MANDELA AND DAY TO DAY MEMORIES OF APARTHEID.

Jay H. Ell believes that he, had come to terms with Mandela’s mortality. (Blogs: Mandela, The British Golf Open and Immortality, 8/4/12; Exit Mandela: Cry the Beloved Country Part 2, 12/20/12; Mandela - A Letter From Prison and Postscript, 11/1/13). His passing has thus not evoked in him the spontaneous outpouring of admiration of almost messianic proportions that we are now witnessing. That he believes he has already done. Rather his death reminds him of the evils of apartheid and what it was to live through those times. Evils that we all need reminding of. It is almost as if Mandela’s death has awakened a Post Traumatic Stress Reaction in Jay H. Ell.

THE INSTITUTIONALISATION OF APARTHEID 

Jay H. Ell, like so many like him, was a child of apartheid - a white child. An obviously different life from a black child - the former of the privileged class and the latter the victims. His life in South Africa spanned the whole sordid period of apartheid and his decision to finally leave South Africa was made when De Klerk was elected as Prime Minister by the right wing of the Nationalist Party. It all seemed so hopeless and he did not want his sons to be conscripted into the army whose role was not so much to defend South Africa but rather to shoot at African youth throwing stones. He was wrong about De Klerk, who like so many right wing politicians, was able to do what no-one imagined, persuade the whites that compromise and giving up power was the right decision. The rest is history. However, none of this takes away the memory of living under apartheid. This story may have a fairy tale ending but it was no fairy tale.

Jay H. Ell was born into a family that was profoundly socially conscious. His Grandmother and Mother were founder members of the Black Sash that was the Women’s organization that opposed apartheid. He remembers vividly, as a preschooler, the election in 1948 that heralded in the apartheid regime. He remembers his mother and father mourning what had happened and being taken to the fish and chips shop to be consoled by a packet of hot chips. (French Fries). From then on it was down hill.

Growing up he was not spared the progression of apartheid and its discrimination and the inhumane consequences of the policies of racial bigotry translated into law. He saw laws remove any meaningful representation in parliament of anyone who was not white. Laws that then were associated with indelible daily experiences.  He remembers the pass laws that turned black South Africans into criminal aliens in their own land - hiding the gardener as the police car roamed by; the Group Areas Act that defined where one could live with the dislocation of communities into faraway windy plains - the displacement of the pulsating District Six community where he spent stints delivering babies; the population registration act that decided what race you belonged to - the reclassification of one University Professor to be white while the rest of his family remained colored and the Immorality Act that defined who you could love - the agony of a friend who was charged and had his life ruined. Then there was the Jobs Reservation Act that defined what jobs you were able to perform, the educational ministries for different races - as Prime Minister Verwoerd, who articulated the philosophical basis for apartheid, had stated, “Why teach the Bantu mathematics if he has no use for it”. The Separate Amenities Act that continued racial separation to reductio ad absurdium - separate entrances, separate toilets, separate every things…….

There was thus set into motion a systematic legislative program to undo what integration and rights that had evolved and existed and replace them with the standards of the deep American South. Once this was in place the Alice in Wonderland vision of Prime Minister Verwoerd to unscramble the South African egg followed. He would  create 10 separate “independent” Bantustan homelands for the individual black ethnic groups. All blacks would be “guest workers” and could not settle with their families in South Africa.This regardless of the reality that large numbers had not “lived” in their homelands for years or even ever and that they were totally integrated into “white” South Africa’s economy. 

Then there was the whole elaborate totalitarian apparatus that kept all this monstrous legislation in place. That started early on in the apartheid regime from the Suppression of Communism Act - so broad that it could make Joe McCarthy blush, to ever increasing abrogations of the rule of law into the eighties. Emergencies could be declared with the total suspension of habeas corpus and then their were also provisions of detentions without trial for 90 days then 180 days. Hundreds were periodically arbitrarily arrested across the board, including family members and friends. There was Press Censorship and no-one banned under the Suppression of Communism Act could be quoted. So anything smuggled out or said by Mandela was heard and read illegally - even his statement from the dock in the Rivonia trial .

The police and security police who were responsible for the enforcement of this legislation were regularly accused of brutality, torture and murder. (A sorry record of all of this is chronicled in the proceedings of the post apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission).

MANDELA AND THE ANC

In those early days you had a non violent ANC  who tried to negotiate and then when that failed utilized civil disobedience such as burning their "pass books”, that were their permits to be in “white” South Africa. Mandela early on established himself as the leader in these civil disobedience protests. These Defiance Campaigns were met with brutality by the police. Finally, after the infamous Sharpeville massacre, in 1960, where 169 Africans, who were peacefully protesting, were shot dead by the police, Mandela decided to form a militant wing of the ANC called Umkhuntu we Sizwe. He did this without the ANC's blessing. Mandela saw himself not as a terrorist but as someone who was acting in defense to the violence and murder of his people. The main ANC however never abandoned their non violent platform and a former saint and ANC President Albert Luthuli, who was humiliated and hounded by the Government stuck, to this non violent stance right to the end. He quite rightly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960 for his non violent fight against apartheid. 

Mandela’s military wing had as its initial objective sabotage and was responsible for a number of bombings of facilities. In reality his role as a Freedom Fighter was short lived and he was on the run for only two years. He was sent to the Robben Island Prison in 1962, initially for inciting workers’ strikes and leaving the country without permission and then for life for sabotage. In truth he was not a serious revolutionary as even on the run he was meeting journalists, addressing meetings - all activities of someone attempting to persuade rather than brutalize. His trial where he was sentenced to life improsonment, ironically, set the stage for his life’s vision. His dignified, respectful, humble yet unapologetic statement of his motives, actions and aspirations captured the admiration of the world. His peroration after a nearly four hour speech was, “… I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and see realized. But, My Lord, if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die". (The majority of South Africans expected the death sentence the prosecutor had called for as did he for his co -defendants).

OPPOSITION TO APARTHEID ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS

Jay H. Ell was more formally involved in opposition but here he would like to reflect on the impact opposition to apartheid had on him as an ordinary citizen.

It was in an apartheid milieu that one functioned on a day to day basis. Many of Jay H Ell’s generation and beliefs upped and left South Africa - not all of them because they abhored apartheid but felt there was no future for the country. However, there were several who maintained they could not live in and be part of such an unjust society. Those that stayed and felt that way had to make accommodations as all had their bottom line as to what they could do and live with. The rationale of those that stayed on was one could do what one could to change society. 

But, even for a white person, on a day to day basis there have had to be Political Parties, groups, people, situations, opportunities, institutions that gave one hope. There was the formal opposition to the Government in the white parliament. Although the main opposition, The United Party, was for a large part of the time shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, it still represented opposition to the naked racism of apartheid. Then there was Helen Suzman, the lone fearless member of the Progressive Party whose opposition to the racist totalitarian regime cannot be underestimated. It was she, for example, who demanded to see Mandela on a regular basis. 

The opposition outside of parliament such as the Liberal Party, the Institute of Race Relations, the Churches, the Black Sash, to name a few, all were a constant source of hope. The English Press day after day week after week in spite of harassment and censorship proved to be a thorn in the regime’s side and a vehicle for those who opposed them. They never let up and are assuming the same role in a far from perfect South Africa today. The English speaking Universities also provided a springboard and a venue for opposition. The University Students and their representative body NUSAS were on the interface of racial cooperation and opposition. Professional bodies, to a lessor or greater extent, with non racial membership pursued objectives in a manner that had to promote a milieu that was an anathema to the philosophy of racial supremacy. 

There were plenty of opportunities to pursue objectives across the racial divide whether this be in the political, social, sport and entertainment arenas.

In the Black world the Trade Unions more than any other body were busily making inroads in smashing the insanity of apartheid. COSATU was the organization that all the Trade Unions ultimately morphed into and was lead by the current Deputy Leader of the ANC Cyril Rhamophosa . From early on there were separate Indian and Colored groups agitating for their ethnic groups individual rights. There was the United Democratic Front that created waves till it too was banned. The student groups such as the Black Consciousness movement gained much support and burst into national and international prominence when its leader Steve Biko was tortured to death by the Security police. There were also those who were predominantly underground.

Meanwhile the banned ANC was gaining more and more oversea and local grass roots support among activists, labor and students. There were sports boycotts and sanctions. 

(Jay H. Ell will leave for another time the negotiations, the groups both within and without South Africa that finally lead to a settlement because this was in motion when there was already a recognition that apartheid was morally and economically unsustainable).

What Jay H Ell was always conscious of was that he was in a morally challenging situation. One that he would like to be able to say to a Nuremberg tribunal or at least to his grandchildren that, bearing in mind that one can never do enough, he did what he could and was not part of this disgrace to humanity. It was never a comfortable position to be in opposition as your phones were tapped and you were subject to periodic harassment. On one particular occasion he was visited by the Special Branch in relation to a report he had written that maintained that a patient was suicidal. The psychiatrist agreed and this was grounds for a therapeutic abortion. The police arrived in the operating room and he and others were under investigation for facilitating an illegal abortion.

HISTORY 

There are those, like Thomas Carlyle, that say that history is determined by individuals and others that say individuals just articulate and personify the mood and the will of a people at a particular time. For those that support the latter theory they will have a tough time explaining the pivotal role Nelson Mandela played in South Africa. When he finally was released from prison he had the responsibility to weld together right wing Afrikaners and angry left wing black radicals into the “Rainbow Nation”. While many feared that his death would result in social disruption the Chicago Tribune ran a story that his "Mandela's death unifies South Africa". 

In Jay H. Ell's opinion his most incredible skill was his ability to be a revolutionary, activist, consummate politician, a skillful negotiator, an empathetic human being and a statesman all in one breath. There is injustice and inequity everywhere, just look around!, and what we need is more Mandelas. They are indeed Plato’s philosopher kings.