complaining that the Mission is not prepared to protect them against the neighbouring farmers who wanted to take their property once again. The same year the missionaries wrote to Sir Harry Smith, the governor, requesting that the authorities should inquire into legislation to protect the inhabitants. This was probably one of the first instances in the country where the indigenous population started their own protest in the form of a memorandum. This resulted in a commission of inquiry in 1851. A proposal was made that the mission station should be given only in trust to the Superintendent of the Moravian church. This happened indeed on 15 February, 1858. Henry and Saul Solomon became apprentices in the printing trade. Saul joined George Grieg and Co., booksellers and printers. The two Solomon brothers worked together in a printing firm in which Saul became a partner. They took over the firm which became known as Saul Solomon and Company, succeeding in getting the contract for the printing of the Government Gazette in 1841. In 1857 they became the printers of the The Cape Argus, which they took over in 1863. The Start of the Cape Dailies At the age of 38 Cecil John Rhodes already wielded immense power. He was by then the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and a mine magnet with many shares, and a leader in the gold and diamond fields. Frederick St. Leger, the Anglican clergyman who started the Cape Times - the new Cape Town morning paper in 1876 - was at first sceptical at the possible clash of interests. Thus the Cape Times said on 18 July 1890: ‘whatever success Rhodes had attained was due to in the first place to honourable and courageous enterprise’, but warned that circumstances could arise where the colony and the British South Africa Company could be at variance in matters of detail. The independent St. Leger had been editor of the short-lived Daily News, refusing to write a leading article according to instructions. The Cape Times was the first daily in the country (Other papers established before 1976 like the Cape Argus and the Natal Witness were started as weeklies or bi-weeklies and became dailies after the Cape Times was well established.) Before long, St. Leger was vindicated with regard to these reservations. Rhodes compounded his conflicts of interest in the folly of the Jameson Raid. It is tragic that Rhodes indeed tried to buy influence. The upright Saul Solomon had hardly given up the control of the Cape Argus, when Rhodes put up the money for Francis Dormer to buy the paper (Shaw, 1975:17). Basil Williams, one of Rhodes’s biographers, suggested that the deal was intended to make sure of a paper that would always print his speeches and ‘… at the same time assuring the editor would never attempt to interfere with the opinions expressed in its columns.’ (Shaw,??). From its inception, St. Leger modelled the Cape Times on The Times of London. He scorned following its thrice-weekly competitor, the Standard and Mail, in featuring gossip and scandals, which he denounced as ‘the literature of the gutter’ (Shaw, 1999:2). St. Leger’s successor, Edmund Garrett, continued the lofty ideals of journalistic excellence and political independence. Revolted by the gross manifestations of racial prejudice, he lashed out against the brutal violence against 'Blacks' which he encountered at the Cape. Both St. and Leger Garratt insisted on high standards in public administration in local or central government. It was the Cape Times which exposed the Logan scandal, when Rhodes fraudulently gave a railway contract to a friend, Mr J.D. Logan. Room For Liberal Critical Views Over the years the columns of the Cape Times gave ample room for liberal views. Thus Leonard Barnes contributed a frank and outspoken series of articles on the subject of racial prejudice. For a newspaper circulating mainly in the 'White' community and operating in a colonial context, the Cape Times was quite radical, giving significant space to 'Black' viewpoints, like Dr D D.T. Jabavu declaring that Hertzog’s policies were based on ‘brute power of conquest and armed intimidation, maintaining white domination by brute force’ (Cited in Shaw, 1999:41). Already in 1930, when other newspapers expediently remained silent about rising racial tensions, the Cape Times dared to report fully how a riot developed when an angry crowd of thousands of ‘native and coloured’ demonstrators tried to march to parliament to protest against the restrictive terms of Oswald Pirow’s Riotous Assemblies Amendment Bill. The crowd demanded an interview with Pirow, the Minister of Justice. A few years later the esteemed Cape Times however possibly got to its lowest journalistic point when its editor blew into the horn of xenophobia in his attitude to Jewish immigration. Since 1921 the Cape Times was a ‘vigorous proponent of steps to control immigration from certain countries by means of a quota’ (Shaw, 1999:63). In the run-up to World War II the sister newspaper The Cape Argus got into the hot seat when its editor Dominic McCausland got not only increasingly sceptical of the diplomacy of Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime minister, but he also dared to criticise Britain’s appeasement of the two dictators, Hitler and Mussolini. Having studied Hitler’s Mein Kampf, he had no illusions about the evil intentions of the German chancellor. A critical leading article of McCausland was published in the Daily Telegraph of London just at the time when the chairman of the Argus board, John Martin, was there. He cabled the Argus management and as a result McCausland was given the option of resigning with a year’s salary or dismissal with six months’ payment. McCausland resigned. Resistance to Self-censorship McCausland’s removal caused a lot of upheaval for the Cape Argus, ‘more odium than anything else in its history’ (Shaw, 1999:116). But also other newspapers in South Africa started targeting the dictators Hitler and Mussolini. The German regime protested, demanding from the South African government to compel newspapers to abstain from negative comments on the Nazi regime. Called in by Prime Minister Hertzog for his views on a Bill he wanted to introduce to debar South African newspapers from commenting in an unfriendly way upon the affairs of a foreign country, George Wilson, editor of the Cape Times, predicted a storm of indignation, suggesting even that the government might split because of such a move. Herzog went ahead with the proposed bill, giving Wilson a draft copy of the censorship Bill a few weeks later. George Wilson convened a meeting with other Cape newspaper editors including A.L. Geyer of Die Burger, the Afrikaans morning daily. They agreed to stand together in opposition to the Bill. As it happened, Winston Churchill, the leader of the opposition in the British House of Commons, predicted there that the Czechs would be swallowed up in the Nazi regime. President Roosevelt denounced Hitler in the US congress in the most scathing terms. Hertzog’s draft bill would have made it impossible for any South African newspaper to publish such remarks. By March 1939 Hitler was in Prague, thus vindicating Dominic McCausland and Winston Churchill By mid May 1939, however, Hertzog seemed to be having second thoughts, coming up with a suggestion which was to be rehashed in the apartheid days by Mr P.W Botha. Hertzog suggested that the newspapers should voluntarily agree to put restrictions upon their comments on foreign affairs or else he would be compelled to proceed with the legislation. In June 1939 a representative congress of newspapers was called, in which the South African press vowed to resist by all means at their disposal any attempt at restrictions by the government. George Wilson was elected as chairman of the Society of Editors. The creation of a society to defend the freedom of the press of course presented an awesome challenge to Hertzog and his government. In 1960 the issue of censorship surfaced once again. The same day of the big march from Langa on 30 March 1960 a state of emergency was called by the government, giving them sweeping powers to detain people without trial and to close down newspapers which offended by publishing ‘subversive’ material. This was defined so widely that it would include almost any reporting of 'Black' political protest or incidents of violence. Morris Broughton, the editor of the Cape Argus, bravely went ahead to publish the names of the first batch arrested under the emergency powers given to the government. The Cape Argus also dared to publish in a front-page report how a baby was shot dead on its mother’s back at Nyanga. An Anglican priest, Father Stanley Qabasi, who phoned through the information, had all the church bells in the township ringing out in protest (Shaw, 1999:165). The mother, Beatrice, had been trying to pass through an army cordon round the township to take her sick baby to the Red Cross Children’s hospital for treatment. A personal link to the Argus of a township community worker, Rommel Roberts and his wife Celeste, a former Roman Catholic nun, kept the Cape evening paper in the thick of things in the saga around Modderdam in the late 1970s, the ramifications of the strike of the Fatti’s and Moni’s strike and the school boycotts of the early 1980s. They also made sure that the public got to know what happened with the ‘squatters’ in Crossroads, and KTC in 1981. When Celeste was arrested in June 1981, after posting herself in front of a bus that was about to take 'Black' ‘illegal’ women to the Transkei, Swiss radio reported the matter the same day, forcing the embarrassed government to release her the same evening. Their involvement brought international media attention into the matter, which probably prevented another massacre after the same women returned a few days later, financially assisted by the SACC where Bishop Tutu was the secretary-general. Industrial Strikes of the Late 1970s and Early 1980s The gold-driven economic recovery of the late 1970s and early 1980s caused the revival of ex-South African Congress of Trade Union affiliates in the Western Cape. But they declined to apply for registration under the government’s new labour dispensation. In April 1979, 78 workers went on strike at the Fatti’s and Moni’s pasta factory in Bellville South after 10 workers had been dismissed for refusing to resign from the African Food and Canning Workers’ Union. Many people throughout the Cape Flats supported a seven-month boycott of Fatti’s and Moni’s products. Two more ‘communal’ campaigns in 1980 heightened the public awareness when the red meat boycott and one against fare increases received the active backing of high school students. Public donations to workers helped force Table Bay Cold Storage into allowing them to belong to the Western Cape General Workers’s Union, after a struggle lasting from May to August. Learners became involved in new conflicts of their own, using school premises to print pamphlets.. These began at much the same time in African and ‘Coloured’ schools, but over different problems. ‘Coloured’ pupils of Hanover Park and Parkwood Estate deplored the dreadful state of their schools, as well as the shortage of stationary and those of Fezeka Senior Secondary School complained about the expense of uniforms and the shortage of textbooks. The phenomenal speed with which the boycotts spread around the country was exceptional. On February 12, 1980 the school boycott started at Mount View High School in Hanover Park and two days later the 'Black' school of Nyanga, Fezeka Senior Secondary School, joined in the fun. The success of the boycotts in getting the inept principals of Mount View and Crystal in Hanover Park removed - they were known to be government-friendly appointees – encouraged a school on the Reef a month later to demand the dismissal of Cabinet Minister Marais Steyn. Another facet was that the boycotts straddled the racial and religious divide, thus preparing the way for the UDF, which was to start three years later. School and Bus Boycotts Influence the Cape Scene In the school boycotts of the Cape in 1980-81, Muslim youngsters worked side by side with Christian students, some of whom had been influenced by Dr Allan Boesak. He had radiated some evangelical flair before leaving for studies in Holland in the 1970s. An upsurge of interest in Islam among 'Blacks' followed the apartheid repression of the late 1970s. Bishop Tutu’s lead as secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) had an evangelical touch when biblical compassion shone through for the victims of apartheid evictions and the like. The care for the families of political prisoners especially had his loving concern. Accommodation was provided by the SACC in the Anglican church-related Cowley House in District Six for relatives who were visiting prisoners on Robben Island. To this end Moira Henderson had the charge of the Western Cape Dependants' Conference. She worked closely with the stalwart politician Helen suzman, who described her in her autobiography In no Uncertain Terms (p.221) as 'my friend. The SACC also provided transport to and from the ferry going to the island. In 1981 Bishop Tutu went into a retreat with prayer and fasting, a practice that was definitely not typical for the SACC at that time. Church Defiance of Apartheid The plight and determination of the women KTC, Nyanga and Crossroads probably played a role in another sense. Churches now started to take a clearer stand in opposition to apartheid laws Rev. Rob Robertson and our friend Douglas Bax played a crucial role in the political stand of the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa as a denomination. Already in 1970 Rob Robertson moved that its General Assembly take up the study of non-violent means of social change. This fell into abeyance until 1980-1981, when the convener of the Church and Nation Committee asked him to write a full report with proposals for the Assembly. As a result the Assembly in September 1981adopted the first official resolutions of a Church body in South Africa to implement civil disobedience against apartheid. Rob Robertson included other radical proposals, particularly that people be encouraged to exercise interracial con­tact and fellowship and refuse to apply for permits to visit each other’s homes and that the Assembly itself in future refuse to apply for the permits its commissioners required to meet in Group Areas other than their own. For various reasons these proposals were defeated, but at least the other proposals were adopted.16 The next day newspaper posters lined the Johannesburg streets with massive black letters: CHURCH TO DEFY MARRIAGE LAW. In the event a few Presbyterian ministers married a number of racially mixed couples. The marriages were registered in a register kept in the central office of the PCSA. When other Churches also supported the Assembly's decision on the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, this sparked a political debate that even­tually led in 1985 to the abolition of this keystone of apartheid legislation and with it the notorious section 16 of the Immorality Act which prohibited sexual intercourse between 'Whites' and any other race. It is so good to know that we could have contributed in a small way some seeds towards the repeal of these laws as well as the one against influx control that prohibited 'Black' women to be with their husbands in the cities of South Africa. It gave me great satisfaction that church involvement increased also in other parts of the country. Thus Patrick Nooman, a Catholic priest, reported how 'informal and illegal political meetings were taking place in homes and churches across the Vaal.' This became the run-up to the smouldering human rage that exploded in a cluster of townships south of Johannesburg on Monday, 3 September 1984. At least seventy men, women and children died during the violence that spread across those five townships. That ultimately led to the trial of the Sharpeville Six, young men between 24 and 32 years old, which was destined to get known around the world. Church Defiance of Apartheid, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr. Allan Boesak, would ultimastely lead to a big conference in Rustenberg in Nov ember 1990, which was a major catalyst of change in the country at large. A Revolution in the South African Press The period 1976 to 1990, ‘more than any other in the press’s history, ushered in an array of challenges to the survival of newspapers that led to extensive adaptation by managers, editors, and journalists’ (Jackson, 1993:6). The 'White'-owned weekly ‘The Cape Herald’ carried the banner of resistance in a subdued way but Grassroots, a community newspaper of the 1970s with a circulation of up to 40,000, pulled no punches. The paper ‘developed from the premise that community issues were central to its raison d’etre’ (reason for existence) From the outset community organizations were involved in the Grassroots project (P Eric Louw cited in Jackson, 1993:51). This Cape-based community newspaper ushered in the so-called alternative press. Grassroots had the advantage of operating predominantly within the area of the fairly liberal Cape Town City Council where there was still some semblance of fair play. Thus one of the early articles could boast under the caption ‘Afdakkies to stay’ how ‘the people’ had forced the City Council to ‘give in to the demand that residents be allowed to build corrugated iron extensions on their houses’(Van Kessel, 2000:224). Following the Cape example, the alternative pressed mushroomed. Cape Times editor Anthony Heard wrote in 1987 that there were ‘200 or more’ alternative papers (Jackson, 1993:48). The hallmark of these papers was that they wrote ‘from a position irrevocably committed to the struggle against apartheid (Mansoor Jaffer quoted by Jackson, 1993:51). A proposal for the launch of South, stated this connection: ‘To launch a weekly newspaper to articulate the needs and aspirations of the oppressed and exploited in the Cape and in so doing serve the interests of the working class people’ (Cited in Jackson, 1993:54).These publications remained a ‘people’s press’ and were hence participants in a two-way process. The Cape Herald was not much more than a tabloid weekly at the beginning of this period, but with Richard van der Ross at the helm, who was later to become the first University of the Western Cape (UWC) rector from the ‘Coloured’ community, a critical contribution was definitely forthcoming. South was a newspaper that fulfilled a similar role during the few years it existed from the late 1980s. It was fitting that Moegsien Williams, a son of the nearby Bo-Kaap - just up the road from the offices of the traditional mainstream City dailies - who edited South from 1988 to 1991 - was to become the first man of colour to edit the Cape Times. Grassroots Dynamics We suggested earlier that Soweto impregnated the New South Africa. I would like to assert that the Cape community newspaper Grassroots provided dynamics, which could be either called the signs of pregnancy, the travail of labour or the early birth pangs of the New South Africa. A perennial problem, viz. the gulf between Africans and Cape ‘Coloureds’, Grassroots failed to address successfully. Its Oudtshoorn emulation Saamstaan faired much better published monthly in Afrikaans, English and Xhosa. But perhaps exactly because of this, Saamstaan experienced more hostility than any other alternative paper. The paper and its staff were in constant trouble with the police Furthermore, the newspaper widened the gap between the young people and their parents. The older generation understandably had little comprehension for their youngsters, perceiving that they would just boycott the hard-earned saving away with slogans like ‘freedom now, education later.’ On the long run, the boycott generation would impact education in the schools of the disadvantaged very negatively. That does not even consider the spiralling of teenage pregnancies and increase of substance abuse among high school students that took off in the late 1980s. The 'boycott mentality', which easily gravitated towards destructive means when their goals were not quickly reached, still plagues our society. On the other hand, the hard-handed brutality of the police made martyrs of the youngsters. Funerals of victims became rallying points, which brought the ANC back into the frame as leaders of the UDF – which was propagated by Grassroots – openly called for the release of political prisoners like Nelson Mandela and the return of exiles like Oliver Tambo. In fact, one can say that Grassroots prepared the way for Tony Heard, the editor of the Cape Times to interview the exiled ANC leader in London in October 1986. That interview in turn ‘cleared the way for the rehabilitation of the the ANC leadership in the mainstream media’ (Van Kessel, 2000:279). On the other hand, it cost Tony Heard when he was sacked a few months later on spurious grounds. When the police desecrated the Park Road mosque in Wynberg in November 1985 by going there literally ‘boots and all’ – not taking off their boots at the entrance - this was for many a Muslim the last straw! The negative feelings of the older generation towards the UDF dissipated with every indiscreet police action. Even though the community newspaper became increasingly irrelevant, it played an important role in bringing ‘Coloured’ and 'Black' youth together. The Cape Youth Congress along with the United Women’s Congress effectively managed to set up racially integrated organizations. Reform and Innovation Cape newspapers were not lagging in reform and innovation. In 1978 the Cape Times became ‘the first daily newspaper in the southern hemisphere to take the giant leap into the electronic age’ (Shaw, 1999:284), just after the New York Times had done the same. Under the chairmanship of Dr Tony O’Reilly, the Independent Group became the new owners of the Cape Times in 1996, its 120th year of publication. Moegsien Williams, who became editor of the Cape Times in that year, pioneered a new approach to news-gathering, giving reporters time to explore and place the news in context. Thus crime was no longer covered as an endless string of unrelated incidents, but as a community issue requiring context and initiative. 8. A Special Slum Area At the time of the emancipation the slaves were still rejected at the first churches, but in Onderkaap (the later District Six), racially mixed congregations developed. The Methodists had a congregation in Sydney Street as early as 1837, with 200 'Whites' and 150 ‘Coloureds’ on its roll in 1854 and even the Dreyerkerk of the Dutch Reformed Church in Hanover Street appears to have had poor 'Whites' as regulars. At the St. Mark’s Church, even prominent 'Whites' continued to attend in the apartheid era. The vibrant slum area on the one side the Central Business district of the Mother City formed a socio-economic unit with Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock until the implementation of Group Areas legislation in the 1970s. It is interesting to note that the part of the city, from where Islam and many church denominations launched out to the rest of the Cape Peninsula, was also the residential area where Judaism became firmly established after the influx of East European Jews at the turn of the 20th century. Mission churches from all over Europe and North America had congregations in the area. The few hectares of District Six were more cosmopolitan in the first decades of the 20th century than any other part of the African continent. Cross-Cultural Mixing This geographical area was the launching pad for a whole spectrum of diverse socio-cultural practices and dynamics, from indigenous church planting to vice like prostitution and gangsterism, from Panafrican notions, Garveyism (Africa for the Africans) and anti-segregation politics to that of adaptation and compliant ja-baas opportunism. Two figures were instrumental in the spreading of the 1920s version of Garveyism at the Cape.17 One was S.M. Bennett Ncwana, who started the paper The Black Man in 1920. The second was ‘Professor’ James Thaele, who was described by the South African police as ‘intensely anti-white in sentiment’, stating openly that he did not trust or wish to associate with any 'White' man (Sparks, 1990,:254). As president of the Cape branch of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the forerunner of the ANC, Thaele infused symbols and rituals of Garveyism into the organization. Already in 1918 a mass meeting had rejected the principle of segregation. Bitterness was expressed more vigorously in 1923 when the Urban Areas Bill came before Parliament. Selope Thema of the SANNC told Jan Smuts, the Prime Minister, in Cape Town: ‘We have a share and a claim to this country. Not only is it the land of our ancestors, but we have contributed to the progress and advancement of this country … we have built this city’ (Cited in Bickford-Smith et al, 1999:90). A local version of Black Consciousness was developed by Johnny Gomas in District Six. Long before homosexuality came into prominence, ‘moffies’ were already parading in the coon troops. Occult Islamic-related ‘fafie’, tokolosh and doekoems belonged as much to the area as ‘Christian’ shebeens. Jewish synagogues, many churches and a few mosques operated harmoniously in close proximity to each other. District Six was the home of the Eoan Group, that was started in the 1930s. ‘On my programme, as I sat planning, I wrote “Eos”, the beautiful Greek word meaning “dawn” – Eos … Eoan … pertaining to the dawn. And so I named the new group Eoan, in the consciousness that through its illumination the Coloured people could realise the dawning of a new cultural expansion in themselves, and a new understanding of well-being, physical and mental, for their race.’ With these words, Helen Southern-Holt, a British immigrant, described the beginnings of a small cultural and welfare organisation for the Coloured community in District Six in Cape Town. Situated near to the city business district, District Six was a multi-cultural neighbourhood until 1968, when coloured and 'Black' people were forcibly moved to other settlements outside the city centre as the Apartheid laws regarding the Group Areas Act stipulated. The Eoan Group, founded in 1933 by Southern-Holt, was to become South Africa’s first grassroots opera, dance and theater company. Under the guidance of Joseph Manca, their Jewish music director, the group performed opera’s of international standard in the City Hall in due course. Very few South Africans got to know that Johaar Mosaval, the solo dancer in Gloriana, an opera specially composed by Benjamin Britten in 1952 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, was born at 1 Little Lesar Street, District Six.18 Historiography With Significant Impact Special tribute must be given to Professor J. Du Plessis, who wrote the standard biography of Andrew Murray in 1919. He wrote an even more influential scholarly book in 1911: A History of Christian Missions in South Africa. In the latter work he quotes Bishop Hartzell at the beginning of the 20th century: ‘Yesterday (South) Africa was the continent of history, of mystery, of tragedy, to-day it is the continent of opportunity.’ A proliferation of missionary work saw 2000 missionaries in Southern Africa by 1910. However, the multiplication of missionary agencies had however brought serious evils in its train. Du Plessis pinpointed overlapping and its resultant laxity of discipline, ‘without the suggestion of a remedy.’ Christian Ziervogel, a little known self-educated evangelical Coloured man who had to leave school in the fourth grade, wrote a booklet in 1938 which he titled Brown South Africa. Ziervogel stated prophetically: ‘The eyes of the world are on South Africa, and her place among the nations will be determined largely by the measure of wisdom which is brought to bear upon the adjustment and solution of her problems.’ This voice of profound wisdom was however overheard or ignored. Was it because he was only the caretaker cum librarian of the Hyman Liberman Institute or was it because he belonged to the group called non-'White'? Or was the booklet too unknown? Perhaps all three reasons applied. Yet, he was called professor by fellow District Six Capetonians, who recognized his vast knowledge, which he picked up from second-hand books that he had bought on the Grand Parade. There he was preaching regularly, part of a rich tradition of evangelists who knew the Bible well, but who had little formal schooling. As one of the fifteen group of Jimmy La Guma and the core group of the New Era Fellowship, the studious Ziervogel probably influenced Isaac Tabata, Cissy Gool and others. That his booklet has hardly been quoted or included in bibliographies indicates that very few scholars knew about it. University of Witwatersrand professor W.M. Macmillan had much more success with his book called The Cape Colour Question in 1927. In that book, which was based on documents from Dr John Philip, the visionary clergyman was vindicated to a great extent. It depicted how the LMS missionary was ‘conspicuously free from the persistent thought that makes an abstraction of colour, and treats South African African history as the story of the fortunes only of its European pioneers’ The balanced work prophetically saw not only the advent of continental political independence on the horizon, but Macmillan also warned against the growing trend of Africans and men of colour to make ‘separatism their own weapon, and to turn it against those from whom they learned it.’ Macmillan furthermore suggested in the foreword quite radically – so valid even for our day and age – that in ‘new Africa… freedom without compromise should be the touchstone of policy.’ De Kiewiet, one of Macmillan’s students, wrote in the foreword to the 1968 reprint of the classic study: ‘The Cape Colour Question has risen out of its obscurity to become the world colour Question.’ Professor Macmillan hoped that his findings would establish the need for a radical new interpretation of generally undisputed facts. This was taken up by e.g. de Kiewiet. Later historians like Isaac Tabata discerned that Macmillan was much too simplistic in his dualism, to associate the Cape Colony and the Boer Republics respectively with the ‘road of freedom’ and the ‘avenue of repression.’ Yet Macmillan’s work was the foundation on which Afrikaner historians could build, so that Van Jaarsveld could write about G.D. Scholtz, a colleague in 1961, with words which could have been said about himself as well: ‘a prophet of repentance whose mission is to bring this changed world to the Afrikaner’s notice.’ Van Jaarsveld suffered the fate of a prophet who is not honoured on home soil, when he was feathered and tarred by AWB right-wing radicals in 1979. The scholar committed sacrilege in their eyes, when he dared to touch one of the Afrikaner holy cows, the Day of the Covenant. Van Jaarsveld would have the last laugh when the public holiday was renamed to Day of Reconciliation in 1995. Books Surfacing From The 'Underground' Two books, plus essays which had their base at the Cape, made a big impact only in the 1980s when they were reprinted. The Unity Movement History Series published books and reprinted essays which were written in the 1950s and banned by the government as a rule. Two books by 'White' Trotskyites, Dora Taylor and Hosea Jaffe - who wrote The role of the Missionary in Conquest and Three hundred Years under the respective pseudonyms of Nosipho Majeke and Mnguni - were brought in the late 1980s by students of UCT and UWC, who provided ‘history from below’ out of the 'underground'. The early 1980s had already seen a sharp increase of oral and ‘alternative history’ (to those in the school text books), especially on commemorative days like Sharpeville (21 March) and Soweto (16 June). In fact, these commemorations almost forced the hand of the new government of 1994 to declare these days as public holidays. In later years the 'White'-owned weekly ‘The Cape Herald’ carried the banner of resistance in a subdued way but Grassroots, a community newspaper of the 1970s with a circulation of up to 40,000, pulled no punches. The latter community publication had a junior counterpart for schools, Learning Roots, which reached a wide reading audience. Three hundred Years deviated clearly from traditional history in the school books with terms and phrases like ‘Anti-Xhosa War’ and ‘The Rape of Africa’. Understandably the governments of the 1950s and 1960s were very uncomfortable with publications like these. Much more innocent literature was banned. The analysis of especially Hosea Jaffe was accurate, but unpalatable for many because of its Marxist overtones. He argued strongly why the understanding of the history of South Africa can be summarized with one word, LAND. With that he meant the robbing of the land of the indigenous population. He erred marginally when he suggested that racial prejudice started after the first war at the Cape, i.e. after 1667. It is quite well known that a visiting dominee from Holland used racial prejudice to stop the baptism of the infant of a slave woman in March, 1666. The Christian will have to agree that the missionaries have indeed been abused by the colonial powers not only to subject the people groups, but also to rob them of their land. In The role of the Missionary in Conquest Nosipho Majeke however went overboard suggesting that the ‘common aim’ of all missionaries was ‘the confiscation of the land and the establishment of White supremacy.’ Even though land grabbing in connection with the battles against the Khoikhoi has to be conceded and confessed without any ado, ‘the slaughtering of the Bushmen’ - a statement of the journalist Thomas Pringle, who arrived with the 1820 British Settlers - has to be qualified. In his report of his visits to the indigenous groups in 1808 and 1809, Colonel Collins – who was apparently quite unbiased, did point out that commandoes were ‘directed against the body of that people instead of against the individuals who were guilty’. He also observed the anxiety of the farmers of the north-eastern districts ‘to preserve peace with that people rather by conciliation than terror.’ The farmers furthermore used opportunities ‘to induce these people to reside among them.’ Majeke’s work is relatively one-sided. One gets the feeling that she had an axe to grind with the church and/or missionaries. Concentrating on the Eastern Frontier, she does not recognize how e.g. the Moravian missionaries helped the Khoisan of Genadendal and in other places to retain land which would otherwise also have been taken away by the colonists. Also the book was not considering sufficiently how British imperialism was intertwined with the condescending idea, that we have to concede, that the missionaries had to help ‘civilize’ the ‘primitive’ peoples of Africa. At that stage nobody in Europe thought that they could learn something like communal values and conflict resolution from Africans. 19Rightly however, the authoress discerned the need to ‘prick the bubble of all the racial myths of White superiority and Black inferiority.’ Coming from Britain herself, her summary of British complicity in the robbing of the land and the subjugation of the indigenous is extremely honest (p.8): ‘the rapacity of the Dutch for land and labour never equalled in efficiency the systematic subjugation carried out by the British… It was the British who carried to a fine art the policy of “divide and rule”.’ Opposition to Segregation in District Six Much of the opposition to segregation in political activity amongst people of colour in South Africa started in District Six. A popular newspaper of resistance, The Torch, had its offices in Central Hanover Street. In nearby Barrack Street, The Guardian and New Age the last variations of the paper were located, until the newspapers were banned one after the other. International Printers in Van der Leur Street gave valuable assistance. The AAC had its national headquarters in Harrington Street. Surely not without merit, Richard Dudley (in Jeppie/Soudien, 1990:200) demonstrated how the bubbling former ‘slum area’ functioned as the cradle of ‘a national solution for all of South Africa and the structures and ideas upon which a truly national liberation movement came to be based.’ Along similar lines, the Freedom Charter of the ANC was nothing but an imitation in many respects of the Ten Point Plan’of the Unity Movement. If one considers the similarity between the Freedom Charter and the People’s Charter of June 1948, they do indeed display great similarity.20 The 322 delegates at the latter occasion, which was by far not so well-known as the big event of Kliptown 1955, demanded the right ‘to stand for, vote for and be elected to all the representative bodies which rule our people.’ Apartheid legislation would oppose the Ten Point Plan vehemently. The new National Party government of 1948, with Prime Minister Hans Strydom of ‘baasskap’ fame at the helm, soon hereafter reacted with initiatives to end representation of 'Blacks' in Parliament and the removal of the ‘Coloureds’ from the common voters’ roll of the Cape Province. Yet, the NEUM was still critical of the Charterist movement, because the latter group accepted multi-racialism. Isaac Tabata, a rising star in the NEUM, saw this as political opportunism, which he described as ‘the canker that has claimed the greatest toll of all our organizations…’ The AAC, of which the NEUM was a key affiliate, declared in 1944 the policy of the rejection of trusteeship and asserted the claim to full equality. The concept was a giant leap for all people who had been conditioned to feel themselves less equal. Non-racialism and non-collaboration were the key NEUM words, accompanied by fierce and uncompromising rejection of every trace of race or ethnicity.21 In this sense it was quite futuristic but not pragmatic enough to catch the imagination of the masses. The Cape resistance nevertheless bore the brunt of government repression when many of their leaders were discriminated against, dismissed or posted to country schools. Quite a few of them were banned. A weakness of the NEUM was that they never shed the image of being an upper class ‘Coloured’ clique. Apart from a short period of defiance in 1952 at the occasion of the celebrations to commemorate the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck, they do not seem to have achieved any success in mobilizing the masses. Collaboration Politics It is sad that District Six also seems to have been the birth place of ‘Coloured’ collaboration politics. George Golding, who became the principal of Ashley Street Higher Primary School, was the best early example. (Before him however, N. R. Veldsman, who had been appointed inspector of ‘Coloured’ labour at the docks, seems to have been quite happy to be the state lackey ensuring that ‘Coloured’ men – and not 'Blacks' – were employed there.) He was wary of Dr Abdurahman’s policies, which he deemed to be too radical. In the 1930s George Goulding was the man behind The Sun, one of the first ‘Coloured’ news-papers, which was also printed in District Six. From 1943 onwards the newspaper received stiff opposition from Joyce Meissenheimer’s Torch, a paper linked to the Non-European Unity Movement. George Golding became the leader of the Coloured People’s National Union (CPNU), at that time the only political body which had any orientation towards co-operation with the Nationalist government, whose apartheid policy later made the country the skunk of the world. George’s brother, Charles Golding, became well-known for an ideologically tainted Afrikaans weekly radio programme entitled Protea Program. The ‘realpolitik’ of George Golding was hailed by some 'Whites', who simultaneously mocked the ‘lofty ideals’ of those ‘Coloured’ leaders who refused co-operation with the United party and later with the apartheid regime, those who called themselves ‘non-collaborationists’. It was from the CPNU ranks that the Federal Coloured People’s Party defected under the leader-ship of Tom Schwartz in 1964 ‘on the principles of positive equal development’. This was little less than tacit acceptance of apartheid, actually the logical continuation of the pragmatic politics of George Golding. Religious Confusion and Bickering Yet, the axis District Six/Bo-Kaap was by far not utopian, especially in the sphere of religion. The Baptists contributed to creating confusion when two different missionary sending institutions planted churches in District Six. The Americans started the Shiloh fellowship in Arundel Street in 1890 in the same year in which the British-based Wale Street mother Baptist Church started one in Jarvis Street, only a few kilometres away in Roggebaai. Worse was to come when the energetic Wale Street Baptist church planters started a daughter church in Sheppard Street, a mere two hundred meters away from the Shiloh fellowship. This was apart from the racially inspired churches which were springing up all over the show. Thus the Methodists had a ‘Coloured’ church in Buitenkant Street, just over 100 meters away from Green Market Square, where they had their Central sanctuary for 'Whites'. The worst example was probably in Aberdeen Street, Woodstock, where the Sendingkerk shack-like building was just down the road from the DRC Moederkerk edifice with its proud tower. A pattern of internal bickering by religious leaders and denominational rivalry has been plaguing the Mother City ever since, grieving the Holy Spirit and preventing a spiritual breakthrough. Luckily there has also been the other side of the coin, which however has taken decades to come into its own: low-key ecumenical co-operation and mutual support. The Muslims have also had their fair share of internal bickering, especially with regard to the differences surrounding the appointment of imams. In fact, these conflicts were so severe that ‘the only solution was a split in the congregation and the establishment of a new mosque. The result was a proliferation of mosques’, notably in Bo-Kaap. Furthermore ‘oral tradition attests to several prayer rooms in the homes of Imams not officiating at a mosque’ (Davids, 1995:55). A Significant Power Encounter When Ds. Davie Pypers commenced work in 1956 as a minister of the Dutch Reformed St Stephen’s Church in Bree Street, he discerned the need for increased prayer for the Muslims of the area. Soon he initiated praying for Bo-Kaap and the Muslims living there. Together with two other pastoral colleagues, he interceded every Monday for the area that became even more pronouncedly Islamic in the wake of the envisaged implementation of Group Areas legislation. Ds. Pypers appears to have been one of the very few ministers at the Cape of his era who had any notion of spiritual warfare. It was by far not common practice yet. And satan was definitely not going to release his gains so easily. Davie Pypers was called to become the missionary to the Cape Muslims on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church, linked to the historical Gestig (Sendingkerk) congregation in Long Street. It is the church where once people from different denominations worshipped, the cradle of missionary outreach in South Africa.22 Ds. Pypers had hardly started with his new work when a challenge came from a young imam, Mr Ahmed Deedat, to publicly debate the death of Jesus on the Cross. As a young dominee David Pypers prepared himself through prayer and fasting in a tent on the mountains at Bain’s Kloof for the event which was to take place on 13 August 1961 at the Green Point Track. Because of publicity in the media, 30 000 people of all races jammed into the Green Point sports venue. The stadium quivered with excitement like at a rugby match. In the keenly contested debate, Imam Deedat started with the assertion that Jesus went to Egypt after the disciples had taken him from the Cross. He thoroughly ridiculed the Christian faith, challenging Pypers to give proof that Jesus died on the Cross. The young dominee rose to the challenge by immediately stating that Jesus is alive and that his Lord could there and then do the very things He had done when He walked the earth. Dr David du Plessis, who was nick-named ‘Mr Pentecost’, reported on the event in his autobiography: ‘Taking a deep breath, he (Pypers) spoke loud and clear, ‘Is there anybody in this audience that, according to medical judgement, is completely incurable? Remember, it must be incurable...’ Of course, the stadium was abuzz by now. And then several men came along, carrying Mrs Withuhn, a White Christian lady, with braces all over her body. She was completely paralyzed. Then Pypers went ahead, asking whether there were any doctors present who could examine her and vouch for her condition. ‘Several doctors came forward, including her own physician, and they concurred in pronouncing her affliction incurable.’ Pypers simply walked to her and without any ado prayed for her briefly and proclaimed: ‘In the name of Jesus, be healed!’ Immediately she dropped her crutches and began to move. The Green Point Aftermath The Green Point Track event resulted in a victory for the Cross, with Mrs Withuhn being miraculously healed in the name of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. Many Muslims were deeply moved, but an unfortunate thing also happened. The booklet The Hadji Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself (in an Afrikaans translation) was re-issued. Its distribution at the gates of the Green Point Track was definitely not helpful. Actually it was quite unfortunate and insensitive. The booklet refers negatively to the Qur’an and Muhammad, the founder of Islam.23 The Cape Muslim community was enraged by the re-publication of this nineteenth century pamphlet. What was perceived as the defeat of Ahmed Deedat, and thus of the Muslims at Green Point, inspired a call for revenge. Deedat stated publicly that the original motivation for public debates was his humiliation at the hand of Christians. He was not willing at all to accept defeat lying down. The effect of the Green Point Track miracle was almost nullified by news that came from another part of the world on that same day. The report of the building of the Berlin Wall resounded throughout the world! A new type of battle was cemented - the ‘cold war’ between Soviet Communism and Western Capitalism! However, it was nearly just as bad that Pypers was heavily criticized by his denomination for undertaking the confrontation without getting prior synod approval. Furthermore, the leaders of his denomination were still clinging to an untenable interpretation of divine healing – that it belonged to a past age - to the times of the apostles. Islam linked to Communism? As the ensuing cold war became the focus, the enemy of souls abused Communism with its atheist basis, attempting to stifle the spreading of the victorious message of the Cross, as it had been proclaimed at the Green Point Track. Was there a subtle link to Communism in opposition to the Cross? The event of 13 August 1961 possibly had great importance in the spiritual realm. One wonders whether the Islamic Crescent was not probably subtly linked to Communism in opposition to the Cross at that occasion. (This was to happen again in reverse in 1990 after the demise of Communism. Islam took over the mantle from the atheist ideology as a threat to world peace when the Iraqi army marched into Kuwait. That event became the catalyst for many Christians to start praying for an end to the bondage and deception at the base of the ideology of Islam as a destructive spiritual force.) Teachers and Preachers in League A major vehicle of protest at the Cape was the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), which was founded in 1943. It had the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) as one of the most influential affiliates. Teachers had taken the lead countrywide in the resistance to the oppressive government, due to the lead given at Genadendal and the mission and church schools which fanned out from District Six. The churches made ample use of the government aid of 50% with which to equip their schools. By 1936, a year after the Genadendal Training school was forced to close down, 90% of all ‘Coloured’ teachers held certified qualifications, working in relatively well equipped buildings. Compare that with the situation among the 'Blacks' where in the 1960s, unqualified teachers still had to contend with double shifts of overcrowded classes, often without the most basic teaching facilities, and no churches supporting them. The description of the role of the TLSA by Vernon February, a Capetonian who went to study in Leiden (Holland), is probably not exaggerated: ‘there is no parallel in the world where a mere Teachers Union played such a vital role in the politicization of a particular oppressed group’ (February, 1983:21). The TLSA was however not a normal Teachers Union, because also clergymen were associate members.24 In fact, the strength of the organization was that it worked so closely with the churches. The Declaration to the Nations of the World in 1946 started a process by which the struggle in South Africa was to become increasingly internationalized. District Six/Bo Kaap possessed indeed many ingredients to be the harbinger for a more compassionate, egalitarian and democratic country and continent. Renewal or Demolition of District Six?25 Slum conditions in District Six had not been addressed yet in the 1930s. Renewal of the District was closely connected with proposals for the Foreshore development. Demolition of the existing houses was seriously debated inFebruary 1940 when the scheme was advertised in the Provincial Gazette and in local newspapers. Associations and the public were given six weeks to make recommendations and objections. The Non European Unity Front (NEUF) with its base in District Six was soon leading the protest movement under the leadership of Mrs. Cissie Gool, a city councillor. Protest against the scheme hinged on what the workers’ organisations regarded as the threat of segregation. The ‘remodelling of District Six’ involved the demolition of three thousand buildings and the evacuation of 29, 595 people. The Cape Times reported the objections of businesses in District Six as well as the deputation of the NEUF, led by Mrs. Gool. The delegation foresaw that the entire present population of the area would be forced out, forcing the poor to a distant suburb where they would be faced with bus or train fares which they could not afford. Opposition to the scheme was fanned by revelations about conditions on the Cape Flats. Soon the Cape Argus featured banner headlines on behalf of the NEUF: MIGRATION TO THE CAPE FLATS OPPOSED. The scheme was indeed nothing else than ‘disguised segregation.’ Thirty years later their fears became reality, with the difference that apartheid was not attempting to disguise anything. In 1940 the protesters were successful in getting city councillors on their side. Councillor Louis Gradner suggested in a packed Liberman Hall in District Six on 25 July 1940 that they had been tricked into believing that the scheme was a provisional one: ‘What the Council is proposing to do under the guise of slum clearance is to disperse 27,000 ratepayers who were born and brought up in the district…’ The discussion led to the full council approving the Amended Town Planning Scheme on 27 May 1941 with 22 voting in favour and only three against. There was plenty of evidence that segregation was on the increase. State-sanctioned residential segregation was due to become policy because the ruling United Party had it in their plans and the Nationalist Party was actively propagating apartheid. The Black Christ Travels the World Born in Cape Town in 1940, Ronald Harrison spent most of his youth in District Six and completed his education at Harold Cressy High School. His artistic abilities manifested at an early age, and in his teens he displayed a keen interest in the political scenario of South Africa. One of his main role models was South Africa's first Peace Nobel laureate, Chief Albert Luthuli. This became the inspiration for an oil painting, The Black Christ, which caused an immediate stir when it was unveiled in Cape Town in 1962. The young artist chose Chief Albert Luthuli as a model for the face of Christ. The two centurions depicted John Vorster and Hendrik Verwoerd, arch-proponents of apartheid. For his bold act and defiance, refusing to divulge the whereabouts of the painting, Ronald Harrison had to pay a high price – incarcerated, tortured and harassed. His health was seriously affected detrimentally, but he was also offered a bursary to study in the USA. The government responded by offering him an 'exit permit', which meant that he would not be allowed to return to his home country after completion of his studies. Many people of colour left South Africa in the 1960s in this way. Ronald Harrison then rather turned down the offer to study overseas. Also socially he was deprived when two broken engagements ensued because 'I was hesitant to commit to marriage' (Harrison, 2006:99) as a result of the interogatory torture inflicted to him. After being smuggled out of the country, The Black Christ painting turned to become seed of liberation, used for fund-raising overseas to defend apartheid victims via the Defence and Aid Fund. Opposition to Apartheid in District Six and Woodstock One of the most effective campaigns against apartheid was launched in the area as a result of the Group Areas proclamation of 11 February 1966. It is noteworthy that the first two phases of resistance with regard to District Six was started by a prayer campaign. Four days after the notorious proclamation, a twelve man steering committee proposed a ‘Peninsula-wide prayer period’. This was possibly the first time that a city-wide prayer event was mooted at the Cape. Syd Lotter, a trade unionist, appealed to ‘all the churches and mosques… (to)…call a day of prayer on which our people can give vent to their humiliation and frustration, to the Almighty’ (Cited in Jeppie/Soudien, 1990: 148). Of special significance was the response of Muslims to this call. Two weeks after the declaration, several thousand people crowded into the four mosques of District Six and Walmer Estate. In the Muir Street mosque alone, 3000 assembled, with many hundreds spilling into the streets surrounding the mosque. The government’s reaction was a stepping up of the harassment. ‘Spyker’ van Wyk, the notorious Gestapo-like Special Branch agent, intimidated the movement by visiting all the members of the District Six Defence Committee. Significantly, the second phase of resistance with regard to the removal of ‘Coloureds’ from District Six was also started by a prayer campaign. The vehicle for carrying the campaign was the District Six Ministers’ Fraternal, an energetic group of clergymen from a few local churches. Father Basil van Rensburg, who was based at the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church and who came to District Six with advertising skills in September 1978, launched a fundraising initiative, along with the new prayer campaign: ‘our aim is to start in a small way with Holy Cross as a nucleus and gradually to build a forceful campaign of prayer and action until official thinking on District Six changes’ (Cape Argus, 5 September 1978). The parish priest of St. Philip’s Anglican Church expressed some of this commitment as he invited other congregations to join in prayer: ‘May we all by the Power of His Holy Spirit seek nothing else but a miracle from the Lord.’ Lay people were well represented in the Friends of District Six movement, an offspring of the District Six Ministers’ Fraternal. The members came not only from the above-mentioned churches, but also from other circles, notably Muslims and Jews. They included some 'Whites'. Among those who joined were the Black Sash, the National Council for Women, the Civil Rights League and the Institute of Race Relations. 'Whites' were encouraged to refrain from buying property in the maligned and stained District Six. A Nail in Apartheid's Coffin There is quite a list of people of colour who left South Africa because their skin pigmentation prevented them from using their talents to the full in their homeland. Quite a few of them had roots in District Six and its surrounds. The history of the cricketer Basil d’Oliviera, one of the greatest cricketing all-rounders that South Africa produced, is perhaps the best known in a long list of Capetonians of colour who had to go elsewhere to receive recognition. The cricketer, who was raised in Bo-Kaap’s Bloem Street, went on to play for England in an illustrious career. Batting for Worcestershire in a vital game at The Oval against the Australians, the Cape allrounder hit a blistering 158 runs. His magnificant feat made his selection – now a British citizen – a mere formality. Surprisingly, the England selectors seemed to have bowed before pressure from somewhere to omit him initially from the England team touring squad scheduled to come to South Africa at the end of 1968. When one of the chosen players withdrew because of injury, 'Dolly' – as he was affectionately called – could not be overlooked any more. He was fairly promptly named as a replacement. Prime Minister Vorster and his government were not impressed, declaring that they were not prepared to accept a team that had been thrust upon them with political motives. The decision to disallow the Cape-born Basil d’Oliviera to represent his new home country England, sparked off international sporting fury. This ushered in the sporting isolation of the country for many years, arguably the most important incident to usher in the beginning of the end of apartheid. Lesser known were the five Abed brothers from Aspeling Street in District Six, who originally came from India. While playing in the Lancashire league in England, Goelie, one of the brothers, hit three sixes off Garfield Sobers, who was possibly the best all-rounder ever to play cricket (Ebrahim, 1999:80). Dik, another brother, settled in Holland, where he later captained the Dutch national cricket team. The Sports Boycott The effective sports boycott contributed significantly to the breakdown of the apartheid edifice. It can also be traced to beginnings which originated at the Cape. Yousuf Rassool (2000:189) recalled how he agitated with all the passion he could muster in the mid 1950s. The result was that a proposed West Indian cricket tour did not take place. What drove him and those who voted with him was the idea that ‘by supporting apartheid cricket, they would be relinquishing principle in favour of expediency’. (This was probably also the principle which guided the Muslim Judicial Council for many years to refuse money from undemocratic Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia for the building of mosques.) In later years Hassan Howa, a principled Muslim sports administrator and leader of the South African Council for Sports (SACOS), with its strong base in the Western Cape, became a real thorn in the flesh of apartheid die-hards. When the government appeared to make special exceptions for sports, they consistently proclaimed: ‘no normal (i.e. multiracial) sport in an abnormal society.’ One notable example is the saga around the cricketer Basil D’Oliviera. Raised in Bo-Kaap’s Upper Bloem Street, he was one of the greatest cricketing all-rounders which South Africa have produced. He had to go elsewhere to get the recognition he deserved. Although he was already well beyond his prime, he was able to go to the UK. Basil D’Oliviera had an illustrious career in England, where he was picked to play for England in 1966. The D' Oliveira affair had a massive impact in turning international opinion against the apartheid regime. It triggered changes in South African sport and eventually in society at large. No Joy for the Government! The Nationalist Government had little joy from its conquest of District Six. In 1971, plans for a multi-million rand luxury suburb for 'Whites' had to be abandoned because of massive public protest. Two large oil companies had to abandon plans to open service stations there, with reverberations in Holland when protesters there cut the petrol hoses of Shell. The opposition was very effective. The desolate District Six – after the Group Areas removal of the inhabitants, would be a constant reminder of the injustice perpetrated, pricking the conscience of 'Whites'. For decades marches to Parliament would start from Keizergracht, the former Hanover Street of District Six. On 11 February 1981 Rev Karel August, once a student at the Moravian Seminary of District Six and the last minister there before the closing due to the Group Areas legislation, delivered a powerful sermon in the Black Theology mould, which kept the memory of District Six alive. Pointing to the prominent tax collector Zaccheus (Luke 19), Kallie August challenged the audience, which consisted probably of just as many Muslims as Christians. With the example of Jesus still looking up to the traitor, the audience was given a tool to win collaborators like Zaccheus over to the cause of justice for the oppressed in the process!! The Example of President Abraham Lincoln After leaving South Africa in January 1969 for Germany by ship, the author was personally moved to prayer for the Communist world after reading Wurmbrand’s story on board. Along with believers in different parts of the world, I started to pray regularly for persecuted Christians in Eastern Europe and China. Back in Cape Town in 1970 I was still nowhere near being a faithful prayer warrior, but I definitely sensed a need to pray for our country. Early one October morning in 1972, while I was on my knees praying for the country at the Moravian Seminary in District Six, I felt constrained to write a letter to the Prime Minister. In this letter, I addressed Mr Vorster with ‘Liewe’ (dear). That was definitely something extraordinary. My natural feelings towards him were not that charitable. In this letter I challenged the State President to let himself be used by God like Abraham Lincoln in the USA, to lead the nation to the ways of God. No head of state personified a humbling before God in history more than like Abraham Lincoln. On no less than nine separate occasions during his 49 month reign as president, he called for public penitence, fasting, prayer and thanksgiving. In Southern Africa, Michael Cassidy used Lincoln’s example to challenge John Vorster and Ian Smith (of the Rhodesia of the 1970s, to do the same by giving them a copy each of Lincoln’s biography with the title Abraham Lincoln, Theologian of American Anguish. Cassidy himself was to be God’s instrument in the turbulent 1985 to call the National Initiative for Reconciliation (NIR) from 10 to12 September. He was also divinely used as a pivot towards the calling of a national day of prayer by this group on October 9, i.e. less than a month later. At and in the church building adjacent to the seminary, the former Moravian Hill manse, significant moves towards the first Global Day of Prayer would occur in the 1990s and especially on 9 May 2004. Evening Schools The ANC in the Western Cape was virtually defunct when James La Guma was elected secretary. In no time he reorganized things, starting an office in Caledon Street and launching the ‘African Labour College’, a night school where the students were taught socialism and the politics of the labour movement. Towards the end of World War II there was an evening school experiment in a Presbyterian Church Hall in Retreat.26 It proved so successful that it finally expanded into a literacy project and an educational organization that for two decades involved thousands of 'Black' and ‘Coloured’ men and women as pupils. Thousands of 'Whites' served as volunteer teachers. Inspired by Emily Gaika, an elderly 'Black' woman, Oliver Kuys, an engineering graduate, started the evening school. Those who volunteered to teach often became deeply interested and involved in their work. On the other hand, the desire for education among the 'Blacks' expanded rapidly. The infamous Bantu Education came into affect in 1955, which forced churches to hand control of their schools to the government. (A government commission set up in 1948 concluded that the missions had done nothing but destroy 'Black' culture. Another commission set up under the chairman of Dr Werner Eiselen in 1951 had to look into means of controlling 'Black' education and further curtailing the influence of mission and independent schools). The result of the Eiselen report was the Bantu Education Act of 1953. This was followed by regulations that caused night schools to collapse in other parts of the country. The Cape Night Schools Association persevered with a strong determination, finding ways and means to carry on when the government stopped subsidies. In 1957 regulations stated that schools outside the townships had to secure a Group Areas permit, and then apply annually for registration with the Department of Bantu Education. Restrictions on teachers and the substitution of short-term contract labourers for the old, more permanent labourer, made many schools redundant. Student Involvement When the apartheid legislation prescribed education segregation at tertiary level as well, thus interfering with academic freedom, UCT students were incensed. Zach de Beer was a student leader along with Raymond Ackerman, who was also on the Student Representative Council. Together with other students Raymond Ackerman developed SHAWCO 27 Night Schools, which had grown into a chain of schools. After leaving UCT, Ackerman became the principal of them all – ‘my first experience of running a chain, though of schools, not of stores’ (Ackerman, 2001:42). In the course of this involvement he met Wendy Marcus, who not only became his wife, but who later was a pivot of the expanding Pick 'n Pay empire of supermarkets in the 1970s. In 1965 the SHAWCO Night School at Windermere was forced to close and finally the last of the schools of the Cape Night Schools Association, St Mark’s in District Six and the twenty-two year old Retreat Night School closed down by order of the Deputy Minister, Mr Blaar Coetzee. Maryland is a Catholic institution in Hanover Park, where Mr Harry Fortune taught for many years, long after he had gone into retirement. Harry Fortune was raised in District Six before he went back to High School as an adult. After further studies at UCT, he became a high school teacher in Bonteheuwel, where Ashley Kriel, an UDF activist who was killed during the 1976 school uprising, was one of his learners. UCT students were very much in the forefront in 1972 and 1973 in the battle for equal education and better health care for 'Blacks'. Geoff Budlender, leader of NUSAS, Ivan Thoms. (As theological students form the Moravian Seminary we were given freedom to participate. During an 'illegal' protest at St George's Cathedral where we had to reckon with arrest, we were only tear-gassed. Returning from there, a very special airmail letter from my bonny over the ocean awaited me at 18 Ashley Street. in this letter Rosemarie wrote of the permission that we received from her mother ahead of her 21st birthday. We were allowed to resume our correspondence! This was the trigger to start the process for her application to come and serve at the German Lutheran Church Kindergarten the following year.) During the swan song of District Six, I received the sad phone call from Rosemarie in 1973 there in Ashley Street, that a work permit had been refusedI had little option in 1973 than to leave for Germany after Rosemarie, my wife – whom I had met in Germany during a study stint there – had twice been refused visas because government spies got to know about our friendship.28 Unfortunately, parallel to the positive forces of resistance to injustice and compassion, the demonic influences of resentment and bitterness were also exported from District Six. Start of 'Black' Consciousness at the Cape Early moves of 'Black' Consciousness at the Cape were those expressed by slave and Khoi leaders, in opposition to 'White' oppression. As a rule they were harshly crushed. Apart from the local version of 'Black' Consciousness which was started by the Peregrino’s, father and son at the end of the 19th century in District Six, the other version was more overtly imported, the one wielded by the Jamaican Marcus Garvey. By the end of 1921 there were four branches of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the Peninsula. Eventually divisions existed in the suburbs Goodwood, Parow, Claremont, West London (Rondebosch) and Cape Town. 'Black' unity, 'Black' consciousness and 'Black' liberation were the slogans of the movement. Towards the end of the 20th century, 'Black' Consciousness was revived with Steve Biko as the main proponent nationally. 'Black' consciousness, as defined by Biko, was the awakening of self-worth in populations. The movement's leaders hoped to redefine 'Black', recognizing that the term was no longer a simple racial classification but a positive, unifying identity. Evolving of 'Black' Theology It is a theology that gave to disadvantaged South Africans human dignity and an identity, at a time when they were still described as non-Europeans and non-'White'. Black is beautiful like all other colours that God has created. 'Black' Theology in South Africa confronted the imbalances of power and abusive power structures through an affirmation of human dignity and the uniqueness of the identity of 'Black' people. It got kick-started via James Cone, an Afro American 'Black' Theologian and popularised in South Africa by the Canadian Basil Moore, thrived at the Cape. A lecture on the theme published by him, Towards a Black Theology' via the University Christian Movement in 1970, was followed by a booklet by papers collated by Stanley Mtwasa, that was not unsurpringly banned by the apartheid government, was printed by Ravan Press,29 that had also published the PROCAS series, that had its home in the Anti-Apartheid Christian Institute (CI). (These papers, supplemented by a few others, were later published by the London publisher, Christopher Hurst, under the title Black Theology: The South African Voice.) Two of the authors were Clive McBride and Claude Bongonjalo Goba, both of whom were going in and out of the Moravian Theological Seminary, after it had been relocated from Fairview in Gqerberha (called Port Elisabeth at that time) to Ashley Street in District Six temporarily at the end of 1970 because of Group Areas classification. The Cape office of the CI near to the Mowbray train station, was part of a building shared by other organisations of non-racialism that was a hub of anti-Apartheid activities. The Start of a Ministry to AIDS/HIV Patients At a time when AIDS was still being mentioned in a hush, there was definitely no competition in compassionate outreach to the hapless sufferers. A ministry with close links to the Cape Town City Mission started when Val Kadalie had a deep concern for young people who contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). She started off as a volunteer in District Six before going for training as a nurse. Back in the apartheid years, she was invited to speak to many churches and schools to warn young people about the dangers of promiscuity and to encourage them to abstain from pre-marital sex. After Ms Kadalie became the matron of the G.H. Starke Centre in Hanover Park, the institution also started functioning as a hospice for terminal patients. She warned her staff in the late 1980s that they might soon have to treat AIDS patients, but her colleagues were not yet ready for that. The crunch came when she and her husband were approached to take care of a little 4-year old boy, Jason, who was HIV positive. When her husband Charles put the phone down at the electric power plant in Athlone where he worked, he sensed that God was challenging them as a couple to practice what they preached. Jason was the first of four children they cared for in succession, until all but one died from AIDS. In the process Val became a pioneer fighter for AIDS awareness throughout the country, responding to calls from churches and groups of the most diverse backgrounds. Nazareth House, a Roman Catholic institution in the City Bowl, performed the same compassionate work during this period, as the occurrence of HIV-positive babies started to increase. At the building in Vredehoek where the Roman Catholics had already started caring for orphaned children and destitute elderly in 1888, they pioneered with the care of HIV-positive/AIDS babies in 1992, possibly the first outreach of this nature in South Africa. The Dutch YWAM missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer, after their successful pioneering work amongst street children, soon took on the care of AIDS babies. In 1999 they started to care for such little ones with government aid in Crossroads, a 'Black' township. Since then, their ministry has expanded even to the neighbouring country of Lesotho. On 8 December 2004 a new centre was opened in Lower Crossroads. Broken lives were restored and in the case of at least one young man, a desire was inculcated to enter missionary work. In the meantime HIV/AIDS became a pandemic. This spread of the disease was especially dramatic in prisons where inmates infected almost all newcomers. This challenge has not yet been taken up rigorously. Nevertheless, gangsters were ministered to and many also came to the Lord while in prison. 9. A Breeding Ground of Opposition to Repression No other city in South Africa can match the Mother City as a breeding ground for opposition to all forms of segregation and racist repression. Worker Protest30 Cape dock workers appear to have been the first labourers countrywide to come up in organised protest in defence of their interests. Mfengu dock labourers were recruited in the 1890s. In the aftermath of their renewed segregation in a location during the plague epidemic in February 1901, their protest included a strike. This time it was against their employers, the Table Bay harbour Board. From the middle of the year they also became involved in a long running dispute over whether they would have to pay the passage money involved in bringing them to Cape Town from the Eastern Cape. There was a distinct difference to earlier disputes. This time there were many written protests and the dock workers also appointed Alfred Mangena as their ‘Senior Secretary’ in negotiation with the Board. He took up issue around the conditions in the docks location and he accused the Board of preferential treatment of ‘Coloured’ dock workers. (Mangena was a night school teacher, saving to study law in Britain. He returned from there in 1910 as the first 'Black' in South Africa to qualify as an attorney). The battle of the dock workers was not without success. Thus the cost of the passage money was eventually borne jointly by the Harbour Board and the Cape Government Railways, which also employed 'Black' migrant labour. The dock workers also managed to resist an attempt by the Board to reduce their wages in November. The presence of banners during an unsuccessful strike was proof that education and literacy were beginning to be weapons at their disposal. The Docks would also be the venue from where Clement Kadalie was to start South Africa’s first 'Black' trade union in 1919, developing it into the first mass movement of 'Blacks'. Defiance as Reaction to Apartheid One of the first acts of organized resistance, which Dr Malan and his National Party government had to encounter after their 1948 victory, was the Train Apartheid Resistance Committee (TARC). On the Cape Flats and Suburban line to Fish Hoek and Simon’s Town, the trains still had no racial sign boards like on the Main line and elsewhere in the country. The TARC saw their resistance as a bulwark against the fast eroding rights of all people who were not 'White'. However, only 450 people volunteered instead of the thousands expected to do so in spite of well-attended mass meetings. The committee decided to delay the action, forced to admit that the majority of the organized workers are still standing aloof, outside the TARC (Neville Alexander in Saunders and Phillips, 1984:187). Yet, the attempt to defy new apartheid laws by the aborted TARC, the mood of resistance may be seen as an important starting domino, the foundation of the thousands of volunteers in the Defiance Campaign of 1952. The Group Areas legislation, Bantu Education passes and other laws linked groups which had previously differed. The attempt of the new Nationalist government to get ‘Coloureds’ removed from the common voters’ roll probably ushered in the defiance campaign of 1952 more than anything else. The Supreme Court nullified the initial voters’ roll legislation of 1951, heightening awareness to the shrewd moves of the Nationalist Party to bulldoze through the abhorrent legislation. In June 1951 the ANC executive called a conference with the SAIC (South African Indian Congress), the ‘Coloured’-based APO and FRAC (Franchise Action Council) to discuss the general prospects for joint anti-apartheid activity. The next year the ANC and its partners in the Indian and ‘Coloured’ communities initiated a campaign against unjust laws. ‘Defiers’ were to court arrest like sitting in rail carriages reserved for 'Whites' or standing in queues for 'Whites'-only, but acting with complete non-violence. Over 8,000 volunteers defied apartheid laws during approximately six months. The one instance when George Golding, the leader of the Coloured People’s National Union (CPNU) – widely regarded by ‘Coloureds’ as a quisling and collaborator- influenced national politics was when he made common cause with the Franchise Action Committee (FRAC), the ANC and other groups. At that occasion a ‘most impressive demonstration’ (Walker, 1964:823) was organized in the Mother City on 11 March 1951 in reaction to the introduction of the Separate Representation Voters Bill. This was followed by a fairly successful one-day strike. Many 'Whites' identified with 'Black' grievances. Adolph Malan invited 'White' ex-servicemen of his Veterans’ Action Group from around the country to the Mother City. Presently changing their name to the Torch Commando, they conducted a huge mass-meeting on the Grand Parade. In the aftermath of this demonstration, teams of young policemen, who had been trained to break up mobs, charged unruly ‘Coloured’ folk without warning, beating them brutally. ANC Leaders Teach the Unity in Christ Generations of political leaders in South Africa, particularly within the ANC, drew on Christian values for the building of a broader political unity. Coming from the African background of a broad humanity, ubuntu, there was, they believed, an ethical imperative to move beyond narrow identities of family, clan and race. – The thinking of 'White' and ‘Coloured’ churches was bedevilled by the neat separation of politics and religion. Long before 'White' and ‘Coloured’ churches embraced the concept, 'Blacks' already saw the importance of the unity in Christ. One of the pioneers at the Cape was Rev. Zaccheus Richard Mahabane, a Methodist minister, who was posted to Cape Town in 1916. He joined the Cape African Congress in 1917 after hearing political speeches by Charlotte Maxeke and her husband. In 1919 Rev. Zaccheus Richard Mahabane became president of the Cape African Congress. In 1924 he was elected president-general of the national ANC and again from 1937 to 1940. He maintained in 1925 that ‘the universal acknowledgement of Christ as common Lord and King break down the social, spiritual and intellectual barriers between the races’ (Cited in Elphick and Davenport, 1997:384). He propagated moderate conciliatory views of compromise, for instance he found a separate voters’ roll for 'Blacks' acceptable if 'Whites' found the prospect of a common roll too menacing. Not bearing the brunt of the hurts caused by apartheid, the 'White'-led denominations were out of touch with the spiritual dynamics of the resistance against the heretical ideology which became government policy from 1948. Helen Joseph, a Jewish anti-apartheid campaigner bemoaned in respect of the Defiance Campaign of the 1950s: ‘The Church turned its back on the ANC, [but] the ANC never turned its back on the Church’ (Cited in Elphick and Davenport, 1997:386). The deep religiosity and prayerfulness of that campaign was described by Tom Lodge as a ‘mood of religious fervour [that] infused the resistance.’ He went on to note: ‘When the [Defiance] Campaign opened it was accompanied by days of prayer, and volunteers pledged themselves at prayer meetings to a code of love, discipline and cleanliness… and even at the tense climax of the Campaign in Port Elizabeth people were enjoined on the first day of the strike “to conduct a prayer and a fast in which each member of the family will have to be at home;” thereafter they attended nightly church services’ (Cited in Elphick and Davenport, 1997:386). Reconciliation of the Races Various church leaders have been working towards reconciliation of the races of our country. The Cape played a significant role in this process down the years. The above-mentioned Methodist minister Rev. Zaccheus Richard Mahabane was among the first who consciously sought to reconcile the polarised races. He was at heart a moderate ‘whose political philosophy was grounded in a hope that Christian ethics would eventually prevail in shaping South Africa’s race policies` (Karis and Carter Vol 4: 65). As a leading personality in both the ANC and AAC, he did his best to promote the reconciliation of these organizations, but unity proved elusive and a merger was unfortunately not reached. For many years Mahabane was a proponent of unity among South Africa’s three disadvantaged groups. He cooperated with Dr Abdullah Abdurahman in calling the series of ‘non-European’ conferences that met between 1927 and 1934. When the NEUM was formed in affiliation with the AAC in 1943, he became its president. Compassionate Identification With the Underdog Whereas the Moravians were the leaders with regard to education and practical Christianity, the Anglicans and the Dutch Reformed church, along with the Roman Catholic Churches, led the field in ministries of compassion in South Africa. As in so many other fields the Mother City was prominent countrywide. In January 1917 Miss Frances Edwina Shepherd suggested the training suitable of ‘Coloured’ women as midwives. She had already instructed several women when they had accompanied her to deliveries. She approached Dr Murray, the Secretary of the Western Cape branch of the Medical Association, in order to get this instruction recognised. He stressed that training should really take place in a Maternity Home. Miss Shepherd realised that such a home could serve three purposes. Firstly, it could train ‘Coloured’ women to be midwives, secondly, it could offer a service to the entire community in the area of the Bo-Kaap and thirdly, the trained midwives could be useful as evangelists. Reverend Arthur William Blaxall, an Anglican clergyman, came to South Africa in 1923 to work with the deaf. At the Cape he was open for the need to reach out compassionately to other peripheral groups of the society like the Muslims. In the 1930s he headed the Athlone School for ‘Coloured’ Blind children, which is now located in Glenhaven, Bellville South. In 1939 he opened the first workshop for blind Africans in South Africa – Ezenzeleni in Roodepoort. For many years he was secretary of the the South African Christian Council, which was established in 1936 and he was also chairman of the South African branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. Over the years Reverend Blaxall developed ‘an ever deepening sense of solidarity’ in his own words with the 'Black', ‘Coloured’ and Indian struggle against apartheid (Karis and Carter, Volume 4, 1977:8). Trusted as a friend, he received money in the 1960s from exiled ANC and Pan African Congress (PAC) leaders and passed it on to former political prisoners and their families who were in need. This led to his arrest in 1963 and conviction under the Suppression of Communist Act. 'White' Identification With 'Black' Grievances Many 'Whites' within the greatly diminished Springbok Legion – veterans of World War II - identified with 'Black' grievances. 'Whites' who were anti-Nationalist, but who could not accept the ANC’s call for immediate universal suffrage formed the Liberal Party in May 1953. The theme of the Cape Town-centred party was equal rights for all civilized men and equal opportunities to attain civilization. Alan Paton, its leader, bravely called for ‘one man one vote’, opening up the membership to all races and thus swimming very much against the stream of 'White' society. Pieter Beylefeld, a prominent Afrikaner trade unionist was a founder and organizer not only of the Springbok Legion, but also of the congress of the People in 1955. He became the first president of the Congress of Democrats and two years later he became the first president of the South African Congress of Trade Unions.31 The defiance campaign prepared the way for the Congress of Democrats. More radical 'Whites' like the Afrikaner union organizer Bettie Du Toit and the Socialist Patrick Duncan got on board. Duncan, son of his famous father and namesake, Sir Patrick Duncan - who had been a Cabinet Minister under Jan Smuts till 1924 – became a real firebrand. He was educated at Bishops in Rondebosch and became a high official in the ‘Basutoland’ (later Lesotho) Government Service. He gave up his post to join the defiance campaign. He served a prison term for entering a 'Black' township without a permit. Later he helped to found the labour Party, editing its mouthpiece Contact, which brought him in renewed conflict with the police. In Cape Town, 'White' volunteers wore ANC arm bands as their contribution to the defiance campaign. During a rally at the Drill Hall Jewish-background Albie Sachs pledged his support, vowing that he would do all in his power to make the country a home for all South Africans. In October 1953 the Congress of Democrats was founded, with a definite slant to the left. Not only did they intend ‘…to win South Africans to support a programme of extending rights for all our people,’ but international issues would manifest itself a number of times, with a clear influence of the Communist Party. At the Cape provincial congress of the ANC in August 1953 Prof. ZK Matthews, just after his return from a lecturing stint in the US, proposed the summoning of a ‘national convention at which all groups might be represented to consider our national problems on an all-inclusive basis’ to ‘draw up a Freedom Charter for the democratic South Africa of the future’. The idea was endorsed by the ANC’s annual conference in September. The Springbok Legion resolved that its members should be invited to join one of the Congress Alliance members. The Congress of Democrats brought together in one organization different groups on the left of the political spectrum. They provided much of the funding for the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Johannesburg in June 1955. Cape Women in the Quest for Peace and Justice Ray Alexander, a 'White' member of the Communist Party, laid the foundation for the FSAW through her work with 'Black' women in the Food and Canning Workers Union throughout the Cape. Her own membership of an organisation, formed after World War II to promote the unity of women world-wide in the quest for enduring world peace, inspired her to propose a great organisation of S.A. women, working together on a non-racial basis toward peace and justice. Believing that the bonds of common womanhood could transcend race and class differences, she began promoting the idea among her colleagues in the trade unions from 1952. By late 1953 plans were made for a national inaugural conference to be held in Johannesburg. At this conference ‘to fight for womens rights and for full economic citizenship of all’ (Wells, 1993:106), which took place on 17 April 1954, with delegates from all over the country, Louisa Metwana from the Nyanga Vigilence Asssociation, a Cape 'Black' township, moved the participants with her vivid story of harsh influx control enforcement at the Cape. The conference voted unanimously to launch the FSAW. The presidency went to Dora Tamana and Ray Alexander became the secretary. Both of them were from Cape Town. Federation women became very active in 1955, responding to a call from the congress alliance to help organise a massive meeting to be called the Congress of the People. The Transvaal FSAW, with Helen Joseph very conspicuous, agreed to provide home accommodation for the one thousand delegates to the Congress, and this too, served to involve women of all races in a Federation activity. (Helen Joseph had learnt a lot while working as a Social Worker (??) in Elsies River, a Cape ‘Coloured’ township) Josie Palmer and Lilian Ngoyi were other leaders who were to play a major role in women’s emancipation. The Transvaal FSAW called a pre-Congress conference on 8 March 1955 to draw up their own list of ‘What Women Demand’. At the Congress of the People on June 26, both Josie Palmer and Helen Joseph spoke, delivering the women’s demands. They proved to be pretty similar to those which appeared in the final version of the Freedom Charter produced at the event.32 Revival of Trade Unionism When the stalwart the Jewess Ray Alexander, the General Secretary of the Food and Canning Workers Union, (FCWU) was banned in October 1953, it looked as if trade unionism was given its death blow. Largely through her efforts, along with another 'White' female, Helen Joseph,33 the battling trade unionism sectors which fought for the poor, was kept afloat. An injection came from an unexpected corner. The scene was the Wolseley Fruit Canning Company, which refused to be a party to wage agreements negotiated by the FCWU. It all started in the winter of 1953 when a delegation of the FCWU Frank Marquard (Chairman), Ray Alexander and Oscar Mpetha, a young 'Black' official, visited the mission station Saron from where many workers for the factory were transported. At the third meeting of a branch of the FCWU the dynamic Rachel Williams was elected chairman in spite of her reservations: ‘The chairman is always the first to g to prison when there is trouble’ (Cited in James and Symons, 1989:111). Williams and her brave colleague and name-sake Rachel Zeeman were to play a big role in the battle at the factory in 1954. Unionising Wolseley was proving to be very difficult. Finally, two officials of the FCWU, Oscar Mpetha and Annie Adams were mandated by the executive to obtain work there to gather first-hand information. The great strike of Wolseley of 195434 not only put the FCWU on the map in country towns, but it revived trade unionism at the Cape generally. It also wrote the name of Oscar Mpetha indelibly in the annals of the struggle for democracy at the Cape. In 1983 he was to be the first national President of the United Democratic Front (UDF), the people’s movement that finally brought the apartheid government to its knees more than any other Brutal Repression Breads Spiritual Renewal The year 1985 could be regarded as the start of another season of major spiritual upheaval. The government repression of 1984/5 coincided with the increased activity of the United Democratic Front (UDF). Christians were called to prayer for the ‘abolition of all apartheid structures’ and ‘the end to unjust rule’. The brutal repression of that year also caused conservative church groupings like the Baptist Union to take a public stand. Their national Assembly, which met in George, sent an unprecedented letter to the State President, clearly deviating from the common evangelical position, which expected that the church should not become involved with politics. Michael Cassidy, the leader of the mission agency Africa Enterprise, issued a significant ‘Statement of intent’ on 18 July 1985. Four hundred Christian leaders, drawn from 48 denominations, cleared their diaries and cancelled engagements to come to Pietermaritzburg for three days of consultation and the inauguration of the National Initiative for Reconciliation (NIR) from 10 to 12 September 1985. The call for a national day of prayer by this group on October 9, i.e. less than a month later, was widely followed. On that day over thirteen hundred people participated in the Mother City’s St George’s Cathedral lunch-hour service and there were reports of Christians of all denominations meeting in one another’s churches to pray together. ‘In Cape Town we broke out of our islands as never before.’ However, the harsh repression by the government and its agents continued unabatedly. Chickens Coming Home To Roost In the meantime, the clinic in Crossroads, the township that Professor Nico Smith of Stellenbosch had visited with his students, continued to do fine work under Dr Ivan Thoms, the young doctor. But when the chickens came home to roost in the resistance against the tri-cameral system of government a few years further on, Crossroads was one of the first to erupt at the Cape. Worse was to come in 1986 when the place was virtually in a state of civil war. On 9 June 1986 the Community Centre of Crossroads, which had sheltered over two thousand refugees on the chilly night before, was torched. Dr Di Hewitson and a nurse, Dorcas Cyster, risked their lives as committed Christians in service to the battered and bruised. The SACLA clinic was located in the Witdoeke area while many of the Clinic’s workers came from the Comrades turf. Even as they came to work, they were accused of going to tend to the wounds of the enemy. Michael Cassidy summed up the situation, which epitomised the dilemma of the country at that time in a prayer: ‘O God, only you can resolve all this. And without the power of prevailing prayer, our land will never be healed or saved.’ Cassidy sensed that ‘the Lord needs his people not just in prayer but in active peacemaking in such polarised contexts.’ 10. Church Opposition Against Apartheid For many people it will be surprising to hear that arguably the most effective church opposition against apartheid ironically came initially from the Dutch Reformed Church. The Anglican Bishop Trevor Huddleston and others were making some inroads through their stand against the race policies that became official after 1948, but the most effective counter came surprisingly from within the ranks of the denomination, which was led by racist ideologists. I do not refer to the warnings by people like Ds. Ben Marais and Professor Keet, but specifically to the stand of a ‘Coloured’ Dutch Reformed clergyman. He was Eerwaarde (Reverend) I.D. Morkel, who in turn influenced a dynamic mover, a young clergyman, Ds. David Botha of the Wynberg Sendingkerk. Dutch Reformed Church Opposition Against Apartheid Ds. David Botha opposed the apartheid policy long before the famous Dr Beyers Naudé (Botha later became the moderator of the Sendingkerk, the ‘Coloured’ sector of the denomination.) The ring (circuit) of Wynberg agreed unanimously with the motion tabled by the dynamic Rev. I.D. Morkel, to oppose apartheid on scriptural grounds. The participants at this meeting included quite a few Afrikaner dominees because there were still very few ministers of colour ordained in that denomination around 1950. The circuit protested against the proposed legislation of the new regime, appealing to the government urgently not to implement apartheid laws (Botha, 1960:127). That the Malan Cabinet ignored their protests was not as deplorable as the fact that the very same dominees who voted in October 1948 did not pitch up when all ministers of the Sendingkerk were invited to a meeting to discuss the legislation. Although 28 congregations were represented, only two 'White' dominees attended this meeting. Another meeting on 14 October 1949 resolved to encourage believers to retreat into a day of prayer on 16 December 1949 ‘to be relieved from the apartheid affliction’ (Botha, 1960:127). The Wynberg Dutch Reformed Mission Church, with Rev. David Botha as its minister, spearheaded an effort toward reconciliation. In a letter to the ('White') moderator dated 29 October 1949, the church council deplored the deterioration of relations between the mission church and its mother. In the letter the church council furthermore protested sharply against the apartheid policy with the implied inferiority of ‘Coloureds’. The spiritual value was limited from the outset because an activist political undercurrent was clearly present in the date set for the corporate implementation, 16 December 1949 - to be followed by a public meeting in the City Hall the following day. The Afrikaans daily Die Burger in its report of the City Hall meeting scathingly referred to the event as a ‘sogenaamde Kerklike Konvensie’, a so-called church convention. Afrikaner solidarity - probably via the Afrikaner Broederbond connections - tragically undermined the principled stand of 'White' Dutch Reformed dominees in the ‘Coloured’ Sendingkerk. They had still agreed in October 1948 that ‘no ground for colour apartheid can be found in Holy Scripture’ (Botha, 1960:127). To Afrikaners it was especially painful that Rev. Botha, the young Dutch Reformed Sendingkerk dominee, graced the meeting with his presence. It was nevertheless pathetic how Botha's speech in the City Hall was reported in Die Burger. In a letter to the editor of the Afrikaans daily Rev Botha complained about serious distortions, also pointing out important deletions from his talk. Amongst other things Botha had noted in his speech that the church has no right to criticize the state unless she can show a positive way. More important was his strong plea for intercession and his reference to the main weapons of the church, viz. the Word of God and prayer. Botha also mentioned that ‘the whole audience in front of me was urged to pray for revival instead of having a critical spirit.’ None of these notions was reported in Die Burger.35 On a public holiday, which was called the Day of the Covenant, the Voortrekker Monument was scheduled to be opened in Pretoria. The commemoration in support of an oath by the Voortrekkers at Blood River was never seriously questioned in terms of damage to racial relationships. Even more serious was the fact that it made a mockery of the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. Instead of forgiveness, racial hatred was promoted and enhanced by the commemoration of the deception by the Zulu King Dingaan and the subsequent killing of Voortrekkers. A Prime Mover Of Racial Reconciliation The Afrikaner Theo Kotze, a Methodist, was a prime mover of racial reconciliation at the Cape in the 1960s and 1970s. Kotze’s ministry has been described as ‘combining church growth and integrity on the one hand, and evangelism and social justice on the other’ (Knighton-Fitt, 2003:94). With his wife Helen and their children the Kotze family formed a formidable team, the talk of the town. At the Cape Theo Kotze was one of the first Christian Institute members, forming an ecumenical Bible Study group using CI material. A demonstration of the fine balance of biblical compassion and social involvement became evident in his ‘Straight Talking’ columns of the Sea Point Vision church magazine that Kotze started in March 1964. On the cover of the first edition is written: ‘Wide Vision, big Thinking, Great Faith, Stout Effort, God’s Husbandry... bring results.’ The youth work of the church impacted the 'Ducktails', the 'White' gangsters of the area, in no uncertain way. ‘Club Route Twelve’ was led by Derek Kotze, the eldest son from the family. Nelson Mandela and his colleagues had been on Robben Island for almost two years when the Cape Methodist Synod appointed Theo Kotze as Robben Island chaplain. Among his Methodist congregants there were big name political detainees like Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe and Stanley Mogoba. Golden Conciliatory Words Some of the most powerful conciliatory words were uttered by messengers of the Gospel. John de Gruchy, Professor of Religious Studies at UCT, wrote in 1986 about ‘an amazing sense of hope amongst many South Africans, even amongst those whose present struggle seems so hopeless … a hope that justice will ultimately triumph … an expression of confidence in the God of justice and peace’ (1986:46). I would like to add quotes from two others who impacted me personally. Both of them were likewise members of the Christian Institute of South Africa. Claude Bonganjalo Goba36 defined the conversion experience as ‘a personal transformation that involves … a new commitment to God in Christ. It is a change which brings about healing and liberation because it involves the freeing of soul, body and mind from the oppressive structures of guilt and alienation’ (Printed in the anthology Cry Justice, compiled by John de Gruchy, p.103) Dr Beyers Naudé was God’s instrument in 1978 when it looked as if apartheid and disappointment in our church leadership had knocked me out. It brought me to the point of utter frustration and despair, deciding to leave South Africa - never to return! I intended the visit to Dr Naudé’s home church to be my farewell gesture of solidarity with the politically oppressed of the country. (He was under house arrest at the time and only allowed to speak to one person at a time.) God used the banned Dr Beyers Naudé and the congregation where he worshipped to bring me to my senses. (In fact, after the red-letter Sunday I really wanted to make amends for my racist bias. In His sovereign way God used the events of that Sunday to make me more determined than ever to fight the demonic apartheid ideology from abroad.) In 1973 Dr Naudé and other members of the Christian Institute refused to testify before a government commission because it was not judicial and not public. This was a legal offence and led to a trial in November 1977. In cross-examination Naudé was asked how he saw the relation between reconciliation and identification. He replied with the powerful words: ‘No reconciliation is possible without justice and whoever works for reconciliation must first determine the causes of the injustice in the hearts and lives of those … who feel themselves aggrieved’ (Printed Cry Justice, compiled by John de Gruchy, p.171) More Prayer in the Process of Change Towards the end of 1974 and for several months thereafter, a large number of 'Black' student leaders were arrested and detained without trial by the security police. Some were held in solitary confinement. During that time a prayer vigil was held at St George’s Cathedral, where various people committed themselves to prayer within 24-hour sessions by name for some student. The reflection of Professor Frances Wilson for 13 February has been printed, including notes on Nyameko Barney Pityana, who went on to become a top academic and administrator of UNISA: ‘For such a man as he to be incarcerated is a judgment not upon Barney but upon the society which has acted so violently against him’ (De Gruchy, 1986:126). All students were finally released without being charged of any crime. After the West had refused to help them in the battle against the apartheid regime, the ANC turned to the Soviet Communists. The military situation on the country’s borders spawned 'White' believers of South Africa to form a group called Intercessors for South Africa. This was initiated by Dr Frances Grim, leader of the Hospital Christian Fellowship, which had its national headquarters in the Capetonian picturesque suburb of Pinelands. He was one of very few at the time to discern the growing moral dangers sufficiently: ‘Most people seem to be too busy making money, enjoying themselves...to notice the dangerous downward trend in the country’s morals’. Prayer was very much part of the process of change. This is demonstrated by times of prayer and fasting in the St George’s Cathedral. Those responsible had evidently repented after the negative response to Rev. Bernard Wrankmore in 1971. Rev. David Russell and Dr Ivan Toms, a young doctor who served at the SACLA-initiated clinic in Crossroads, were two persons who were tolerated to pray there with some publicity given to their endeavour (King, 1997:67). Dr Francis Grim initiated a National Day of Prayer, called for 7 January 1976. However, this was not perceived by people of colour as something to join. In fact, few people from these ranks knew about the day of prayer. The all-'White' organizers had still not recognized the need to draw in people from other racial backgrounds. Yet, this move may have stemmed the tide of Communist-inspired revolution, to which the Soweto June 16 upheavals in 1976 could easily have led. Grim gave a challenging title to a booklet that was published by his organisation: Pray or Perish. At any rate, God was already at work. The student outreach at Harmony Park in the mid-1960s contained seed for spiritual revival. It also contributed to the spiritual maturing of leaders such as Rev. Abel Hendricks, who led the 1964/5 camp along with Rev. Chris Wessels. In later years Abel Hendricks became President of the Methodist Church and Chris Wessels a respected leader in the Moravian Church. Allan Boesak, Jattie Bredekamp, Esau Jacobs, Franklin Sonn and David Savage are but a few from that era who became influential members in their respective denominations and in society at large subsequently. A Massive Funeral as A Catalyst For Change A race war was building up towards a major climax in the mid-1980s. Possibly the second biggest funeral at the Cape ever, took place on Saturday 21 September 1985 in the township of Gugulethu. The funeral had a clear political nature. It was the funeral of 11 victims of police action, including Ayanda Limekaya, a two month old baby, who died after inhaling too much teargas. This definitely set off a chain reaction of spiritual waves that finally led to the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990. The start of the traditional march on 21 September 1985 to the cemetery was described as follows: ‘Within ten minutes it has swollen to 20,000, 25,000 then it becomes impossible to estimate the numbers.’ This transpired in spite of many roadblocks put up by the police and army to stop people from other places joining the funeral. God At Work Behind The Scenes Behind the scenes, God was at work. The roadblocks could not prevent the consciences of some 'Whites' being touched. On 22 September 1985, the day after the funeral, Dr. Charles Robertson, who had been a lecturer at the nearby ‘Coloured’ University of the Western Cape from 1972-76, was spiritually moved during his quiet time. Sensitivity grew amongst 'Whites' that would finally enable Mr F.W. de Klerk to take the risk of asking the 'White' electorate for permission to vote themselves out of power in a referendum on 17 March 1992. Events followed each other up in quick session at the Cape at this time. In a tragic incident in Thornton Road, Athlone, on 15 October 1985, police jumped suddenly out of a parked truck, shooting indiscriminately at passers-by. Willem Steenkamp, a conservative writer, reported in his Cape Times column about what became known around the world as the ‘Trojan horse’ or the ‘Jack-in-the-Box’ event: ‘Film taken on scene shows railway policemen laying down a heavy column of indiscriminate shotgun fire...’ An eye witness described a similar scene in Crossroads three days later, printed in the Cape Times: ‘Suddenly the police jumped out and opened fire, but they did not shoot the people who had thrown the petrol bomb, they shot two men (dead) who … were walking down the road. One was standing still when they shot him, and when his friend tried to run away, they shot him too’. The Cape Peninsula exploded and the state of emergency was extended to include the Cape on 26 October 1985. An Advance Guard For Seven Years Of Prayer Furthermore, World Literature Crusade launched their Change the World School of Prayer in the early 1980s. The South African prayer manual was published in Cape Town in 1981. It seems as if the manual was not very widely distributed. World Literature Crusade’s publication might have been the advance guard for the seven years of prayer for the Soviet Union, and the prayer victories at the end of the 1980s. The group in California (USA) documented some of their experiences, praying systematically over 40,000 continuous hours. Charles Robertson, who was very much involved in the launching of the initiative at the Cape, wrote that the vision of the School of Prayer was ‘to see a million Christians in South Africa pray for revival and world evangelism by the end of 1986.’ The first school was held in Cape Town, attended by 1,130 people over two weekends. It is appropriate that the revived prayer movement started at the Cape where Andrew Murray had written his School des Gebeds in 1885, and it is also very fitting that Charles Robertson and his wife Rita would donate the property where the first NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa) School of Prayer was to be erected in 2000. The Change the World School of Prayer appears to have inspired the initiators of a booklet, published by Hospital Christian Fellowship (HCF, later called Healthcare Christian Fellowship). The Change the World School of Prayer suggested that believers pray strategically, and that they pray for 100 unevangelized Chinese and Arab-Moslem nations. The Dutch section of the Hospital Christian Fellowship in Voorthuizen, which had South Africa’s Dr Francis Grim as its worldwide leader, was probably God’s instrument, motivating Christians towards a month of prayer for selected Muslim countries, with the publication of a little booklet in the early 1990s. They referred to specific needs in a 31-day prayer guide. In turn, this appears to have been the model for the 30-day Prayer Focus that went around the globe during Ramadan in the years from 1993. Dr Peter Hammond, the founder of the Cape agency Frontline Fellowship, testified to the deep personal influence of Dr Francis Grim in his life. Pentecostals Usher In Transformation Evangelicals in general, Cape Pentecostals in particular, were not known for radical change. In fact, they were regarded as reactionary, supporting the racist structures of Cape society. In July 1981 a young final UCT student, Paul Daniel, had been coming from a dramatic conversion experience in answer to the prayers of his grandmother after the death of his younger brother. (His grandmother became a follower of Jesus through the ministry of the Pentecostal pioneer John G. Lake). After his conversion Paul Daniel led many of his friends and colleagues at the University of Cape Town (UCT) to Christ. In the early 1980s UCT was very much a bastion of atheism and agnosticism. Soon a prayer group developed, where they prayed nightly from 22h through till 3 o’clock the next morning. A mini revival came to the campus. From these pristine beginnings a fellowship was formed in later years that was to impact the Cape in no small way. The Pentecostal Protestant Church (PPC), much better known in the Afrikaner version, the PPK, could be regarded as a stronghold of apartheid practice in the 1960s and 1970s in the Boerewors curtain of the Cape, the northern suburbs. No one would have suspected that from this denomination one of the most radical changes of Cape Society would emanate. Pastor Waldi Snyman had a dramatic call from the Lord to leave the PPC within seven days, otherwise the Lord would raise someone else in his stead. He had been a pioneer of the church, from the days when the fellowship had been in Tiervlei next to the railway line until it finally moved into the premises of the Lantern, a former cinema of Parow. At the time his brother was a leader of the denomination. He had already caused something of a stir by marrying the Irish background Colleen, who had started learning Afrikaans in Bloemfontein, where the couple had met. Yet, when they left the denomination, to start a new non-denominational fellowship, this was still no earthquake, but it did cause a significant stir, because as a part of the call the Lord implored Snyman to start using English in stead of Afrikaans. The church was to be there for all people, thus challenging the traditional racial and language prejudices of the mid 1980s. The new fellowship had been a 'White' Afrikaner congregation. The new fellowship linked up with a national move of the Holy Spirit through charismatic Pentecostal preachers like Ray McCauley, Nicky van der Westhuizen, Theo Wolmarans and Ed Roebert. All over the country were established which called themselves ‘Christian Centre’. However, they did not regard themselves as a Rhema denomination as such. In 198? the Parow church became known as the Lighthouse Christian Centre. The fellowship that was destined to play a pivotal role in the run-up to the Global Day of Prayer after the first Transformation video of George Otis was screened there in October 1999. Seeds of Confession Start To Germinate In the early 1980s Dr Nico Smith visited Bilthoven in Holland, only a few kilometres from Zeist where we were living at the time. I visited him there. This resulted in some correspondence among others with Professor Johan Heyns. In my letters I had suggested confession for apartheid as the place to start, to be followed by restitution. Johan Heyns’ metamorphosis continued dramatically in the ensuing years, while chairing a synod commission Church and Society. At the 1986 General Synod in Cape Town, the report of this commission almost brought the 'White' sector of the Dutch Reformed Church to a 180 degree change in respect of apartheid. In the ('White') General Synod, the seed of confession appeared to have started to germinate. In the policy document ‘Church and Society’ it was formulated in so many words that ‘a forced separation and division of peoples cannot be considered a biblical imperative. The attempt to justify such an injunction as derived from the Bible must be recognized as an error and are to be rejected.’ Yet, this position was not supported by rank and file church members. Right-wing elements were perturbed that Church and Society actually included confession of sin with regard to the part played by the churches - for example - in causing suffering through the implementation of apartheid. In 1987 the reaction, formulated under Professor W. J. G. Lubbe in a document called ‘Geloof en Protes’ (Faith and Protest), laid bare a weakness of the majority decision: ‘It is also the question whether this confession of sin is really derived from true remorse or whether it is derived from a desire to please certain churches … and thus evoking an artificially created consciousness of guilt’. The 1986 synod thus ushered in the formation of a right-wing racist break-away denomination, the Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk. In a parallel move the Anglican Church of the Province lost many members after the outspoken Bishop Desmond Tutu became the Archbishop of the country. Many of them joined the Church of England in South Africa (CESA). The St James Church in Kenilworth, where Bishop Frank Retief ministered, was to be targeted by left-wing 'Blacks' in an attack in July 1993. 11. An Island Blesses the World Robben Island and Table Bay have a long recorded history, preceding that of the settlement at the Cape by Jan van Riebeeck in 1652 by quite a number of years. The notorious part of its history also has some sad precedents. The English used the island as a penal colony in 1615 and the Dutch used Table Bay in 1636 as a depository for mutineers who were thrown overboard with leaded weights tied to them (Worden et al, 1998:15). But there is also another side of the coin. Jan van Riebeeck had the foresight to issue the conservation of the continent in 1654, planting the first vegetable garden there. He had kiln built to burn shells for the production of lime.37 This was the first industry of the Cape colony. Unfortunately negatives were soon to follow. The first banishment to the island under Dutch occupation ensued when Jan Wouterssen was banished to the Island for three years in 1657, after wasting Company provisions and slandering the women at the Cape. His pregnant wife, a female slave, accompanied him. He held the position of Post holder in charge of Company sheep. He also had to supervise some exiles and slaves. The indigenous leader of the ‘beach rangers’, Autshumato, was among those sent there to cut and work on the limestone. One of the early political exiles to the Cape from Batavia (the former name of the Island of Java) was Soera Dioromo. He was banished to Robben Island because he had been running an opium den in the town. The grave of Shaykh Mattara who died on Robben Island in 1754 was among the first Islamic kramats (shrines) of the ‘holy circle’. Tuan Said (Said Aloewie of Mocca in Yemen), Shaykh Nuruman and Tuan Guru (Imam Abdullah Abdus Salaam) were three Indonesian Muslim clergymen to whom Cape Islam is greatly indebted for establishing the religion in this part of the world. All three had initially been banished to Robben Island. It is a sad indictment on colonial history that whereas the Mother City was regarded as the centre of civilisation in the mid-nineteenth century by the colonists, the Xhosas associated it with ‘the stronghold of the white man’s power, the place of banishment. In this chapter we want to concentrate on the positives. The example of Joseph in the Bible comes to mind. So many religious and political exiles were banished to Robben Island and imprisoned there. Many later felt strengthened, giving hope to their followers. Robben Island – Imprisonment Births Faith: The 1960s and 1970s saw the increased forced habitation of political prisoners on Robben Island. The infamous island gradually became the ‘University’ of the New South Africa. Many of those who were incarcerated there became government leaders after 1994. The government was quite successful in creating fear of imprisonment on Robben Island among all South African communities in the 1960s. What they did not entertain was that God used the brutality of the system just as he had heard the groans of the Israelites in Egypt in preparation of their final liberation. For Njongonkulu Ndugane, who was sentenced to three years on the island because of his political activities on behalf of the Pan African Congress of Azania (PAC), his time there became a turning point in his life. The son of an Anglican priest, he found himself wrestling with God asking the question: ‘How could a good God allow so much suffering in my country and now on the island? It was in the course of that wrestling with God that I found inner peace, as if God laid his hand on me. It was in a prison cell that I felt the call of God to serve him in the ordained ministry’ (Ndugane, 2003:5). In June 1996 he was elected as successor to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In this office he was instrumental in the renovation of the Church of the Good Shepherd on Robben Island, and in the reconsecration of the sanctuary ‘as a symbol... of future hope.’ They also made a statement to the effect of claiming it as ‘a place of pilgrimage and reconciliation. The island of incarceration has become an island of faith… It is part of that spirit of hope, that reconciling effect that people who were incarcerated on the island can bring to the world’(Ndugane, 2003:3). Nelson Mandela was required to clean the Kramat of Shaykh Mattara on Robben Island. Another type of cleaning took place inside Mandela, as Archbishop Tutu put it so aptly: ‘Those twenty-seven years and all the suffering they entailed were the fires of the furnace that tempered his steel that removed the dross. Perhaps without that suffering he would have been less able to be as compassionate and as magnanimous as he turned out to be’ (Tutu, 1999:40). Mandela mentioned his visits to the Muslim shrine in a letter to the Muslim Judicial Council in 1985. In writing to Mr Gabier, President Mandela said that he ‘literally harassed’ the prison authorities for permission to visit the shrine. He and his fellow visitors came out of the shrine ‘proud and happy that we were able to pay our respects to so great a fighter ...’38 Already as a political prisoner Mandela displayed a commitment to pragmatism, which helped him and his colleagues to gain many privileges. A second quality for his he became renowned was imputed via Christian teaching by people like Pastor Walter Ackerman from the Docks Mission and the Methodist stalwart Rev. Theo Kotze, who was also the Western Cape leader of linked to the Christian Institute. After his release in 1990, Mandela often referred to the Christian teaching that he received over the years as an important contribution to his emphasis on forgiveness and refraining from revenge. It was this quality that enabled and allowed him to treat even his enemies cordially and with respect. On this basis Mandela ultimately led the country towards national reconciliation. Counterproductive Repression All over the world prisons served as places of reform and renewal. South Africa is no expception. The transformation of our country has quite a few prominent examples of political activists who experienced a divine touch while they were incarcerated. Prisons sometimes have the effect of making innocent people into hardened criminals. Apartheid repression had a counterproductive and blessed effect on certain individuals. Some of the best examples of this phenomenon in respect of Robben Island revolves around two impressive personalities, Dennis Brutus and Bishop Stanley Mogoba. Brutus was active in the ‘convention’ movement and a fervent organizer of the Malmesbury Convention of July 1961 which sought unity between ‘Coloureds’ and 'Blacks'. Dismissed from teaching later in the year and placed under a ban. He went to study law at the University of the Witwatersrand where he became quite active in the anti-apartheid National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). After leaving the country secretly in 1963, Dennis Brutus was arrested in Mozambique and returned to South Africa. He was convicted for violating his ban and sentenced to 18 months on Robben Island. In 1966 he left the country on an 'exit permit' (not allowed to return to his home country under the apartheid regime). In London he re-established the South African Non-Racial Open Committee for Sport. More than anybody else he was responsible for the expulsion of SouthAfrica from the Olympic Movement. From 1971 he was a professor for English at Northwestern University in the USA. Stanley Mogoba was likewise originally a teacher and merely just a passive adherent of the Pan African Congress to whom young people came to for advice when he was arrested. The main evidence against him was that he was supposed to advise the young people to burn a Dutch Reformed Church whereas in his own words ‘I had strongly advised the young people against this. So I went to gaol for having saved a Dutch Reformed Church … part of the time in isolation. During that time I prayed and read the Bible from cover to cover for it was the only literature (available)…’39 On Robben Island Stanley Mogoba met Dennis Brutus, who was born in Zimbabwe from South African parents.40 While cleaning the passage outside Mogoba’s cell, when no one was listening, Dennis Brutus talked to him. He brought him a book called The Human Christ that brought about Mogoba's call to the ministry. It touched him very deeply to encounter the sorrow of Christ when he saw the young man of Matthew 19 leave, ‘unable to take the final step to true fulfilment.’ Mogoba was himself very unhappy hereafter, pondering what all that meant, thinking that he should serve Christ in a new way once he left the island. ‘But it was only when I said “I will follow you now, I am prepared to give my entire life to you and enter the ministry” that my sorrow left me and I experienced a sense of joy…’ 'Black' Townships Impacted Christmas Tinto was one of the most colourful struggle personalities. After his release from incarceration on Robben Island in 1973, he and Oscar Mpetha were instrumental in linking the old guard Cape township politicians with the young 'Black' consciousness revolutionaries like Cheryl Carolus, Johnny Issel, Trevor Manuel and Zoli Malinde who came through in the wake of the post-1976 riots. This was the pristine beginning of the UDF, which got the final nudge through a speech from Dr Allan Boesak in Johannesburg. Quite aptly the movement was launched the Western Cape, in the Rocklands Town Centre of Mitchells Plain in August 1983. Deservedly, the old Cape trade unionist Oscar Mpetha was elected the first president of the UDF, with Tinto as his deputy. After the failing health of the old stalwart, Tinto succeeded Mpetha. This choice was strategic, impacting the 'Black' townships because the public face of the UDF was very much determined by ‘Coloureds’ like Boesak Dullah Omar and Trevor Manuel. A Special Training Institution In his impressive study Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, Fran Buntman showed how the island developed from a place where mere survival was the top priority into a special training institution where inmates however at first had to fight for the rights to engage in studies. This was ultimately allowed right up to tertiary training. Michael Dingake 'could boast three academic degrees obtained through correspondence with the University of South Africa' (Cited in Buntman, 2003:272).More than merely the attaining of academic degrees, the prisoners impacted not only each other intensely, but many warders were changed as well. An interesting case was Aubrey du Toit, a former prison warder, who credited Nelson Mandela for encouraging him to study academic Afrikaans. Another prisoner advised him to follow a career with the insurance giant SANLAM, where he was holding a senior management position by 2002. (Buntman, 2003:262). Neville Alexander, a former prisoner, in his contribution Robben Island: the Politics of Rock and Sand referred to a further important contribution, viz. planning for the future. 'Perhaps one should go even beyond that and talk about nation building and the preparation for life in a post-apartheid South Africa' (Cited in Buntman, 2003:81). The Country Changed Via the intervention of the astute opposition politician Helen Suzman the eye of the internaitonal media got more and more focused on conditions on Robben Island. Reforms started to be implemented through Victor Verster already from 1959. The changes in the prisons became in a sense fore-runners for change in the country at large, where Nelson Mandela was undoubtedly the pivotal figure on the island. His special contribution that he succeeded in empowering and developing new leadership that did not depend on any one individual. After 1982 when Mandela and most of the Rivonia leadership was removed from the island the Robben Island community and the ANC actually flourished. Walter Sisulu referred to the acquisition of negotiating skills which the inmates developed on the island. In fact, he suggested that the actual negotiations around the future of the country started from Robben Island (Cited in Buntman, 2003:170). The Robben Islanders benefited greatly from contemporary factors in 1989, viz. the end of the Cold War and the attitude of the new pragmatic president F.W. De Klerk. The latter finally conceded much more in terms of 'White' rights and privileges than he had envisaged when he engaged into negotiations with Nelson Mandela and his cronies. The first democratic government of South Africa - and every subsequent parliament since then – consisted of a large component of ex-Robben Islanders. The much Zulu-Xhosa tribal clashes that were feared in a post-apartheid South Africa turned out to be a non-event. The conciliatory example of Nelson Mandela surely played a big role. The friendships forged on Robben Island with Zulu leaders like Jacob Zuma formed however just as much a contributory factor. Flexibility Versus Rigidity Fran Buntman (2003:288) highlighted a difference between Robben islanders and ANC exile politicians, viz. flexibility versus rigidity. This was demonstrated by the leadership styles of the first and second presidents of democratic South Africa. Although Nelson Mandela had a 'stubborn streak', often putting party and personal loyalty above reason, he consistently showed flexibility and a willingness to learn from the mistakes and expereiences of others and his own. Thabo Mbeki on the other hand, who earned his stripes in the party while in exile, Buntman referred in this regard also to Terror Lekota who showed the same willingness to stand for principle when he risked his premiership of the Free State as he did when he risked his national and prison standing on Robben Island. Buntman (2003:289) goes on to conclude that wthin the ANC leadership 'Robben Islanders tend to be among the most open to new ideas, challenges and change' . Spiritual Cleansing at the Cape At the beginning of 2001 NUPSA revealed plans, encouraging and challenging intercessors throughout the country, stressing that spiritual warfare included confession and the cleansing of South Africa from offences against God. Elisabeth Jordaan, one of the leaders, stressed that ‘...One of the major things that needs to happen to prepare the nation for repentance is that we need to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of our sin as a nation. Without this conviction there will be no Godly sorrow and no repentance brought about by the Holy Spirit.’ For the second half of the year 2001 NUPSA envisaged dealing with the whole issue of cleansing the land. During August and September 2001 the atonement of Jesus on the land was called upon. Prayer on sites of offence was performed simultaneously in all 9 provinces. At the Cape, this happened on Robben Island on the first weekend of September 2001. For this prayer exercise, Johan de Meyer of the Western Cape office of NUPSA compiled a manual together with Mike Winfield and Marilyn Graham. Former prisoners on the island who had become believers, like Vernon February, and the former hardcore Communist, Dr Crosby Zulu, joined in the programme. In the introduction to the manual, the redemptive potential of Robben Island is stressed. It highlights how Oliver Tambo, the leader in exile of the ANC for many years, and who had been a close colleague and friend of Nelson Mandela, once said that ‘tragedy of Africa, in racial political terms, has been concentrated at the southern tip of the continent, and in a special sense, on Robben Island…’ The purpose of the prayer venture of September 2001 was ‘removing the offences of generational sins so people’s lives can be touched and changed by the love and mercy of Jesus’ (De Meyer et al, 2001:7). The future will have to tell how much the venture succeeded in achieving this goal, but in the spiritual realm something definitely happened. A Dark Cloud? We should however mention a negative of Robben Island. While the island experience helped the inmates to overcome tribal and party rivalries through intense friendships which straddled those traditional schisms, a threat to democratic rule was nevertheless inherited by the tendency of the ANC to silence, oust or condemn its critics. Yet this was less the case on the island like in exile. Their dynamic leader Nelson Mandela who displayed a wonderful propensity to listen carefully to everybody was sorely missed after 1999 when external criticism were all too often dismissed as racism, or viewed as unjustified and illegitimate by definition. (The people person Mandela who was so loyal to his party and cabinet that poor performances by cabinet members were condoned gave a legacy to the country which constitutes a dark cloud. The results of the poor performance of his ministers in the Departments of Home Affairs, Justice and Health are still not overcome. Easy bail, corruption and a tendency to condone sexual immorality combined to form a dark cloud with the only silver lining at this point in time that Dr Nkosana Zuma has surprisingly succeeded in bringing order into the Departments of Home Affairs where corruption was so rife that change seemed impossible before she took over. The quest for control which was already evident on the island and especially in the ANC in exile, went berserk at the election conference in Polokwane. In a well-orchestrated coup Julius Malema and his ANC Youth League succeeded in ousting Thabo Mbeki and others in his faction of the party. They brought in the corruption- tainted Jacob Zuma, who would be indebted in this way to Malema and his cronies for years to come. 11. The Blood of Cape Martyrs The North African theologian coined already centuries ago the adage that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. The Cape had a variation already in the early days of the colony when Muslim convicts formed the core of the establishment of Islam. Much of this sort of history was locked up for ages in archives and still much of the unwritten legacy of martyrs will remain unknown. There thus is a case which can be regarded as an early precursor of the Steve Biko trial. The record of Sir John Truter, Fiscal and Chief Judge at the turn of the 19th Century has been seriously blemished at least once, but generally uncovered. Spadille, a Muslim slave, was sent to prison - accused of stealing some of Truter’s shirts. Spadille was flogged so terribly that he died in police custody. Truter abused his authority to get the jail surgeon to declare that Spadille died a natural death. Thereafter he was buried ‘in the darkness of the night, and silently put into the ground’ (Theal, Records of the Cape Colony, XX1X:222). Information Delved Out Hard-handed brutality of the police made martyrs of many religious or political prisoners at the Cape. In recent decades there were fortunately some committed people who refused to succumb to the normal South African ‘way of life’ of convenience and comfort. Father Bernard Wrankmore had been a chaplain to seamen when he was especially challenged to pray for the beloved country. Just at that time, Wrankmore saw the dossier of Imam Abdullah Haron, who had died while in police custody on 27 September 1969. Mrs Catherine Taylor, an opposition Member of Parliament, had brought up the issue in Parliament, which the government of the day evidently wanted to squash. The Imam Haron case highlighted for Wrankmore the fact that South Africa was now misled by a similar delusion as the Germans had been under Hitler. He decided to retreat for prayer and fasting to St George’s Cathedral for the situation in the country. However, Wrankmore was refused permission to do so by the Archbishop and the Dean of the Cathedral. Wrankmore came into the frontline of opposition to Prime Minister Vorster, when he requested an inquiry into the death of Imam Haron. He added weight to his protest through a drawn-out fast. A friend who had visited him at the shrine near to Lion’s Head, put the newspaper reporters on his track. It was definitely not Wrankmore’s own idea to get media attention. Initially the effort of the cleric seemed in vain, as Prime Minister Vorster remained unbending. Eventually a judicial inquiry followed when advocate Wilfred Cooper came into the picture. Imam Rashied Omar points to the role played by the local newspaper The Cape Times to keep protest alive in the minds of the people. What Wrankmore did not bargain for, was a major health hazard. After an extended period of fasting, his body became mysteriously swollen up. He thanked God that another round of prayer and fasting could sort out this matter. It is interesting that he started his fast on 19 August - 40 days before the second anniversary of the death of Haron. Run-up to a Special Funeral 1960 became a year of nation-wide turmoil in the run-up and aftermath of the riots in the Cape 'Black' township Langa. The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), led by the dynamic Robert Sobukwe, was a 'Black' nationalist break-away from the African National Congress (ANC). Sobukwe, a pioneer advocate of 'Black' consciousness, believed that the 'Blacks' had to throw off the shackles of oppression themselves before they could accept 'Whites' as compatriots and fellow Africans. In the view of the PAC, the ANC commitment had become diluted because of the presence of other races. The pass laws were first introduced with the sole purpose of channelling and directing cheap African labour into 'White' farms and other establishments. The pass book was thus to them ‘a badge of slavery’. Thousands of 'Blacks' would leave their passes at home and present themselves at police stations all over the country for arrest. They would fill prisons to overflowing and make influx control unworkable. The idea of taking the passes to police stations en masse had already been mooted by the ANC. By doing this a few days ahead of the mother organisation, the PAC in this way actually upstaged the ANC. The PAC-led campaign faltered everywhere the next few days except in Cape Town. Cape Town was one of a few places to respond enthusiastically to the PAC call. In the week prior to the 21st march, ‘war prayers’ were offered ‘on the sandy hills of Nyanga West almost every night, and recited the famous war songs and prayer of the great Xhosa warrior, Ntsikana’ (Kgosana, (1988:20).41 Philip Ata Kgosana, a young student who hailed from the north, was the regional secretary of the PAC. Already from midnight on Sunday 20 March a large crowd gathered at Bunga Square in Langa. In a roaring speech Kgosana passed on the final instructions of Sobukwe - there was to be absolute non-violence! ‘Anyone who agitates for violence or starts violence … we will regard as a paid agent of the government…. The white rulers are going to be extremely ruthless. But we must meet their hysterical brutality with calm iron determination…’ (Kgosana, (1988:105). In his motivational address the young Kgosana whipped up the crowd with an appeal and a call to action to ‘throw our whole weight …to defeat forces of oppression …We are either slave or free men – that’s all…We are fighting against a Calvinistic doctrine that a certain nation was especially chosen by God to lead, guide and protect other nations … Fellow Africans, the hour for service, sacrifice and suffering has come. Let us march to a new independent Africa with courage and determination. Forward to independence! To independence now! Tomorrow the United States of Africa! (Kgosana, (1988:103,107). On the morning of 21 March 1960 – the same day as the notorious massacre of Sharpeville - thousands of 'Blacks' congregated at the Philippi police station, forming an orderly line, declaring that they had come to hand in their pass books and wanted to be arrested. The bemused policemen at the station took their names, telling them to go home and await a summons to appear in court. The crowd left peacefully, leaving great piles of pass books at the police station. The PAC had called a meeting for the same evening to take place at Langa to report on the progress of the anti-pass campaign. Many turned up that evening, unintentionally defying a ban on meetings in Langa that day, under the impression that they were to receive an official response to their protest (Shaw, 1999:159). At the meeting covered by Cape Times reporter Terry Herbst, the meeting had just been opened with prayers when ‘a strong force of police drove up in a Saracen armoured car and wire-meshed troop-carriers formed up alongside the road’. An officer with a loud-hailer ordered the crowd to disperse and then proceeded, before the crowd had broken up, to order a baton charge. This was the first of several charges. The enraged crowd retaliated by throwing stones at the police, who opened fire in return with Sten guns and small arms. Fortunately the police soon retreated to their station soon hereafter, covered by machine-gun fire. Otherwise the casualty toll would have been worse than Sharpeville. Yet, two men were shot dead and 49 people were injured. Richard Lombard from Walmer Estate, the driver of the Cape Times vehicle, was battered and burnt to death in an outburst of mob hysteria. Seven buildings including two schools were destroyed by fire in a wild night of violence. Now rendered unenforceable, the pass laws were suspended on Saturday 26 March. This sent a wave of hysterical jubilation among 'Blacks' and the entire 'Black' population of the Peninsula seemed to throw their weight behind the PAC campaign, which included a very effective stay-away and crippling Cape industry significantly. Police Brutality Creating Martyrs Few countries – if any - had more martyrs created by police brutality than South Africa. Tension rose to breaking point. Tony Heard (1990:101) suggests that there ‘was no further inclination to accept the white government’s assurances.’ The breach of promise on 30 March 1960 has to be regarded as the start of the violent struggle against apartheid. Sharpeville had been bad enough, but now 'Blacks' were convinced that the Afrikaner government could not be trusted. Police hereafter surrounded the 'Black' townships, combined by a military cordon, to crush all further resistance. A state of emergency was called from March 30 to August 31, 1960 during which twelve thousand people were detained around the country. The pass laws which had been temporarily suspended on March 26, were reinstated and on 8 April 1960 the ANC and the PAC were banned. By 11 April the strike was broken and the cordon lifted, but the three weeks of protest shook the country. This situation continued on a more subdued note for quite a few months. The Cape remained part and parcel of the revolutionary ferment for some time – notably through POQO in the Paarl area towards the end of 1962. (The splinter group calling themselves POQO meaning alone – beyond talking, beyond negotiation - was particularly strong in Paarl.It started with the goal of purging the country of 'Whites'. The PAC slogan of the 1990s ‘one settler, one bullet’ has its origins in that movement.) Large-scale capital flight seemed to bring Harold Macmillan’s speech in the parliament into fulfilment, viz. that the wind of change has also hit South Africa. 12. Marches to Freedom The Mother City saw various political marches over the centuries. The first was probably the one in 1808 when slaves were led in protest by two Irishmen. Spurious legislation led to a cycle of violence and repression. By 1808 it was easy for Hooper, an Irish labourer and Kelly, an Irish sailor - along with two slaves Abraham and Louis - to rally slaves of the Swartland wheat farms for a protest. Hooper and Kelly deserted the group on 24th October 1808. The march to the Mother City, expecting emancipation from the governor, seems to have been the first of its kind worldwide. During the protest, the pattern of government oppression of later centuries took shape when the British arrested 326 men. Louis, Abraham and Hooper were hanged. The next protest march in the city occurred when the Cape authorities, alarmed by a smallpox epidemic that was sweeping through the colony, closed the Tana Baru Muslim cemetery in Bo-Kaap. The Muslims perceiving their right to bury their dead in the Islamic custom threatened, defied the law and rioted. Sparks (1990:81) called it ‘the first instance of spontaneous civil disobedience by South Africa’s powerless people of colour.’ They were represented in their dispute with the Cape Government by an educated cab driver, Abdol Burns. He came to play an important role as negotiator for the Cape Muslims from 1875 to 1886 in their tussle with the Cape Government on the cemetery issue. From his evidence before the Parliamentary Select Committee it became clear that Burns was not prepared to concede any of the rights of Cape Muslims on cemeteries. Burns’ central argument was that Muslims must carry their dead to their last resting place. This he put as a religious law, sacred to all Muslims. ‘The cemetery riots of 1886 are probably the most significant expression of civil disobedience of the nineteenth century Cape Muslim community... The closure of their cemeteries, in terms of the Public Health Act No. 4 of 1883, moved them to an emotional frenzy which united them to ward off what they regarded as external interference in their religion’ (Davids, 1980:62). A Mass March from Langa 1960 became a year of nation-wide turmoil in the run-up to and aftermath of Sharpeville. The Cape was no exception. With a strong emphasis on non-violence Robert Sobukwe, the leader of the Pan African Congress of Azania (PAC), had called on thousands of 'Blacks' to leave their discriminatory passes at home on the 21st March 1960, and present themselves at police stations for arrest. They would fill prisons to overflowing and make influx control unworkable. Cape Town was one of a few places to respond enthusiastically to the call. The PAC-led campaign faltered everywhere over the next few days, except in Cape Town. The tide of insurgency here led to a mass march on 30th March 1960 after a brutal attack on striking Langa residents. Knife-edge tension was building up throughout the Western Cape. Thirty thousand protesters decided to walk from Langa to the City along De Waal Drive. Philip Kgosana, a young student, was the regional secretary of the PAC. He joined the marchers belatedly, but immediately took command of the ‘most remarkable march in South African history to date’. Now and then he stopped the marchers and taught them on non-violence. A dissident almost caused a revolt by denouncing non-violence, calling the crowd to sack Parliament. Kgosana decided on his own to lead the marchers instead to Caledon Square, the headquarters of the police, because the houses of Parliament were surrounded at this time by a massive build-up of troops. A tragic massacre was thus prevented. In all likelihood such a tragedy was possibly averted for another reason: Kgosana mentions how for two months before the event, people in Nyanga West had been praying every night to God to deliver them from the oppression they experienced because of the pass laws. Colonel Ignatius Terblanche, who had been called urgently to the scene, was staggered when he saw the size of the crowd. ‘He fell to his knees in the police station and prayed before embarking on a daring quest for peace – which, without doubt, clashed with the views of the government’ (Heard, 1990:96). Divine peace must have overpowered him as he went outside to lead a small party of unarmed senior officers. The scene witnessed and described by Tony Heard, a journalist of the Cape Times and a later editor of the Cape Town morning paper, belongs to sacred history, including very special words, unheard for an Afrikaner, the son of a bankrupt ostrich farmer, speaking to a black person. Heard reports Terblanche’s first remark and the reaction, after he was introduced to the young student as follows: “Mr Kgosana, I speak to you as one gentleman to another. Please, would you ask the crowd to be quiet?” Kgosana was given the use of a loudhailer and … said in a loud voice in English: “Let us be silent … just like people who are going to a graveyard… Quiet descended abruptly on the scene…’ Kgosana agreed to disperse the crowd after an undertaking by Colonel Terblanche that he could meet Mr F.C. Erasmus, the Minister of Justice, later in the day to discuss their grievances. ‘He complained about Africans being hurled from their hostel rooms in the townships by police trying to force them to go to work that day and earlier’ (Heard, 1990:97). The young student from Pretoria and the trusting thirty thousand were to be tricked. Kgosana was summarily arrested when he arrived for a meeting. Tony Heard testified later to this fact. The journalist was convinced that Terblanche had been sincere, but that his Cabinet Minister had let him down. ‘The available record leaves Terblanche an honourable man and condemns Erasmus’ (Heard, 1990:99). Terblanche and Tony Heard became strange bedfellows when both of them became a prey to racist vendettas. The Star quoted the then 84-year old Terblanche in July 1987: I was blamed for not using force, even among my colleagues’ and there were suggestions that promotion was withheld because he failed to obey orders. (Tony Heard harvested the wrath of his employers when he dared to follow his convictions to interview Oliver Tambo, the leader in exile of the ANC. His dismissal was performed in such a shrewd way that there was just enough time between the interview and the sacking as editor to prevent a direct connection.) The Start of the Violent Struggle Tension rose to breaking point. Tony Heard (1990:101) suggests that there ‘was no further inclination to accept the 'White' government’s assurances.’ The breach of promise on 30 March 1960 has to be regarded as the start of the violent struggle against apartheid. Sharpeville had been bad enough, but now 'Blacks' were convinced that the Afrikaner government could not be trusted. A state of emergency was called from March 30 to August 31, 1960 during which twelve thousand people were detained throughout the country. The pass laws, which had been temporarily suspended on March 26, were reinstated and on 8 April 1960 the ANC and the PAC were banned. By 11 April the strike was broken and the cordon lifted, but the three weeks of protest shook the country. This situation continued on a more subdued note for quite a few months. The Cape remained part and parcel of the revolutionary ferment for some time – notably through POQO in the Paarl area towards the end of 1962. (The splinter group calling themselves POQO meaning alone – beyond talking, beyond negotiation - was especially strong in Paarl. It started with the goal of purging the country of 'Whites'. The PAC slogan of the 1990s ‘one settler, one bullet’ has its origins in that movement.) Large-scale capital flight seemed to bring Harold Macmillan’s speech in the parliament into fulfilment, namely that the wind of change has also hit South Africa. A March Opposing f Religious Opppression The decision of the government to outlaw the activities of the UDF and sixteen anti-apartheid organizations, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), turned out to be completely counter-productive. The message of 24 February 1988 was clear: any opposition to the apartheid regime would not be tolerated - not even peaceful protest. Sweeping, ridiculous restrictions were placed on funerals; hymns, songs and sermons were forbidden and tickets were issued by the police to limit funeral attendance (Walshe, 1995:123). Allister Sparks, a well-known journalist, who witnessed the ‘Trojan truck massacre’ in Athlone, reported how in 1985 already the police were demanding that the parents of killed youths sign a pledge that no more than 50 people would attend the funerals (1990:82). Unlike in October 1977, when the Christian Institute and other organizations were banned, the church rose to the challenge. Dr Allan Boesak, the leader and founder of the banned UDF, defiantly preached in his church in Bellville South on Sunday 28 February 1988, choosing Luke 13:31-35 as his text. He noted that Jesus chose confrontation as his response to the threats and intimidation of state power. He was truely brave in that volatile situation to quote Jesus’ words (in which the Master referred to King Herod), "Go and tell that fox...", The very next day, Monday 29 February 1988, Archbishop Tutu, Frank Chikane and scores of other church leaders led hundreds of protesters in the Mother City in a prayer service, marching to the South African Parliament to demand the restoration of the right of non-violent, peaceful protest. Emulating the civil disobedience of Martin Luther King, Jr in the 1960s, they refused to disperse and retreat when confronted by a daunting line of riot police, calmly kneeling in prayer. The clergymen were detained by the police, strictly warned, and then released. Hundreds of other marchers were hosed down with police water cannons. Prayer was very much part of the process of change. This was demonstrated by times of prayer and fasting in St George’s Cathedral, where the church leaders had evidently repented after their negative response to Rev. Wrankmore in 1971. Rev. David Russell and Dr Ivan Toms, a young doctor who served at the SACLA-initiated clinic in Crossroads, were two people who were allowed to pray there, with some publicity given to their endeavours (King, 1997:67). Dr Toms became the driving force of the End Conscription Campaign movement, which encouraged 'Whites' to refuse to serve in the apartheid-inspired South African Defence Force. That meant risking imprisonment, a consequence which befell many a 'White' conscientious objector to military service. In 1983 a small number of 'White' conscientious objectors – who faced severe penalties – had heeded a call from the Black Sash and launched the End Conscription Campaign (ECC). In August 1984 the ECC declaration maintained that conscripts who were used to defend apartheid and wage war on the frontline states. In spite of the arrest of Michael Evans, the Western Cape chairman the ECC conducted a highly publicized Troops Out (of the townships) campaign. The centre-piece was a 21-day fast by Ivan Toms in St Georges Cathedral. This culminated in Toms addressing a packed City Hall Meeting in August 1986. The May 1986 State of Emergency outlawed calls for an end to conscription, which greatly impeded subsequent ECC campaigns. The organization was effectively banned in August 1988. A Defiance Campaign With A Difference The march from Langa in March 1960 would be emulated in various ways in the decades thereafter. Opponents of apartheid were in the numerical ascendancy throughout the Cape Peninsula in 1989, notably also among 'Whites', with the exception of the northern suburbs. Cape Town’s new mayor, Gordon Oliver and his City councillors had come out in favour of an ‘open city’. On 11 June, together with two thousand other people, he walked from Rondebosch to District Six for the cause – keeping just within the law. With the likelihood of considerable 'White' support, a pro-ANC Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) – successor to the banned UDF – launched a new defiance campaign against remaining social segregation on August 2. The campaign intensified as parliamentary elections, scheduled for 6 September, drew near. President P.W. Botha suddenly had become a liability. On 14 August Mr F.W. De Klerk, a low-key Minister but the leader of the Transvaal National Party (NP,) ousted Mr Botha as the national leader of the party. Yet, nobody expected much in terms of concession from a Prime Minister who had been labelled to be on the verkrampte side,42 a true conservative. The successor of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), the Democratic Party (DP), won all the city, southern and Atlantic suburb seats in the 'White' general election in September of that year. Moves In A Remote Free State Town In 1985 the ANC conference in Kabwe, Zambia was in no mood to even consider conciliation with the apartheid government. Their talk ‘had centred mainly on the struggle’ (Davenport, 1998:5). The country was going through its worst crisis ever when revolt surfaced in so many places and harsh oppression seemed to be the only answer the government under stern ‘no nonsense’ Prime Minister P.W. Botha could offer. Much more than co-incidence brought a lawyer with the name of Pieter de Waal to the remote Free State town Brandfort at the time when Winnie Mandela, the wife of the most renowned South African prisoner, was exiled to Brandfort. De Waal’s devout wife Adele became friendly with Winnie - a friendship which would influence the country deeply (Davenport, 1998:5, using material from Allistair Sparks’s book Tomorrow is another country). (Winnie regarded Adele as her ‘white sister’, deeplyupset by her death in a car crash in 1990 – Harvey, 2001:105). When Winnie Mandela approached De Waal, the only lawyer in the town in 1977, after she got in trouble after her umpteenth contravention of her banning orders, he had been softened up by his wife. Since the 1950s Pieter de Waal had been the tennis partner of Kobie Coetzee. In the meantime Coetzee had become the Cabinet Minister of Justice, thus responsible for prisons. Winnie Mandela requested Pieter de Waal to approach Minister Coetzee, not only to review her banning order, but also to consider the release of her husband. In 1985 Winnie Mandela and Coetzee happened to be on the same plane to Cape Town. Coetzee’s friendliness to enquire after the health of her husband, who was in a City Hospital because of an enlarged prostrate gland, was just the catalyst for her to urge him to go and visit Nelson Mandela in hospital. Possibly as a result of the conversation on the airplane - unknown to Capetonians - in November 1985, Mr Cobus Coetzee visited Nelson Mandela, who had been admitted to the Volkshospitaal in the Gardens suburb near to the parliament buildings. This hospital was known as a symbol of apartheid. Three beds were reserved for the maids and gardeners of top government officials. Nobody would even have given it a thought that someone like Mandela would be admitted there one day. The visit of the Minister set in motion a process of secret talks between the government and the ANC. Four years of high level talks followed in which Coetzee and Nelson Mandela found each other. At the same time Mandela was prepared for release with ‘surreptitious trips around the city’ (Bickford-Smith et al, 1999:217). However, Mandela proved a difficult customer, not prepared to be released on the terms of P.W. Botha, the State President. The shrewd politician called the ‘groot krokodiel’ (great crocodile) was not to get that honour. Coetzee worked hard to keep communications open. Thus he allowed an Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) not only to visit South Africa, but also to visit Nelson Mandela. Prime Minister P.W. Botha – possibly convinced by his security advisers that successful negotiations were not in their interests – torpedoed the talks by ordering simultaneous raids on ANC bases in three frontline states, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The EPG scurried home in disarray. All hopes for peace were instantly dashed. Patience of Nelson Mandela Brings Back Hope For Peace Fortunately Nelson Mandela did not let Botha off the hook after the orchestrated flop up of the EPG mission. Via Niels Barnard, head of the National Intelligence Service, a meeting took place between Mandela and Botha on 5 July 1989. Botha was not to get the glory for the release of Nelson Mandela. He suspiciously demanded from Mandela a public renunciation of violence which Mandela could not make without consulting his constituency. In August 1989 Botha was succeeded by Frederik Willem de Klerk after a ‘well-staged cabinet coup’ (Davenport, 1998:7). Because of the secrecy surrounding talks with the Government the new President de Klerk’s lifting of the ban on quite a few influential political organizations of the opposition in February 1990 – and the release of political detainees - took everybody by surprise. But there had been other moves in the run-up to this spectacular event. The Run-Up Of A March to Victory The most prominent march was the one on 13 September 1989. On the 1st of September, several groups of clerics and academics gathered to demand the right to protest. De Klerk appeared to be no different to his predecessor, when all the protestors were arrested and some of the clergymen were badly beaten by the police. So were many members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) as they demonstrated against a new labour Relations Act. On 2 September, attempted marches to Parliament were broken up by police using teargas, quirts and a water canon. On election night itself, many of the Cape Flats townships were turned into battlefields. As many as 23 people were killed. All this changed at a mammoth march on Wednesday 13 September 1989 in the Mother City. After a short service of ‘peace and mourning’ at St George’s Cathedral, thirty thousand people packed the streets en route to the Grand Parade. The city was witnessing its largest and most peaceful march since the one led by Philip Kgosana in 1960. Unlike most demonstrations since 1960, not a single uniformed policeman was in visible attendance. At the head of the march were Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mayor Gordon Oliver, Dr Allan Boesak, Sheikh Nazeem Mohamed (President of the Muslim Judicial Council) and Professor Jakes Gerwel (Rector of the University of the Western Cape). Archbishop Tutu declared victoriously: ‘We are a new people, a rainbow people, marching to freedom.’ Amid cries of ‘Long live the mayor!’ and deafening applause, Gordon Oliver announced, ‘Today Cape Town has won. Today we all have the freedom of the City.’ The March to Democracy This event triggered off demonstrations all over the country, which must have given the new South African president, Mr F.W. De Klerk, food for thought. These events were made possible by national and international developments and especially by sustained prayer. De Klerk’s turn-around in allowing the march was prepared by 13 years of urban turmoil and economic recession, all of which spawned illegal strikes, unemployment and a more militant trade unionism. Internationally, the era of perestroika had arrived in Eastern Europe. It would have been fool-hardy for De Klerk and his the government to try and stem the tide. The march to freedom seemed unstoppable. But what few were aware of , was that a wave of prayer for the country had been set in motion already in 1987. Thus, a visit to Singapore in 1988 by Gerda Leithgöb, at that stage an unknown prayer warrior from Pretoria, became a catalyst for worldwide intercession on behalf of South Africa. Even in remote parts of South Africa people were now praying, because of the deteriorating and explosive situation in the country. Thus vastly different groups like one in the Mother City which gathered on a weekly basis, and 'Black' women in the Soutpans Mountains interceded for the country to be spared bloodshed, and for an end to the misery caused by apartheid. Ominous signs, however, also appeared on the horizon. In the election of the same month, it must have become clear to President De Klerk that a solution had to be found to stop the ongoing cycle of violence, rebellion and oppression. This had been a major characteristic of South Africa in the second half of the 1980s. In the election his party lost support to both the left and the right. The mammoth march must have challenged the new South African State President tremendously. De Klerk was cornered, but also very wise in agreeing to meet with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak less than a month later. A letter of confession, posted on October 4, 1989 in the Dutch town of Zeist, became the spur for the regiogebed of the same evening to devote their monthly prayer event exclusively to South Africa (In the months preceding this evening, the group had discovered how powerful intercessory prayer for countries could be. They had interceded for the former communist states of Eastern Germany and Hungary, which later entered into a process of transformation.) A week later - without the group in Zeist having any knowledge of it - the new South African President, Mr F.W. De Klerk, met Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Allan Boesak. That momentous meeting would help to change the course of events in the country decisively, leading ultimately to the famous speech by President De Klerk a few months later, on 2 February 1990. Ongoing Violence Keeps Church Leaders Awake The euphoria after President de Klerk’s speech of February 1990 had a positive flutter in the ground-breaking Rustenburg Conference in November the same year. But thereafter, the prophetic voice of the church seemed to fall into hibernation. Even nudges by the government could not revive the church’s prophetic role of the apartheid days. The good intention of the organisers of the conference in Cape Town in October 1991 dubbed Cottesloe II (and later Rustenburg II in 2003) notwithstanding, the Church is still sleeping. The negotiations during the years of transition disproved the notion that De Klerk was completely magnanimous. As political violence continued, and it became increasingly clear that this violence was fuelled by a third force intent on assisting the old apartheid regime to retain the reins, De Klerk actually fiercely resisted attempts to have the Goldstone Commission investigate the third force allegations. The ongoing violence at least prevented church leaders from sleeping peacefully. The SACC convened a theological colloquium in February 1992. Its statement dubbed the Koinonia Minute included a Pastoral Peace Plan that would target grassroots communities. The plan was to educate rural and urban communities, and to prepare them for participation in elections. A result was Education for Democracy, a programme that was supported by various church and secular organisations. This would highlight political tolerance and voter education. Radio programmes and educational pamphlets were prepared and mobile teams used music and drama where the majority were illiterate. It is not clear to what extent the lofty plans were implemented. A further example of initiatives taken by the SACC was a church leaders meeting in April 1992. This meeting, in turn, convened an ‘Emergency Summit on Violence’, which was attended by political leaders like Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo (both ANC) and Clarence Makwetu (PAC). Significantly, the parties accepted co-responsibility for the persisting carnage, committing themselves to joint rallies and to setting up local reconciliation committees. The CODESA talks at Kempton Park, which had given so much hope to the nation, were stalled when it became clear that a third force was operating, which could derail any new effort to get negotiations on track. As a consequence of these emergency meetings, a SACC delegation met with President de Klerk on 22 May 1992, where he however continued resisting international monitoring of violence and a time table for an interim government (Walshe, 1995:150). The work of Church leaders was cut out for them when the CODESA talks collapsed within weeks after the May meeting with the SACC delegation. A yet broader array of church leaders was brought into play to undertake shuttle diplomacy. Thus Professor Johan Heyns, Assessor of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), was the contact with the government. Rev Ray McCauley of the well-known Rhema church in Johannesburg tried to draw Dr Mangusuthu Buthulezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) into the dialogue. In a speech in December 1992 in Potchefstroom, Nelson Mandela challenged the Church to become a midwife to democracy. Significantly, he invited the church to anew become involved in ‘national reconciliation that is underpinned by confession and restitution’ (Cited in Walshe, 1995:146). The acid test followed in April 1993, when right-wing elements assassinated Chris Hani. Through a miracle the country was not dumped into a civil war of great proportions. The Long Road to Freedom, as the autobiography of President Nelson Mandela is titled, unfortunately did not end with the peaceful elections of April 1994. For Professor Johan Heyns, his commitment towards the cause of peace cost him his life. He had also led his church into a turn-about with regard to apartheid at the national DRC synod of 1986. His assassination on 5 November 1994 has still not been cleared up, the assassin not identified. The millions of the continent are still bound in chains of poverty and religious bondage. The question remains when (whether?) the Church would be prepared once again to unitedly get its hands dirty, such as in the fight against HIV/AIDS, homelessness, poverty and drug abuse. And what about confession for the heresies, which preceded the marginalisation of Judaism in the 4th century and led to Islamic bondage in the 7th? The Mother City, with a sizeable representation of the other two Abrahamic religions, has the potential to lead the world in repentance and concrete restitution. There is still a long road ahead! Jesus Marches at the Cape One of the events organised in 1993 with some link to the Western Cape Missions Commission was a workshop with John Robb of World Vision. I used the list of participants at this event to organize Jesus Marches the following year. All around the world Jesus Marches were planned for 24 June 1994. In a letter from our friend and missionary colleague Chris Scott from Sheffield (England), he wrote about their preparations for a Jesus March in their city. Inquiries on this side of the ocean dropped the co-ordination of the whole effort in the Western Cape into my lap. I soon became involved in the co-ordination of about 20 prayer marches in different parts of the Cape Peninsula, liaising closely with Danie Heyns, a Christian businessman and Chris Agenbach of the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington. Danie Heyns organized the marches in the northern suburbs of the city and Chris Agenbach did the same for the immediate ‘platteland’ (country side). In the run-up to the Jesus Marches the vision came up in my heart to get a prayer network going throughout the Cape Peninsula to achieve a breakthrough among the Cape Muslims. I was so terribly aware that concerted prayer was needed. A few prayer groups got going. I had high expectations that the Jesus Marches would result in a network of prayer across the Peninsula. However, the initial interest that our second attempt, which an updated audio-visual had stimulated in various areas, petered out. As part of my own research, I thought to have discerned that the Islamic shrines around the city were keeping the city in spiritual bondage. I shared this in meetings prior to the Jesus Marches. Probably for the first time Cape Christians started to pray concertedly against the effect of the occult power of the Kramats, the Islamic shrines on the heights of the Peninsula. 13. ‘Squatters’ Resist Injustice At the Cape the 'Black' population doubled in the 1930s and again during World War II. With housing shortages as severe as in Johannesburg, 'Blacks' went off into the bush. They were living among ‘Coloureds’, who were also coming from farms into the city. By the time that the National Party came to power in 1948, 25,000 of the 36, 000 'Blacks' at the Cape were living in one of thirty ‘squatter’ camps. In 1955 it was announced that 'Blacks' would be eventually removed from the Western Cape, which was designated a ‘Coloured’ preference area. Dr Eiselen, the Secretary for Native Affairs at the time when Dr H.F. Verwoerd was the minister responsible, was repudiated vehemently by ‘Coloured’ spokesmen at the beginning of 1955. ‘Coloureds’ Segregated From 'Blacks' The government went ahead with the removal programme in the shanty towns of which Windermere, built behind the industrial suburb of Maitland, was the oldest and largest camp. ‘Coloureds’ were first segregated from 'Blacks', and then sent to new exclusively ‘Coloured’ townships like Q’town on the Cape Flats. The 2,500 'Black' families were then screened according to Section 10 of the new Urban Areas Act. 750 families qualified for temporary residence at the Cape. Twelve hundred families were ordered to separate. Husbands could go to the hostels for single men, but the wives and children would have to return to the ‘native reserves’. The authorities could not sort out the remaining 500 families. ‘Squatters’ from all thirty camps were herded to the ‘Nyanga Emergency Camp’ in 1956 where they could re-erect their shacks. Most of the ‘squatter’ camps around Cape Town were dismantled by 1960, the year Werner Eiselen died. He was Dr Verwoerd’s right hand man in the cleansing of the Cape of 'Blacks'. More than ten thousand women had been sent ‘home’, that is to the Cis- or to the Transkei. Yet, despite the government’s energetic work, the 'Black' population of Cape Town grew further to 180, 000. Twenty-one years on, the Nyanga-Crossroads ‘squatters’ – with support from church leaders - were not only showing up the sham of the apartheid policy, but inflicted the government the crucial blow, introducing the demise of the pass laws. A new campaign to revive the removal scheme was launched in 1962. Die Burger prominently reported that some Afrikaner businessmen and farmers were willing to reduce the number of 'Black' Employees. For farmers it was of course convenient to get rid of workers in the course of mechanization while maintaining a ‘clear conscience’. The repeated argument in Afrikaans newspapers was: What is being planned in the Western Cape, is the government’s policy for the rest of the country. To achieve this, settled 'Black' workers were also transformed into migrants. A further amendment to the Native Urban Areas Act denied rural 'Black' men the right to seek work in Cape Town. Resistance of Werkgenot ‘Squatters’ Thousands of 'Blacks' continued to come into the Western Cape in the early 1970s in spite of the government’s intention to finally remove 'Blacks' from the region. About 100 shacks were built secretively at Werkgenot, near to the University of the Western Cape - unknown to almost everyone except the ‘squatters’ themselves. The plight of the 'Black' ‘squatters’ came to the broader attention of Capetonians only in 1974. Marius de Jager, an employee of the municipality of Bellville, became aware of the Werkgenot camp during the winter of that year. On October 21 he received a phone call from Mr W.F. Coetzee of the Bantu Affairs Administration Board (BAAB) with the instruction to arrange that Werkgenot be bulldozed on the night of October 25. City engineer John Marshall, De Jager’s boss, approved Mr Coetzee’s request. The raid – fully described in Andrew Silk’s booklet A Shanty Town in South Africa, was executed ‘like a military exercise.’ 'Blacks' took the matter to court because a shanty could not be destroyed without a court order or the permission of the landowner. Gruesome details of the raid emerged during the trial. About 20 shanties were erected near the township Nyanga during February 1975. Several of them had been put up by former residents of Werkgenot. By mid-April there were over 1000 shacks and almost 4000 people. The first raid on the new camp, which had been called Crossroads, began at 5 a.m. on May 2. Thirty four ‘squatters’ were arrested for pass offences and for trespassing. During the next two months, selected shacks were knocked down and women arrested while their husbands were at work. Finally two ‘squatters’ brought a suit against the Bantu Affairs Administrative Board for destruction of property. The judge ruled in favour of the ‘squatters’, lecturing the officials to respect the little possessions the ‘squatters’ had. The Board did not contest the ruling, but their officials continued to harass the ‘squatters’. Pretoria would of course not allow itself to be challenged by 'Blacks'. Parliamentary Debate As a young parliamentarian Dr Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, a former Sociology lecturer of Stellenbosch, dared to visit the KTC informal settlement, the year after being unexpectedly elected into Parliament for the Cape constituency of Rondebosch. There he listened in a small chapel to Bishop Matualenga’s appeal to ‘ask the government not to knock down their shacks’ (Van Zyl Slabbert, 2000:39). Slabbert was promptly charged for being in a 'Black' township without a permit. He indicated that he would prefer to go to jail if he was given the option, almost forcing the Minister M.C. Botha to back down. The magistrate saved the government some embarrassment by only warning Slabbert. Slabbert was also taken to a shack where he met the two wives of a certain man. One of the women was paralyzed. The purpose of the second one, who was brought from the Transkei was more or less to nurse the paralysed first wife, and to care for the six children. Slabbert was moved and challenged. In a parliamentary debate Dr Slabbert valiantly gave an analysis of the situation, defending the ‘squatters’. The government was undeterred. A new law, the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Amendment Act of 1976, came onto the statute books. A court order would no longer be needed to demolish a shack. This was the pristine beginning of the ‘Battle’ of Nyanga which inflicted a defeat on the apartheid government in 1981. As leader of the political party of which he became leader in 1979, and which moved from seven to 27 seats in April 1981, he had to bear the brunt of his ‘meddling’. His whole library was destroyed after an arson attempt on his home. Cape Build-Up to Soweto June 1976 The Werkgenot ‘squatters’ were not willing to take the abuse lying down. While Parliament was debating the new law, they constructed new shacks in the bushes just off Modderdam Road, not so far from where they had been evicted. Modderdam Road runs between Bellville Station and the N2 highway, passing the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Bishop Lavis Township. The informal settlements of Modderdam soon became a test of the government’s renewed war against Western Cape ‘squatters’. By the end of May 1976 more than a hundred shacks had been put up and the police was now also aware of their presence. The first heavy winter rain fell during the night of June 2, 1976. This did not deter the police pounding at the doors of the shanties and demanding passes. While policemen with heavy raincoats herded 'Black' women to parked cars, about thirty ‘squatter’ men – armed with clubs, pick handles and stones - surrounded three policemen who stood apart from the rest. The ensuing battle of about half an hour was followed by a procession along Modderdam Road with a strange combination of hymn singing and the stoning of passing cars. At about 1 a.m. the police sealed off the road. The Cape Times reported the next day that 30 ‘squatters’ had been arrested and two policemen were hospitalized. Rev. Louis Banks reacted on behalf of the Western Province Council of Churches, calling the incident ‘a direct outgrowth of the law.’ The Modderdam ‘Squatter’ Camp – a Model Of Resistance The government’s intention with Modderdam backfired completely. What was intended to become the model for the country to deal with illegal ‘squatters’ became instead teaching in resistance. Andrew Silk (1977:3) summarized the paradox of South African history so aptly, as it was practised in a nutshell in that informal settlement: ‘The economy’s huge appetite for black labour is in conflict with 'White' fears of being ‘swamped’, and ruled by 'Blacks'. Modderdam was a microcosm of this classic struggle’. The men and women who fought to keep the camp were hardly known outside Modderdam and were forgotten after they had left. The first raid there on June 2, 1976 was overshadowed by events in Soweto two weeks later. Its demolition on August 8, 1977 was eclipsed by the death in detention of 'Black' Consciousness leader Steve Biko, who had been tipped to be a future State President and the banning of the Christian Institute and a host of other organizations in October of that year. Community Support Cape Town experienced a rare feat in the mobilising of support for ‘squatters’ in February 1977. A rare midsummer thunderstorm struck thousands of homeless families started an outcry, after an aerial picture was published on the front page of the Cape Times on 9 February 1977 (Shaw, 1999:285). A generous gift by a Christian, who signed a hand-delivered letter to the editor with ‘Inasmuch’ triggered the founding of the Shelter Fund. He found the morning’s editorial of the Cape Times ‘as timely and challenging as the aerial picture on your front page is distressing and frightening’(Shaw, 1999:285). The anonymous letter writer called for concerted action by the authorities and the public, asking fellow Capetonians to join him in contributing to ‘squatter’ relief. Dr Oscar Wollheim, the chairman of the Cape Flats Distress Association (CAFDA) took the initiative to administer the fund through a board of trustees. Revel Fox, a leading Cape Town architect,, designed free of charge ‘starter’ houses, which in time could be extended by the occupant families from their own earnings. A pilot Shelter project was established at Valhalla Park with the object of showing what could be done in self-help low-cost housing. This was the example and foundation on which the post-1994 Reconciliation Development Programme (RDP) could build. The Demolition of Modderdam The demolition of Modderdam brought the churches into the equation significantly. A tradition had already started to see the month of August as one in which compassion was highlighted. The Sunday before the ‘Coloureds’ left, the ‘squatters’ had their weekly meeting. The crowd unanimously resolved to resist the government passively by simply refusing to move. They also agreed to undertake a three-day fast, and invited those outside the camp to join them. In a new stand of solidarity with the ‘squatters’, the leader of the 'White' Women’s Movement endorsed the fast and also urged members of her organization to sleep alone at night, to symbolize the separation of husbands and wives. A ‘Coloured’ woman stood up during the meeting and expressed ‘Coloured’ solidarity with the 'Blacks'. This appeared to be rather tokenism, because the ‘Coloureds’ obeyed the eviction orders soon thereafter. Yet, if the government ideologists had hoped that fights would break out between ‘Coloureds’ and 'Blacks', they failed dismally. Laconically, the 'Blacks' resolved that it was better to have a hard, committed core of people who were determined to fight to the bitter end. Yet, the Modderdam camp remained in the newspapers, gaining wide support all through. When the bulldozers arrived on the 8th of August 1977, the press was there, as well as many supporters from the other races. The appeals of the 'White' sympathizers were unsuccessful, although the actual demolishing was postponed when people obstructed the vehicles after a second tractor succeeded in freeing the bulldozer and the first tractor. The next day, a letter from the benefactor - framed by a black border - was printed on the front page of the Cape Times. ‘…The misery of the ejected ‘squatters’ with their homes in ruins, guarding their meager possessions on the roadside, is indescribable... I have to share in the guilt of the ‘haves’ of contemporary society. I hang my head in shame and plead for forgiveness…’ Scattered skirmishes during the morning - after the police had separated the supporters from the inhabitants – converged into a major confrontation shortly after midday. A tense razor-edge situation developed, which looked like ending in massive bloodshed. Mr Plaatjie lifted his hand as once Paul, the apostle, had done before a riotous crowd, miraculously bringing down the tension. The ‘squatters’ dispersed quietly. They won the moral confrontation, leaving the field to the police to take Modderdam without bullets. The burning of Modderdam began shortly after the crowd dispersed. Social workers and ‘squatters’ reported that police had set fire to the shanties, but the inhabitants themselves also fanned the flames in their desperation. Church Protest The day’s ‘fighting’ ended with teargas, but there was little panic. That evening a protest meeting was held at St. Xavier’s in the 'White' suburb of Claremont. The protesters decided to form a human chain the next morning in front of the bulldozer, and force the police to drag them away. An unprecedented wave of support followed when one hundred clergymen arrived at 6 a.m. But the bulldozers did not arrive. The bulk left by 9 a.m. with a few staying behind to warn the others, should the operation begin later in the day. It is obvious that there must have been informers in the protest meeting in the Claremont church. After midday, two bulldozers arrived. Three 'White' men including Rev. David Russell, the Anglican priest who had ruffled the conscience of the nation with his protest and fast in St George’s Cathedral on behalf of the 'Blacks' in the ‘Resettlement Areas’, walked into the camp. Since the inception of the Crossroads informal settlement in 1975, the ‘squatter camp’ was part of this parish. As soon as the three protesters reached the first truck, Rev Russell calmly laid down in front of the vehicle. He was promptly arrested. Asked later why he did it, he said: ‘…instead of writing another letter to those in authority, I had to use my body where communication and words were useless, as an act to uphold and be a witness to God’s law. Just by obeying God’s law and acting according to my conscience, I felt I could communicate to these people’s hearts so that they could be made aware of the evil being done there.’ The community workers found shelter for the women and children in church halls. Their possessions were taken to an empty Pepsi-Cola warehouse. Three church services were held on the following Sunday. At the nearby Unibell informal settlement ministers from different races joined in the service. Prayers were offered for Rev. Russell who was still imprisoned. He refused the conditional bail – viz. that he would not enter any ‘squatter’ camps again. The second gathering was at the City Hall in the city centre. In the inter-faith service Dr Allan Boesak received a standing ovation when he said that he would pray every day for the downfall of the Nationalist government. His repetition of that statement would become quite controversial in later years. The third meeting of the day took place at the camp itself. Prayers were offered in a moving ceremony where the congregants held hands, sang hymns and closed the proceedings with Nkosi sikelel ‘iAfrika. The Spirit Of The Migrants Crushed? The government seemed to crush the spirit of the migrants completely when Werkgenot was also flattened on August 25 – the second time in three years that shacks were demolished there. The ‘squatters’ put up little resistance. The only person arrested there was a 'White' person – Dr Margaret Nash, a member of the Christian Institute. She came to Werkgenot with a large white cross. Holding the cross up high, she walked up to her waist into a stagnant pond in front of the shacks. After she had marched to the other side, she was escorted to a police van. Quite surprisingly, opposition from within the National Party surfaced. That the Kerkbode expressed regret at the timing of the demolition, was a new element. A direct attack by theological students from Stellenbosch demonstrated the growing influence of Professor Nico Smith. Superficially, it looked as if the government had won the bout. The spirit of Modderdam would be resurrected in KTC, Nyanga and Crossroads where the bulk of the ‘squatters’ had landed. Very few went to the Transkei and Ciskei as the apartheid ideologists had planned. In the ‘battle of Nyanga’ the government would suffer its first major defeat in 1981. Farewell to Apartheid Stellenbosch was the place where segregation ideologists like D.F Malan, Jan Smuts and Hendrik Verwoerd had studied. The university there, however, also ushered in the breaking down of the apartheid edifice among Afrikaner academics like no other place of learning in the country. At the university from where Barend Keet once opposed apartheid like a voice in the desert, a groundswell of internal opposition to apartheid semantics grew in strength which culminated in one of them, W.P. Esterhuyse, even dared to bid farewell in 1979 to the ideology in his affordable booklet that was translated two years later into English as Apartheid must die. But there was still a hard battle ahead to get the abhorrent notion of 'White' supremacy dead and buried! The organization Koinonia, which Professor Nico Smith started, brought about racial reconciliation at grassroots level in different parts of the country. The movement organised inter-racial weekends in different towns and cities. Participants would always lodge with someone from a different race group. Christians of different races started meeting socially so that families could get to know and understand each other. From their ranks the Koinonia Declaration followed in 1977 when three Dutch Reformed Church dominees in the Western Cape significantly reacted against a government ruling, which made agitation against detention without trial unlawful, as well as calling for transparency regarding ‘the handling of matters relating to the security of the state (e.g. the recent series of bannings, detentions and arrests on October 19th., 1977)’ [Hofmeyr et al, 1991: 294]. The prayerful attitude of the three clergymen came through in the first sentences of the Koinonia Declaration: ‘…We also believe that the prayers of just men have great power. We therefore urge all Christians to pray without ceasing for those in authority that…they may not be led astray by unbiblical ideologies…’ (Hofmeyr et al, 1991:292). The brutality of the police revived the spirit of Modderdam in 1978 with repercussions in Stellenbosch. Newspapers reported how a ‘squatter’ was shot dead and ‘soon a baby was to die on his mother’s back as they were trampled by panick-stricken squatter attempting to escape yet another teargas attack’ (Quote from the Rand Daily mail in Harvey, 2001:57). Theological students, possibly under the influence of Professor Nico Smith, wrote in the influential Afrikaans daily Die Burger: ‘God forgive us, because we know not what we have done’ (Cited in Harvey, 2001:57). A few years later Nico Smith was more or less coerced to leave Stellenbosch. For those in authority there, it was bad enough that kafferboeties43 like Johan Degenaar, Andre du Toit and Frederik van Zyl Slabbert were teaching at the University. To have one of them in the hallowed theological faculty was completely unacceptable to the powers that be. Compassionate Outreach Challenges Apartheid The care for ‘illegal’ 'Black' women by the 'White' Catholic nun Celeste Santos gave dignity to the shack dwellers of the informal settlements of Modderdam, KTC and Crossroads. In 1980 a young physician, Dr Ivan Toms, launched the SACLA Clinic in Crossroads as a sequel to the big inter-denominational event in Pretoria in 1979. This was the first of its kind, after various denominations had started their own ministries of compassion in the informal settlement. Some Stellenbosch Missiology students under Professor Nico Smith were worried that their denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), seemed to be unperturbed by what was happening in Crossroads. Prof. Smith became very controversial when he heeded their request to take a group of DRC ('White') theological students to the informal settlement in 1981. After being called to book in an aftermath of the event, Professor Smith agreed to refrain from making a statement to the secular press. He did subsequently, however, publish his statement in what became a front-page report of the Kerkbode. In his statement, Professor Smith criticized the government for its handling of the Nyanga ‘squatters’. Even more unconventionally, he lashed the church for its non-involvement in the situation. He and his students challenged the Dutch Reformed Church to highlight the ‘painful policy’ of resettlement and migratory labour. Crossroads and Nyanga in the Limelight Rommel Roberts and his wife Celeste were Roman Catholics, who became somewhat of an embarrassment to those church members who preferred their church ‘not to be involved with politics.’ (The couple had only been married in church, and not legally in terms of South African law of that time, which prohibited marriage across the racial divide. Thus Celeste could not adopt Rommel’s surname.) The couple became known for their compassion for ‘squatters’ in Modderdam (near Bellville). Rommel also became got very involved with the bus and school boycotts of 1980. They had already completely inconvenienced the Roman Catholic Church leaders by their marriage. Apart from marrying across the racial ‘colour line’, Rommel had studied at the Roman Catholic theological seminary to become a priest, and Celeste had been a nun. The couple lodged with the author and his family in Zeist (Holland) in 1980 after having fled the country. The South African police were looking for Rommel. At the beginning of 1981 the couple was back in Cape Town. The compassion and concern of Celeste and Rommel Roberts-Santos finally won the day, after Bishop Tutu, the then Secretary General of the SACC, assisted the women to return to the Cape. They had been ‘endorsed’ to the Transkei. The fight on behalf of the 'Black' women, who later moved into St George’s Cathedral, really got into the news when a top American diplomat became involved. The Dutch newspaper Trouw described the outcome of the Battle of Nyanga as the first defeat of the apartheid government. The homeless people of Nyanga and Crossroads had scored one moral victory after the other, encouraging many others to resist the oppressive race policies. One tangible result occurred in 2001. About 2 000 members of the Ndabeni Community in Cape Town finally won their claim for land restitution after six years of negotiation. The claimants’ forebears were dispossessed of the land, a part of which is presently occupied by a naval base of the SA National Defence Force. On 13 October 2001, an agreement was signed between the Departments of Land Affairs and Defence, and The N’dabeni Communal Property Trust, finally settling the N’dabeni land claims, and giving the community 51 hectares of land. 14. The Aftermath Of Political Violence Probably like no other city in the world Cape Town proved that the saying ‘violence begets violence’ is only the half of the truth. In an earlier chapter, we saw how the brute punishment and force perpetrated against local slaves and Khoi led indirectly to the outlawing of slavery in the whole British Empire in the 19th century, after Dr John Philip exposed much of it, albeit sometimes in an exaggerated form.44 The adage of Tertullian, an ancient North African Church Father, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, proved to have at least as much value. Another universal truth, which is ably verbalised in the Afrikaans expression nood leer bid (desperation teaches one to pray), proved invaluable at the Cape. The fear of civil war brought Christians to pray more than under normal circumstances. Government Oppression Breeds Resilience On the same day as the notorious massacre of Sharpeville on 21 March 1960, two men were shot dead by police in the Cape township of Langa, and 49 people were injured. The killing of peaceful protesters introduced a new dimension of police brutality. Vicious police action followed when striking workers were forcefully taken out of their houses to go and work. This was the run-up to possibly the biggest funeral that South Africa has experienced to date. On Sunday 27 March 1960, 'Blacks' converged on Langa from places as far afield as Hermanus, Mossel Bay and Worcester (Kgosana, 1988:30), for the mass funeral of those people who had been killed in the preceding days. Two hundred thousand people were reported to have attended.45 The end to the peaceful march by thousands of protesters against the pass laws on 30 March 1960, having left Langa for the Caledon Square Police Station in Buitenkant Street, was just as tragic. The young student leader Philip Kgosana was arrested after initially being promised that he would meet with a government representative. The imprisonment in the Roeland Street jail along with other political prisoners who were hereafter sent to Robben Island, was to usher in the increased use of the island for political purposes. The government repression brought forth resilience and a special quality among the oppressed, just like diamonds that have been exposed to extreme pressure. At the same time the consciences of 'Whites' were pricked once again about the injustices linked to the apartheid system. Students’ protests for equal education in June 1972 highlighted the determination of the government to enforce apartheid, using the police force for that purpose. The Mother City’s St George’s Cathedral became a famous venue for peaceful opposition to apartheid. 'White' students were followed into the sanctuary by the policemen, who had smashed a peaceful demonstration using teargas. Opposition to ‘Divide And Rule’ Opposition to the ‘divide and rule’ policies of the government surfaced especially in the reaction of High School pupils in the years after 1976, which sent the clear message that ‘Coloureds’ are not accepting the preferential treatment without ado. The propagandistic abuse of the state radio gave Islam a fillip. The slur on Ayatollah Khomeini by the media at the end of the 1970s, made a martyr of him in the eyes of Muslims. Because the government was seen as the oppressor, the aggressive Islamic stance of the Ayatollah was a boon for assertive Islam. The resurgence of political resistance in the 1980s coincided with hopes for religious ‘revival’. School boycotts started at two Senior Secondary schools in Hanover Park, the township which got its name from the main street of the former District Six. This had been an important part of the Islamic stronghold of the Western Cape before the Group areas evictions of the 1960s and 1970s. Typical was the graffiti slogan on a wall on Yusuf Drive in Bo-Kaap: ‘The only solution - Islamic revolution!’ Another piece of divide and rule apartheid legislation - the tri-cameral system of Parliament46 - sparked off the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF) with a prominent Christian and a Muslim seen as the leaders. Mobilization against the government’s proposals began on January 22, 1983 when the Transvaal Anti-SAIC Committee held its first conference. In the keynote address Dr Allan Boesak said inter alia: ‘…There is no reason why churches, civic associations, trade unions, student organizations and sports bodies should not unite on this issue…’ (cited in Lodge/Nasson, 1991:48). Seven months later, on August 20, the United Democratic Front was launched in the Rocklands Community Centre in Mitchell’s Plain. Fifteen hundred delegates represented over 500 organizations. Boesak brought the delegates to their feet with three little words: ‘all, here, and now. “We want all our rights, we want them here and we want them now’ (cited in Lodge/Nasson, 1991:51). The Opposition On The Run When Frederik van Zyl Slabbert stepped out of party politics in the beginning of 1986 to start - the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), it shook South Africa. His reason was that he regarded the parliament as irrelevant to the real issue of the country, that being the need to bring about a negotiated settlement with the representatives of the 'Black' majority. This suddenly put even stalwart fighters like Helen Suzman suddenly on the spot. The country-wide state of emergency was re-imposed on 12th June, 1986. On the other side of the political spectrum Oliver Tambo and the external wing became quite anxious not to be left out in the cold when it became known that the government was speaking to Nelson Mandela. In mid 1986 he was quite desperate to talk to the other side. But there was no one to talk to. Just here it was such a special gift when Michael Young, a strategic British Conservative Party politician, came into the picture. Young agreed to Tambo’s request to set up a direct channel of communication between the ANC high command and the Afrikaner community. A thaw occurred in the political deadlock, which threatened to push the country further towards the precipice of civil war. This took place in London on 24 October 1986 in the home of Anthony Sampson, a liberal British journalist. Oliver Tambo, the ANC leader in exile, was in the British capital at this time with a delegation. Secret talks started with Rudolph Agnew, a high-ranking British businessman of Consolidated Gold Fields, which finally led to an unofficial meeting with a British Cabinet Minister. Tony Heard, the editor of the Cape Times, interviewed Oliver Tambo shortly hereafter. The publication in early November defied the prohibition to quote banned people. Brave Men Professor Sampie Terreblanche was a Stellenbosch academic whose ‘Rubicon’ occurred on 16 June 1976 when youths were killed in Soweto. His Odyssey out of the inner circle of the National Party continued when he was appointed to the Erika Theron Parliamentary Commission the following year. Even though the most radical recommendations of this commission that had to look into the matters of the ‘Coloureds’ were initially rejected, they were adopted one by one in later years. The foundation of the tri-cameral parliament idea was laid here and the scrapping of the Prohibition of racially Mixed Marriages occurred in 1985. It was his visits to ‘Coloured’ townships which brought him to the conviction that apartheid had to be ‘drastically’ reformed if not completely abandoned. He chose the historic holiday of 16 December 1984 to calling publicly for the abolition of apartheid. From October 1985 he met other Afrikaner academics in an effort to look for ways to pull the country from the inevitable pending disaster it was heading for. His decision to leave the National party brought him into political isolation. The country nevertheless owes much to his challenges up to that point in time. Terreblanche and 28 senior academics from Stellenbosch met Mr P.W. Botha, the Prime Minister on 20 February 1987. He was so disgusted with the way Mr Botha treated them that he resigned from the national Party the following day (Harvey, 2001:8). The group went on to publish their concern on 7 March ‘to encourage the acceleration of reform and negotiation between credible, representative leaders of all communities… with prominent government leaders – including the state president himself’ (Cited in Harvey, 2001:9). With Terreblanche now virtually ruled out for negotiation purposes, a big responsibility fell upon the shoulders of W. P. Esterhuyse, who later played a crucial role after meeting Michael Young, a strategic British Conservative Party politician. At the all-'White' elections in May 1987, the right-wing Conservative party under Andries Treurnicht, a former Dutch Reformed Church minister and editor of Die Kerkbode, booked gains. These moves led to some deep thinking. Many 'Whites' decided to leave the country. One of them, Richard Rosenthal, a Cape lawyer and a personal friend of van Zyl Slabbert, was all set to leave for Canada with his family, but at the same time he was challenged to do something before he would flee the country. On 23 September 1987 he delivered a ‘personal and confidential letter’ addressed to Mr P.W. Botha at Tuynhuys, in which he offered to try and ‘facilitate an exploratory process, leading to meaningful negotiations’ (Rosenthal, 1998:1). He had little doubt that Mr Botha could see his proposition as ‘provocative and presumptuous’ (p.3) Because the country was ‘sliding inexorably towards anarchy or civil war’ (p.3), Rosenthal decided to at least give it a try before emigrating. Supernatural Intervention The massacre in July 1993 at the St James Church of Kenilworth caused a temporary brake on the escalation of violence that was sending the country over the precipice - a civil war of enormous dimensions. The event inspired unprecedented prayer all around the country and around the world, bringing home the seriousness of terrorism that would not even stop at sacred places. The attack on the St James Church brought about a new sense of urgency for Christians to leave their comfort zones and pray as never before. God used Rev Michael Cassidy and his Africa Enterprise team to get a massive prayer effort underway involving Christians all over the world, along with the skills of Kenyan Professor Washington Okumu, a committed Christian. God furthermore clearly called a police officer, Colonel Johan Botha, to recruit prayer warriors. The press took up his story, reporting on how God supernaturally came to him in a vision. An angel stood before him on 23 March 1994 with the message: “I want South Africa on its knees in prayer”. A national prayer day was announced for 6 April 1994 - at that time a national holiday called Founder’s Day. 47 The country was teetering on the edge of a civil war, which surely could have sent many missionaries and other foreigners fleeing to their home countries in all haste just before or after the 1994 elections. The 10-week teaching course ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour’ emphasized prayer as an integral part of ‘spiritual warfare’. Just before the course was scheduled to start, there was an arson attempt on the intended venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne. When Muslims offered to help with the repair of the damage done, the suspicion was confirmed that Satanists were not really behind the arson attack as had been suggested by a Cape Argus reporter. The reason that the first course was held at St James Church in Kenilworth from 3 September to 5 November 1996 was exactly because the organizers wanted to use it as a ‘Gideon’s fleece’ (compare Judges 6:36-40), a test to make sure that they had God’s will in it. A Lebanon-type of scenario - with Christians and Muslims fighting each other - appeared to be a very real possibility. The organizers of the course did not know at that time that Lansdowne was one of the big People against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) strongholds. In fact, PAGAD was virtually unknown before August 1996. Since then, conflicting reports were published about the intention of Muslims - for instance by the radical Qibla faction of PAGAD - to attempt the Islamization of South Africa starting in the Western Cape. While he was in hiding at the Cape, a Muslim background Christian from Egypt, he started with significant research on jihad (holy war), studying Arabic Islamic literature and finishing his manuscript in 2001 in the USA, where he had moved to in the meantime. The September 11 event of that year made his book on the topic a bestseller when it appeared at the beginning of 2002. It came out under the title Terrorism and Islam. The book turned out to be a major factor in the exposure of the violent side of Islam, going into its fourth print also by April 2003. The Al-Qaeda related attacks, like the one in Madrid in 2004 and in London on 7 July 2005, were attempts to shock the West into submission to Islam. This is how Amir Taheri, an Iranian commentator, explained the shock motive in The Times on Friday, the 8th July 2005, the day after the London tube train disaster. Disasters like these give a ready market for books that expose the violent nature of the Medinan version of Islam. These were the latter instructions of the prime Islamic prophet Muhammad in the last part of his life. It is not impossible that Muslims may start turning their backs on a religion marked by terrorism and violence – a religion that blinds young people to such an extent that they volunteer participating in suicide bombings. The view that Islam means peace, along with the earlier teaching of their Prophet that there is ‘no compulsion in religion’ (Surah 2:256), has been dwarfed and perhaps even nullified by actions in Madrid, Amsterdam and London. More and more it is being taught that Muhammad actually ordered his followers in the latter part of his life to ‘instil terror in the hearts of those who do not believe in him’ (Surah 8:12). He also exhorted them to ‘fight against unbelievers (8:65), slay them (9:5), Punish them by their hands’ (9:14), and ‘subdue them’ (9:29). Cape Town gave the answer to terrorism – prayer! The miracle elections of 1994, and the marginalising of PAGAD, and the end to the bombing spree cannot be explained rationally. Both occasions were, however, preceded by a volatile situation when Christians were challenged to pray more than they were used to do. The Al-Qaeda brains behind the vicious attacks should have second thoughts, considering that their deeds may usher in the demise of their religion! 15. A Spiritual Battle On The Mountaintops Richard Mitchell was a young pastor affiliated to the Full Gospel Church, who came by bus from Natal to the Frontiers Missions Conference in 1983 at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), where Dave Bryant was the main speaker. Mitchell had been a political anti-apartheid activist and a drug addict, who came to faith in Jesus Christ in prison. The Mother City and the wider surroundings of the Peninsula were blessed by the Frontiers Missions Conference. At this conference Richard Mitchell met a young man from the Cape, Roland Manne, who had a passion for missions. Manne’s yearning to serve the Lord abroad was aborted when he contracted cancer of the bowels, dying in 1984. His commitment had by then however sown seeds that were germinating in the hearts of many young people. Mitchell was one of those who were deeply moved by the testimony and commitment of Roland Manne and Dave Bryant for missions and prayer. Waves of Prayer Start at UWC The conference at the University of the Western Cape spread waves of prayer throughout the country. Charles Robertson, who had been a lecturer at that university from 1971 to 1976, was brought into the swing of prayer events when he was approached to help fund the hiring of a bus to transport participants to the event at the historical Sendingsgestig Museum in the Mother City's Long Street. (The former ‘Coloured’ Gestig Church building was 'saved' by Dr Frank R. Barlow, a Jewish academic. He had a keen sense of history. The Sendingkerk congregation had to move because of apartheid, and thereafter the former church was turned into a museum). After Charles Robertson's father died in 1979, he was thrown into deep spiritual turmoil. The business he had started was in dire straits. All that brought him to his knees in a double sense. Hereafter he broke through into a living faith in Jesus as his Lord. At the Concert of Prayer with Dave Bryant he was approached to chair the meeting as an Afrikaner. That would not be the last time either. He led the Concerts of Prayer not only at the monthly meetings at that venue, but later also at the Presbyterian Church in Mowbray where the event moved to. When Mitchell came to the Cape to plant a church in Rylands Estate in 1985, he felt challenged by his background in the struggle against apartheid to bring the element of prayer into the matter as well. He approached Pastor Ron Hendricks of the Silvertown Baptist Church to bring together a few evangelical pastors for regular weekly prayer. In later years the practice found a powerful emulation in Mitchells Plain. Richard and Elizabeth Mitchell also pioneered prayer at Rhodes Memorial and Signal Hill on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings respectively. Mitchell became an important catalyst for citywide prayer in the 1990s. A Lebanon-Type Scenario? Spiritual strongholds became a focus of prayer drives that were launched by Pastor Eddy Edson from Mitchells Plain and intercessors from different churches on the last Friday of each month in 1996. The prayer drive of July 1996 started at the strategic Gatesville mosque. This was the same venue from where a fateful PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) car procession started a week later. That procession left for Salt River on August 4th, the occasion of Rashaad Staggie’s public burning. The event catapulted his twin brother and co-gangleader Rashied into prominence. The prayer drives, undertaken at the initiative of Pastor Edson, unfortunately only had a short lifespan. An initiative of Eddie Edson, which lasted much longer, was the monthly pastors' and pastors' wives prayer meeting. Yet, it took years before the racial divide was bridged, and even then these prayer meetings still never really took off multi-racially. Nevertheless, they prepared the soil for the start of the spiritual transformation of the city. Sandwiched between the two above-mentioned processions that left the Gatesville mosque, a church service in the Moravian Church of Elsies River was to have worldwide ramifications. A Muslim background believer from Egypt and a former professor at the famous al-Azar University, shared his testimony there at a combined evening youth service on Sunday 28 July, 1996. (The Egyptian previously had to flee his home country where he narrowly escaped assassination.) Within days, the booklet Against the Tides in the Middle East containing his story was in the hands of Muslims leaders. Maulana Sulaiman Petersen, who suspected that Gabriel had contact with local missionaries, threateningly enquired after him on Wednesday 31 July, at the time when Gabriel was doing the practical part of his Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Crossroads Discipleship Training School course in the city. He was forced to go undercover once again. The televised Staggie execution by PAGAD a few days later reminded him of Muslim radicals of the Middle East. The PAGAD public ‘execution’ of August 4, 1996 took the attention away from the Egyptian. When the second printing of his testimony booklet Against the Tides in the Middle East appeared in 1997, it seemed as though Cape Islam was taking the booklet in its stride. A Strategic Meeting On Moravian Hill International intercession began in earnest with the identification of the 10/40 Window. These are Asian and African countries situated between the 10th and 40th degree lines of latitude of the northern hemisphere. They gave a geographical focus to prayer. This was a divinely-inspired window passed on by Luis Bush, an American prayer leader. It was also used by Peter Wagner, a compatriot, to rally the evangelical world in united prayer for the peoples who were unreached with the Gospel. At the occasion of the sending of prayer teams to different spiritual strongholds in 1997, a team from the Dutch Reformed Church Suikerbosrand from Heidelberg (Gauteng) followed the NUPSA nudge to come and pray in the Mother City. In the spiritual realm this was significant, because Heidelberg had once been the cradle of the racist Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). That the AWB town, belonging to the Transvaal Province of the old South Africa, was sending a prayer team to pray for the Muslim stronghold of Bo-Kaap, might have hit the headlines had it been publicised!!! But all this was secret stuff. It was the era when PAGAD was still terrorising the Cape Peninsula. As part of this visit from Gauteng, a prayer meeting of confession was organized on November 1, 1997 in District Six, in front of the former Moravian Church. Sally Kirkwood, who led a prayer group for Cape Muslims at her home in Plumstead in the mid-1990s, played a pivotal role in this prayer occasion. Kirkwood not only had a big vision for the desolate District Six to be revived through prayer, but she also informed Richard Mitchell and Mike Winfield about the event. The citywide prayer movement received a major push. Eben Swart was asked to lead the occasion. That turned out to be very strategic. Eben Swart’s position as Western Cape Prayer coordinator was cemented when he hereafter linked up with the pastors' and pastors' wives prayer meeting led by Eddie Edson. The event on Moravian Hill in District Six attempted to break the spirit of death and forlornness over the area, so that it would be inhabited again. However, it would take another seven years before that dream started to materialize (and abused for election purposes in 2004). The November 1, 1997-event became a watershed for quite a few participants. Gill Knaggs, Trish and Dave Whitecross got burdened hereafter to become missionaries in the Middle East. Sally Kirkwood came to the fore with a more prominent role among Cape intercessors. Richard Mitchell, Eben Swart and Mike Winfield linked up more closely at this occasion in a relationship that was to have a significant mutual effect on the prayer ministry at the Cape in the next few years, and on transformation in the country at large. Winfield belonged to the Anglican congregation in Bergvliet which had Trevor Pearce as their new pastor. (The Anglican Church in Bergvliet later took a leading role in the attempts towards the transformation of the Mother City via the prayer events at Newlands.) The confession ceremony in District Six closed with the stoning of an altar that satanists or other occultists had probably erected there. Support From Abroad In February 2000, Susan and Ned Hill, a couple from Atlanta (USA) linked to Blood ‘n Fire Ministries, visited the Mother City on an orientation visit after they sensed a call to come and minister to the poor and needy in South Africa. While being on a tourist visit to Table Mountain, their eyes were supernaturally fixed on a piece of desolate ground that they soon learned was called District Six. They visited the museum with that name, which was temporarily housed in the Moravian Chapel in District Six. There they heard the tragic story of the former cosmopolitan slum area of the Mother City that was demolished in the wake of apartheid legislation. (At that time the ear-marked locality for the District Six museum, a former Methodist Church, was being refurbished.) The unity of the body of Christ became visible at a mass half-night of prayer on 18 February 2000 on the Grand Parade, organised at short notice. On the same weekend two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, representing the prayer movement in Holland, joined local Christians in confession and in praying against satanic strongholds in the Peninsula. Four thousand Christians from a wide spectrum of denominations gathered on the Grand Parade. Denominationalism, materialism and other evils in South African society in which the church had played a role in the past, were confessed. In a moving moment just before midnight the two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, joined local intercessors, confessing the catastrophic contribution of their forefathers to the evils of Cape society. A prayer network had developed towards a preliminary culmination in the half-night of prayer on the Grand Parade. Thereafter, prayer events proliferated countrywide through the 24-Hour prayer watches and revival prayer attempts. Here the electronic media played a big role. The arch enemy would not remain idle at such activity. It had been discovered that satanists had been distributing cursed audio and videocassettes to various parts of the country. Subsequently, accidents occurred at these locations. The Cape Town City Bowl was confronted with the possibility of satanist activities after paint had been spilled on roads at night. The white lines formed in this way could have led to confusion that in turn would have resulted in motor accidents. 16. Cape Flats Townships in Transformation The two Cape Flats townships of Hanover Park and Manenberg both have a special link to the past. The first residents there were among those people who had been moved from District Six as a result of the implementing of the Group Areas Act. Special spiritual dynamics took place in the 1990s, which impacted the whole Cape Peninsula. Hanover Park: an Example to the Nation? Preparations for the start of a missionary prayer meeting progressed well in the City Mission congregation of the township Hanover Park in the second quarter of 1992. Once per month their weekly prayer meetings received a missionary focus, allowing the author to come and share there regularly. Norman Barnes, a Muslim background believer and a former gangster drug addict, was the leader of the prayer group. It was thus quite easy to share with them the burden of praying for Muslims, for gangsters and drug addicts. A few months later Hanover Park experienced the power of prayer in a special way. A committed police sergeant called in the help of the local churches in a last-ditch effort because the police could not cope anymore with the crime situation. Operation Hanover Park was formed. The initiative, with prayer by believers from different church backgrounds as its main component, included a ministry directed specially at gangsters. Instead of shooting at each other, rival gangs competed in play football matches. Jesus-centred children’s clubs were formed in an effort to make sure that the problem of gangsterism would be tackled at the root, an effort to break the cycle of youngsters growing into a life of vice. The Saturday afternoon missionary prayer meeting fused into the monthly prayer event of Operation Hanover Park towards the end of 1992. The vision to pray for missionaries called from their residential area was gladly taken on board. The idea was completely new to the praying believers, but the Lord soon started answering the prayers. Within three months, the area had changed significantly. An elderly resident who had been in the township for many years, testified that Christmas 1992 was the most peaceful he had experienced there. Furthermore the Lansdowne/Hanover Park/Manenberg area would be exporting quite a number of missionaries within a few years. Operation Hanover Park was on the verge of achieving an early version of community transformation at the beginning of 1993 when a leadership tussle stifled the promising movement. Soon thereafter the combined prayer effort fizzled out. Gang-related crime spiralled once again. Hanover Park could have become an example to the rest of the country to show what can be done if local believers stand together in prayer perseveringly. We must learn from our mistakes! Changes in a Crime-Ridden Township Manenberg was the township that depicted the change in the religious climate in 1999 more than any other. An off-sales liquor distribution centre, the Green Dolphin, changed hands dramatically when it became a church. The name Green Pastures was suggested by a resident. Even more dramatic was the turn-about of Die Hok, the former national headquarters of the Hard Livings gang that also became a church. Pastor Eddie Edson, who had been a gangster himself in earlier days, spearheaded the Manenberg outreach. The spiritual revolution in the notorious township received countrywide prominence through the television programme Crux on Sunday, 25 July 1999. Manenberg gang leaders hit back by forcibly recruiting young boys into their gangs. In April 2000 Manenberg was still making negative news headlines with the innocent killing of children in gang crossfire. Much prayer was still needed if the crime and violence was to be stopped. Pastor Edson discerned that Manenberg was a key township in the spiritual warfare in the Peninsula. He not only requested the venue for the monthly pastors and pastors' wives prayer meeting for July 2000 to be relocated to ‘Die Hok’ , but he was also the driving force to get a 10,000-seater tent campaign into that township. That he made Pastor Henry Wood responsible for the new fellowship at ‘Die Hok’, proved to be quite strategic. Pastor Wood impressively followed up the converts of the campaign. On 10 February 2001 a national television station, e-TV, reported this success story in their news bulletin. In the report the local police spoke of the former crime-ridden township having become relatively quiet. Die Hok and Green Pastures, along with other churches from Manenberg, were to play a prominent role in significantly reducing the area’s crime level in ensuing years. 17. Down and Outs Involved in Missions Two centuries ago the slave Maart from Mozambique did not get the chance to become a missionary. However, the daughter of compatriots of a later generation made her mark in District Six and Bo-Kaap. In other parts of the Peninsula, ‘down and outs’ were to become special instruments to spread the Gospel. Cape Town slum areas and ‘squatter’ camps produced special emissaries of the Good News. Christian Compassion in District Six and Bo-Kaap Anna Tempo, the daughter of slaves from Mozambique initiated a project in District Six, by which care was taken of unwedded mothers and prostitutes. She became the matron of the Stakeby-Lewis Hostel in Harrington Street. Affectionately she was called Nannie by all and sundry. The Nanniehuis in Jordaan Street, Bo-Kaap – named after her - became the model for similar projects in other parts of the country after Nannie had been awarded the King George Coronation Medal in 1937 for her work. The Nanniehuis of Bo-Kaap showed the way of compassion. By the early 1960s there were 288 welfare agencies in the city, of which less than half were run by religious organizations. Covert Power Encounters Many a covert power encounter occurred under the ministry of Ds. Pietie Victor’s Straatwerk. Thus Esther Dunn, a former drug addict, was supernaturally delivered. She went to the Glenvar Bible School, which is linked to the Africa Evangelistic Band, thereafter becoming the first full-time worker of Straatwerk. Not only were drug addicts set free through the power of the Gospel, but also many a Satanist and persons under occult bondage, discovered through the ministry of Straatwerk that there is indeed great power in the blood of Jesus when believers stand together in prayer. The Son of a Drunkard Every Friday Sidwille Snyers and his siblings had to escape the fury of their drunken father, staying in bushes near to their home in Steenberg until they expected him to have recovered from his stupor. With wonderful support from friends of the devout mother, the intelligent Sidwille passed Matric. After his conversion he joined the music ministry of Youth for Christ. In the mid-1990s he joined WEC International before leaving for Birmingham in the UK, where he served among Pakistani and Indian immigrants for many years. A Former Street child starts a ministry Zulpha Morris, who became a follower of Jesus after receiving supernatural visions in July 1998, had much opposition when she was divinely called to take care of abandoned babies. Within less than two years, she had more than 30 children in her township home in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain, which underwent a few extensions. The garage was converted for accommodation purposes, and the yard at the back became a sewing workshop for women. A container, in which diverse goods and furniture had come from Holland, was part of God’s special provision to get this project off the ground. (The original content of the container was intended for a discipling house for persecuted and evicted converts from Islam.) The sacrificial work of Zulpha and her husband Abdul became a challenge to many a foreigner. In one case, a student from Switzerland, who came to Cape Town to learn English, was inspired by what he saw in Mitchells Plain. After returning to his home country, he started a home for drug and alcohol addicts there. In Cape Town itself, the ministry of the Heaven’s Shelter House in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain, became fairly well known through some exposure in the media. An interesting development in the District Six of post-World War II was that gangs became big business, serving as ‘secret benevolent societies’, and doing much good among the underprivileged. This tradition was still going strong in the 1990s. Rashied and ‘Brother’ Rashaad Staggie – who converted to Christianity before he was ‘executed’ in 1996 – were known to hand out money to children in Manenberg. This money was, of course, tarnished because their drug lord activities were well known. The commencement in the late 1990s of the ministry of compassion to the children, who associated themselves with the Hard Livings Gang in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, looked promising. Ayesha Hunter, a Muslim background believer, was bravely presenting the Life Issues programme via CCFM radio, while at the same time running a soup kitchen for the children of the notorious gang. She gave the group a new name, using the same first letters of the gang - Heaven’s Little Kids - a name of which they were quite proud. Glen Khan, a drug lord, sponsored the project anonymously, while he was being challenged and ministered to. He finally accepted Jesus as his Saviour, but was assassinated shortly thereafter. The benevolent ministry ceased with his death in April 1999. His funeral would turn the tables on the brains behind his assassination. Conversions Amongst Gangsters Because James Valentine had been a gangster, his conversion in 1957 created quite a stir, and consequently a lot of interest. Soon he was a celebrated preacher on the Grand Parade. Subsequently he became a dynamic leader of the Assemblies of God Church. Andy Lamb is another pastor with a similar background who preached - in his own words - ‘on almost every street corner of District Six’ and on many a train. As the minister of the ‘Sowers of the Word’ Church of Lansdowne, he was very much involved in the prayer drives and meetings of intercessors, which met there once a month in 1996 and in the planting of churches. The most famous of all from this category is possibly Pastor Eddie Edson, a previous pastor of the Shekinah Tabernacle which is linked to the Full gospel denomination. He had been involved in the Woodstock gangster activities and became converted under Pastor Lamb’s ministry. He became one of the most consistent movers of the prayer movement at the Cape in the 1990s. Edson was invited to a mysterious meeting of ‘Muslim leaders’ on 13 April 1999. They turned out to be the leadership of PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs). The movement, which was actually led by drug lords posing as businessmen and who were guardians of good morals, seemed threatened after the funeral of a gangster drug lord, Glen Khan. At this occasion at the Shekinah Tabernacle, Pastor Edson’s church, Rashied Staggie, another drug lord who had just previously turned to faith in Jesus Christ - after being shot and admitted to the Louis Leipoldt hospital in Bellville - came out of hiding, professing his faith openly. This became the start of a trickle of Muslims turning to Jesus, especially in the Mitchell’s Plain area. Simultaneously this introduced the demise of PAGAD. Sequel to a Funeral Two weeks prior to Khan’s assassination, Rashied Staggie, a famous Cape drug lord, had been shot and hospitalized. Staggie made the news headlines from his bed in the Louis Leipoldt Clinic in Bellville through his public confession of faith in Jesus Christ. In the wake of Glen Khan's funeral on 7 April 1999 and Staggie's powerful testimony on that occasion, Muslims started turning to Christ more than before. Suddenly PAGAD was marginalized. It was not surprising that they now frantically sought to obtain credibility. It was however quite unexpected that they had become willing, almost eager, to speak to a church leader. This was God supernaturally at work, but Pastor Eddie Edson and his pastor colleagues were not immediately aware of it. When ‘Muslim leaders’ wanted to speak to Edson, a confrontation was feared, because reports were coming in of Muslims who turned to Christ in the wake of the Khan funeral, some in trains. Intercessors were called in to bathe the proposed meeting in prayer. A general crisis was feared once again. A direct result of all this was the birth of the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI) - church leaders who tried to mediate between PAGAD and gang leaders. Pastor Edson was surprised when the ‘Muslim leaders’ turned out to be no less than representatives of PAGAD. This was a major turn-around on the part of the extremists! Only a few weeks prior to this meeting that took place on 13 April, PAGAD had refused to meet any Christian leaders or other mediators. At the meeting an agenda for a bigger consultation, scheduled for 22 April, was agreed upon. This was scheduled to take place at the Pinelands Civic Centre. Discussions with gang leaders took place on the same day. At the meeting, prayer warriors were not only interceding for the discussions, but some of them were also helping to serve the delegations at mealtimes. A tense moment developed when the issue of violence was addressed. The PAGAD leaders asked for permission to discuss the matter separately. It was evident to the CPI delegation that God had intervened powerfully. PAGAD was suddenly ready to approach the government with them - unarmed! This was an answer to the prayer of the warriors around the country who had been interceding for the proceedings. The Resurrection of the Cape Peace Initiative However, ‘Coloured’ pastors hereafter verbalized their disquiet to Eddie Edson that the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI) had the effect of making PAGAD seem fashionable. Some clergymen were unhappy that Eddie Edson and the CPI leaders had been speaking to PAGAD. At this time, Father Trevor Pearce from the Anglican Church linked up with Ernst van der Walt (Jr) in a vision to spread the Transformations video that was just being distributed worldwide. Pearce had been impacted by the vision during a visit to Washington D.C. He initiated a move to invite George Otis and Allistair Petrie, two leaders of the international Sentinel Group, to the Mother City for a conference of his denomination from 29 October to November 2, 2000. Van der Walt (Jr) started attending the monthly pastors and pastors’ wives prayer meetings occasionally. It was soon decided to put the CPI under the Transformations umbrella. He and Trevor Pearce discerned that they could combine it easily with a vision for the continuation of citywide prayer events. The all-night prayer event at the Lighthouse Christian Centre, Parow on 15 October 1999, included the screening of the Transformations video. The distribution of a video by George Otis on the transformation of four cities became a major catalyst for citywide prayer after it had been screened there in Parow. Within three months, more than 4000 copies were distributed by NUPSA countrywide, inspiring prayer for revival in many places. A result of this video was that a yearning for more mass prayer rallies developed. Close links to the Cape Christian radio stations Tygerberg and CCFM proved valuable for the spreading of the news of the citywide prayer events. Graham Power, a prominent Cape businessman with links to the Western Province Rugby Union, was intensely touched at this occasion to initiate a stadium event in the Mother City. Soon it was agreed to add another conference, a cross-denominational one, at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in the suburb of Parow from 3 to 5 November of the same year, win close association with Ernst van der Walt (Jr). Trevor Pearce had a vision for citywide prayer. The Transformation concept brought evangelicals from the mainline churches and the Charismatic-Pentecostal traditions together once again. The CPI was dissolved formally. Yet, churches continued to play a role in bringing about peace. On Sunday 25 February 2001, the national television reported how local church leaders had brokered a peace accord between two gangs from Bonteheuwel, the Cisko Yakkies and the Americans. It is ironic that the violent threat from PAGAD appeared to introduce the transformation of the city. Another month on, and Cape Town had its first City-wide stadium prayer event at the Newlands Rugby Stadium. 18. The Pulling of the Trigger? In a sovereign move of God’s Spirit, Pastor Willy Oyegun and a group of prayer Nigerian warriors were led to come and pray in South Africa in February 1994. It was touch and go or they would have been sent back to Nigeria from Johannesburg International Airport without having accomplished anything. Oyegun would see Africa as a huge gun with the trigger in Nigeria and the gun-point at the South of the continent, from where a revival spreading like a fire throughout the continent. He saw the coming of the Nigerian group as the pulling of the trigger. In East Africa God laid on the heart of many a Kenyan to pray for South Africa, it was heading for its general elections on 27 April of the same year. The ensuing miracle elections and the supernatural run-up to it, indeed had ingredients which could have given one the feeling that revival had come. Missionary Explosion from the Cape Much of the prayer endeavours of the early 1990s were connected to missionary work. David Bliss, an American missionary linked to Operation Mobilisation, had already put the Cape on the map with his Bless the Nations conferences. Love Southern Africa events started in Wellington, taking over from the Western Cape Missions Commission. Pastor Bruce van Eeden coordinated Great Commission conferences and Pastor Paul Manne organized an annual missionary event. Almost all these efforts fizzled out towards the end of the 20th century. Pastor van Eeden proved the big exception in this regard. He had always wanted to see South Africans involved in missionary work. The Lord laid India and China on his heart. When one of his daughters found employment as a stewardess with South African Airways, he saw that as his chance to get involved himself. In 1995 he started a Mitchell’s Plain-based agency called Ten Forty Outreach, which concentrated on sending out short-term workers to India. For three months a year Pastor van Eeden would go and minister in India, partnering with Indian believers and taking with him volunteers from South Africa. In 10 years they were involved in the planting of 320 churches. There are now 160 Indian national evangelists and pastors who are linked to the missionary agency. Cape Town’s Anchor to the Occult Cut Off? Eben Swart became the Western Cape coordinator for Herald Ministries, working closely with NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa), which had appointed Pastor Willy Oyegun as their coordinator in the Western Cape. Important work was done in research and spiritual mapping, along with Amanda Buys, a prominent teacher and intercessor of Kanaan Ministries. Ernst van der Walt (Jr) had ministered in China with OM on short term, and Buys had been involved in the counselling of Christians with psychological problems. The 2001 Newlands prayer event was bound to be a spiritual watershed. A word from God that Amanda Buys received on 21 March 2001 at the Transformation meeting, says it all: ‘During the prayer time God took me into intercession - I travailed much and I knew something was breaking in the heavenlies. I asked, “What is it Lord?” He clearly showed me the Lady of Good Hope with her anchor. I then saw her anchor being cut off. God said that Cape Town’s soul had been anchored to her, that’s why we turned to drugs, prostitution, gangs, etc. Today this anchor was cut off and replaced with God’s anchor. I asked for scripture. The Lord gave me Hebrews 6:19, 20 Now we have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul - it cannot slip and it cannot break down under whoever steps out upon it - a hope that reaches farther and enters into the very certainty of the Presence within the veil. Where Jesus has entered in for us in advance, a forerunner has become a High Priest forever after the order with the rank of Melchizedek. Graham Power - a major mover of the Newlands event - had a dream in February 2002 that encouraged him to bring the stadium prayers to Southern Africa. In 2002 the prayer day started to spread throughout Southern Africa: eight stadiums were involved with some 160,000 people attending. In 2003 and 2004, mass prayer events were held in sports stadiums throughout the African continent. An interesting dynamic was starting to take off, namely that missionaries, who had been working in other Southern African countries, started encouraging missionary work from believers in the Cape Peninsula. Thus locals were challenged to minister to under-evangelised and forgotten peoples in Namibia and the Northern Cape. Georgina Kinsman from Mitchells Plain was among the first of a new generation of local believers to get going with church-planting in a powerful and blessed way. Cops for Christ It was exciting to see how in different parts of the country, the vision ‘adopt a cop’ - prayer for the police force - took off. It was surely in answer to prayer that Cops for Christ was started. The group saw themselves as stimulators and co-ordinators for prayer. Already at the City-wide prayer events of the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Captain René Matthee had been a regular speaker, challenging believers to pray especially for the police. Kallie Hanekom, Danie Nortje and Michael Share challenged churches in the city area and further afield to pray concretely. They developed a system whereby a simultaneous prayer request could be sent to Christians with mobile phones. Believers were invited to come and pray at police stations. The Cops for Christ branch of Atlantis on the West Coast received countrywide prominence, such as in the organization and implementation of the 24-hour week of prayer from 16 to 23 May 2004 in their area. Crime reported to the local police station dropped significantly in the months thereafter. A special variation occurred in the violent suburb of Elsies River. Monica Williams, a compassionate Christian of the area, took it upon herself to see her suburb transformed through prayer. Reacting to a dream, she approached the local police and started caring especially for juvenile delinquents and rape victims. Within months, corruption within the local police force was exposed. In nearby Ravensmead, Lea Barends endeavoured to combat crime and domestic violence through prayer. In September 2003, she approached Freddie van Wyk of the local police station, with the request to come and pray for the staff. He was excited and soon a prayer watch started there, with five women attending every Thursday. By May 2004 ten women were attending. Within months, crime in Ravensmead had dropped dramatically; many drug lords were apprehended. Mqokeleli Mntanga helped to facilitate unified prayer among churches in the township of Mbekweni, Paarl. The churches there started a house of prayer at the local police station. From time to time drug syndicates were discovered, very often after concerted prayer. Thus a factory where drugs were produced was exposed in Woodstock at the end of the previous millennium. A Chinese syndicate brought the new drug ‘tik’ to the Cape market. By the end of 2004, the locally produced drug had become a scourge of Cape townships. It was significant that the producers operated from the posh suburb of Plattekloof. Amanda Buys and her team had just been praying intensely around the link between China and crime in the Cape. During a visit to Hong Kong in 2004, she discovered that (possibly poached) South African abalone was sold there in many shops. The police discovered the house factory where ‘tik’ was produced towards the end of 2004, four houses from the Buys home in John Vorster Street, Plattekloof. New Challenges Satan hit back via another stronghold at the turn of the new millennium – sexual perversion and drug addiction! The legalization of abortion in August 1996 was not surprising because in the run-up to the 1994 elections, the ruling ANC had already envisaged that as future policy. However, it took many Christians and Muslims by surprise that homosexuality received a major boost by the secular governing style. The new government propagandized the use of condoms in an effort to stop AIDS. In spite of warnings that condoms were really not safe in keeping the HIV virus out, the slogan ‘be wise - condomise!’ was used almost unabatedly at this stage. At the Cape Town Civic Centre, a gigantic erect penis with a condom over it, spread a debatable message to young people until it was removed by the well known Capetonian South Easter. When the government changed its stance in a stated intention to follow the example of Uganda, it was already very late in the day. (By propagating abstinence from sexual before marriage and fidelity within it, Uganda succeeded as the first country in the world to reverse the ratio of HIV infected people.) ABC However, the message of the government was ambivalent. On the one hand it turned to religion to help teach morality; on the other hand, agents like Love Life were and are still, being funded. This agency has no scruples in encouraging such practices as early experimenting with sex. In this way, traditional religious morality is contradicted and undermined. A situation had developed by the end of the previous century, which could only be countered with spiritual warfare on a national scale. A divine response appeared to follow when prayer warriors from different communities were raised up. In 1997, a team from the Dutch Reformed Church Suikerbosrand in Heidelberg (Gauteng) came to pray in the Mother City in general and in Bo-Kaap in particular. In the spiritual realm this was significant as a divine reply because Heidelberg was the cradle of the racist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) in 1973, when the town belonged to the Transvaal province of the old South Africa. Bo-Kaap gradually lost its grip as an Islamic stronghold which it gained through the effect of apartheid, because many houses were sold to people who were not Muslims since the beginning of the new millennium. A substantial portion of the new inhabitants belongs to the ‘gay’ sub-culture. The borders of the City of Cape Town, which had become the gay capital of the continent since 1994, were now being extended into Bo-Kaap!! Church-led Restitution? During a visit to Argentine in 1999 Pastor Martin Heuvel of the Fountain Christian Centre in Ravensmead was challenged to apply the principal of restitution to the South African set-up. His efforts to get other 'White' church leaders to move beyond mere oral confession and especially towards restitution for the evils of apartheid, took more than two years. Some of these personalities, who were challenged, had been involved with the prayer movement in the country for a long time. In 2002 Pastor Heuvel approached Charles Robertson, a prayer warrior of many years standing, and the catalyst of the monthly prayer concerts at the Cape. Here he found a prepared heart. This finally led to the establishment of the Foundation for Church-led Restitution, where believers from different races and church backgrounds met from time to time. They started to discuss possibilities to nudge the church towards meaningful restitution, especially to address and rectify the wrongs of apartheid. Charles Robertson put the challenge to South African Christians to consider seriously the options presented by the huge economic disparity in our country in a booklet published in August 2005 which he gave the title Swyg, vermy of vlug (Keep silent, avoid or flee).48 While the new drug ‘tik’ is ravaging through the Cape Peninsula and AIDS is killing young and old by the thousands, the question remains when and whether the Cape Christians will rise again in united prayer to pull the trigger, which would ignite the revival flames that could bless the continent from Cape to Cairo and bring biblical morality in its wings. The implementation of real unity of Christians on biblical grounds in the spirit of the person and example of Jesus - without semantics and bickering around peripheral issues like baptism and preaching by women – seems to be still some distance away. Yet, the biblical norm of sharing, so that something is done to close the gap between the extreme riches and poverty, cannot be overlooked. In the meantime, we live at the edge of a trigger of some sort. By being willing to get involved in programmes of restitution locally Cape Town and South Africa could set a modern example. The alternative is the trigger of desperation of the masses of the poor, which would not be like a Sunday School picnic. The Body of Christ in the Mother City could make the difference by pulling the right trigger. I believe that the combined expression of the Body of Christ in remorseful confession and repentance could be a catalyst towards spiritual renewal. It would be great if local churches could muster forces in prayer and action towards godly governance on the short term. This would be but a small - and yet significant – step. How wonderful it would be if church leaders could be the channel, voicing regret which could ignite remorse; that so many of our forebears claimed that the Church came in the place of the nation of Israel; that some of our co-religionists like Waraqah bin Naufal have been misleading Muhammad and because of that, millions are now caught in the web of religious bondage. The acknowledgment that Islam is the result of heretical Christianity and distorted Judaism could be a possible catalyst for spiritual renewal. Even better would be if this could happen in tandem with combined loving evangelistic action and outreach in the build-up to the World Cup later this year. Back to the Land of the Living In 2008 Pastor Bruce van Eeden had to be taken from the wreck of a car after a collision in rural Rwanda the course of spreading the vision of Africa Arise in Africa. It was a terminal situation, along with another person for whom there was medically speaking no hope. He noticed in his semi-conscious condition how an elderly female believer stood around them, praying. A few hours after arriving at a hospital he was put into a wheel chair. That was the last thing he remembered before he 'regained consciousness' amid a big commotion. In the meantime the news was relayed that a 'foreign missionary' was killed in a car accident. To all and sundry this could only have been an American. When he in the rural hospital there was a. He had been 'dead' to all intents and purposes. Through the prayers that had been. Later the same day he was 'discharged' from the rural hospital because they did not expect him to survive. He was taken to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, from where a decision about the body of the possibly 'deceased' missionary would have to be taken When the news arrived there, a high ranking police officer, a believer, indicated that if any care was needed for the foreign missionary, he would take responsibility for it at his home. The very next day Bruce preached at the Africa Arise Conference in Kigale for seven hours while seated in a wheel chair and half his body wrapped in bandage, mobilizing the church to advance the gospel into the 10/40 Window. Ps. Bruce recuperated there until he was strong enough to be flown to Cape Town. God obviously had more things for Ps. Bruce van Eeden and the Evangelical Mission Church to accomplish in His Kingdom ministry, notably with an annual Africa Arise Declararion Day at Cape Agulhas towards the end of each year.For a period of five years Bruce made several missionary trips to Communist China to minister to the underground church including smuggling bibles into China across the Hong Kong border. Bruce ministered the gospel to four generations of the Kui tribals of East India over a period of 28 years and serves as Advisor to 300 plus churches. In the Taliban fields of Pakistan Bruce has a partnership ministry with 100 plus churches for the past ten years. 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Hattingh, (ed) - Das Tagebuch und die Briefe von Georg Schmidt en Dagboek en Briewe van Georg Schmidt, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, 1981 Buntman, Fran – Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, Cambridge University Press, 2003 Da Costa, Yusuf and Davids, Achmat, Pages from Cape Muslim History, Shuter and Shooter, Pietermaritzburg, 1994 Davids, Achmat, The mosques of Bo-Kaap, South African Institute of Arabic and Islamic Research, Athlone, C.T, 1980 Deacon, Harriet – The Island, Mayibuye Books, UWC, 1996 De Kock, Wessel - A manner of Speaking, Saayman and Weber, CapeTown, 1982 Elphick, Richard & Davenport, Rodney - Christianity in South Africa, David Philip, Cape Town, 1997 Esack, Farid, - Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism in Islam, an Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression, One World, Oxford (UK), 1997 Esterhuyse, W.P. - Apartheid must die, Tafelberg Publishers, Cape Town, 1981 First, Ruth and Scott, Ann - Olive Schreiner, Women’s Press, London, 1989 (1980) Gerdener, G.B.A. - Bouers van weleer, N G Kerk Uitgewers, Cape Town, 1951 Harrison, Ronald - The Black Christ, David Philip, Cape Town, 2006 Heard, Tony – The Cape of Storms, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1991 Harvey, Robert – The Fall of Apartheid, Palgrave, London, 2001 Hermann, Louis – The Cape Town Hebrew Congregation, A Centenary History, 1841-1941, Cape Town, 1941 Hobman, D.L. - Olive Schreiner, her Friends and times, Watts & Co., London, 1955 Knighton-Fit, Beyond Fear, Pretext Publishers, Cape Town, 2003 Kgosana, Philip, Lest we forget, Skotaville, Johannesburg, 1988 Krüger, Bernhard - The Pear Tree Blossoms, Rhodes University (Ph.D. Thesis) Grahamstown, 1969 Krüger, Bernhard and Schaberg, P.W. - The Pear Tree bears fruit, Moravian Book Depot, Genadendal, 1984 Lodge, Tom – Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1990 (1983) Ndungane, Njongonkulu – A World with a Human Face, David Philip, Kenilworth, 2003 Nürnberger Klaus/ Tooke, John -The Cost of Reconciliation, Methodist Publishing House, Cape Town, 1988 Robertson, Charles K. – South Africa: The miracle of Little Waves, Christian Publishing Services, Tulsa (USA), 1986 Ross, Robert - Cape of Torments: Slavery and Resistance in South Africa, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1983 Rosenthal, Richard – Mission Improbable – a Piece of the South African Story, David Philip, Cape Town, 1998 Sparks, Allister - The Mind of South Africa, Heinemann, London, 1990 Shaw, Gerald – Some Beginnings, The Cape Times 1876-1910, Oxford University Press, C.Town, 1975 - The Cape Times, an informal history, David Philip, C.Town, 1999 Van der Ross, R.E. – The Rise and Decline of Apartheid, A study of political movements among the Coloured People of South Africa, 1880-1985, Tafelberg, Cape Town, 1986. 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