I dare to celebrate!

By

Matthew Esau

Wednesday, 02 September 2009

The protest march of September 13 1989 should be put amongst great moments in the history of the 20^th century, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany and the student protests in Tiananmen Square in China. It happened at the culmination of the protests that was started at the beginning of 1989. A year which saw the formation of the Mass Democratic Movement(MDM) by a broad congregation of representatives of the people from a wide a spectrum of disciplines in civil society. This formation made it extremely difficult for the regime to ban. Although Churches were part of the MDM, National Church leaders created their own campaign to protest the regime’s attempts to entrench apartheid. The ‘Standing for the Truth’ campaign became the rallying call for religious leaders. What we witnessed, 20 years ago was never again repeated despite attempts to do so.

The day followed a very intense week which started on ‘Purple Rain’ Saturday (2/09) - the day on which the police thought they would introduce their own manufactured rain, which backfired, rather ‘back rained’ on them - and purple colored demonstrators took shelter in St. Georges Cathedral; on the next Monday (4/09) a concert - by a university choir - would be banned by the police stopping them from performing in the Cathedral. That same evening Archbishop Tutu and his lawyer Mr. Justice Essa Moosa, were arrested for attending yet another ‘protest’ church service at Buitenkant Street Methodist Church and kept across the road from the church at Caledon square. My colleague, Gadija Vallie, Director of the Western Cape Relief Fund, arranged meals for the ‘detainees’, meals which could only come from our people in the Western Cape. On the Tuesday (5/09) clandestine organising continued as we waited for 6 September, with much apprehension.

I was fortunate to have been working in Archbishop Tutu’s office as his personal assistant responsible for relations with ‘extra governmental’ groups, amongst other things. This brought me into direct contact with those who were laying their lives on the line for a better South Africa. By choice they had decided to remain in the country and confront the beast of Apartheid which was daily maiming and murdering our people.

Police suppression was rife and we expected clashes between protesters and police. Despite rhetoric of ‘toenadering’ and the door of the acting State president being open for dialogue, police clamped down with vengeance and great brutality. Early the next day, Thursday (7/09) my colleagues shared with me that many deaths had occurred during the day and after the election had ended on the Wednesday night. We decided to meet at the offices of Essa Moosa and Associates.

That morning, I went to the office at Bishopscourt and told the Archbishop of the happenings the previous day and night. I went to ‘Essa’s’ office, to find almost every single lawyer working on this matter. Gadija and I joined them in visiting police stations and tried to get contact with bereaved families. I returned to Bishopscourt and reported to the Archbishop what we had discovered. He was not his usual self and I thought that the constant pressure on him to take the lead was starting to show, he broke down and wept and retired to his chapel. It was then decided that a memorial service for the deceased would be arranged for the next day. I set out to meet with comrades so that the message could get to as many people as possible. In looking back over the 20 years, it now sounds like a very simple thing. But it was not! To get a meeting together required an enormous amount of footwork and venues were not that readily available. The obvious ones were under the surveillance of the security police, and ‘spies’ were ‘ten a penny’. Whilst our lawyer’s offices were relatively safe, as were places like churches and mosques, getting there was high risk. When I took the message of the service to those who would spread the message, there was no talk of a March, one of protest or otherwise.  This would only be mentioned to me when I met with the Archbishop that Friday (8/09) morning.

I will be a stranger to the truth if I were not to say that I was a little peeved with ‘His Grace’ for even mentioning to me a couple of hours before the service, ‘that we will march this afternoon’. I wondered what was in his head when he spoke about the service and did not mention the March. My immediate reaction was that the Archbishop was clearly not aware of the amount of support we had with the masses and that we could turn them into ‘canon fodder’ by exposing them unprepared to the might of the police. I asked that the matter be discussed before the service with our colleagues. It was agreed based on the condition that an announcement be made at the service. What subsequently transpired is well documented by John Allen in his book Rabble Rouser for Peace. 

So why do I dare to celebrate this event?

What did it mean to me that on September13, 1989, an estimated 30,000 people from - all faiths and non faiths, young people, students, school learners, families, professors, teachers, lawyers, company directors, office workers, street sweepers, shop owners, shop assistants, factory workers, dock workers, employed and unemployed, politicians, comrades and non comrades, Muslims Sheiks and Imams, the Ulama, the MJC, Jewish Rabbis, the Jewish board of deputies, Christian priests and pastors, Archbishops and Moderators, leaders and followers of all religious groupings and denominations – and the list goes on and on - marched in protest at the callousness of the police and the brutality of apartheid?    

That morning (13/09) I decided that I would get to the City early because I had given a number of undertakings to the mayor, Gordon Oliver, who in exchange, offered the use of the City Hall for the end ceremony of the March. We were given the entire traffic department who would escort the marches along the route and I had to ensure that the marchers would conduct themselves in dignity and in an ‘orderly’ manner. I had passed on what I had agreed too with the mayor to the marshals, who were lead by Trevor Manuel and Cheryl Carolus.

I decided to drive into the City along the Eastern Boulevard, passed the Cape Town train station and the Grand Parade. The City was unusually quite, until I saw groups of high school learners coming off the trains. I thought that it was an odd day for teachers to arrange for their learners to visit the museum and art gallery. Little knowing they were coming to participate in the March. To march against the killing of the innocent. They had got the message that went out from Friday (8/09). They had heard of the daily meetings at Bishopscourt with the organisers and representatives of foreign governments in SA. Of telephone calls between Archbishop Tutu and ‘ministers’ in de Klerk’s cabinet. And they had decided that “Today is the gift of a new arising.” I had no more control on what would take place in the coming hours. And it happened! We could not walk along the route because the entire Adderley Street was covered with a sea of people from side to side. We had to struggle through the crowd to get the leaders to the front, amazingly it happened. Gadija and I walked the entire route facing the Marchers, it was slow going because Allan Boesak was so excited that outside the Golden Acre, the scene of many Saturday morning shopping disruptions in the 1970s, he mounted an electric sub-station to see how far the march stretched. We were ecstatic! We had done it! We did not bother trying to get into the City Hall with the crowd; they were escorted to the Grand Parade, to reclaim it for the people of Cape Town. Our leaders went on to the balcony of the City Hall and reclaimed the City Hall for the people of Cape Town and after speeches dismissed the crowd who dispersed and went into their various directions peacefully, dignified and victorious.        

At about 4pm on that great day I sat on the boundary wall on the edge of the car-park of St. George’s Cathedral, in Wale Street. I look down St. Georges’ Mall, and saw a sprinkling of people walking to the station and the bus terminus, on their way home. It was not the crowd that go that way at the end of a normal working day. There were less that day, the others were already gone, to talk, to celebrate, to do what, I do not know. What do I know is that I suddenly saw in those who were walking away from me, a spring in their step, a command over the journey they were to undertake to their ‘homes’, I saw a liberated people even if it were for only that afternoon. Was it them or was it me?

As I looked at them I wondered where my colleagues were. And then I pinched myself, and wept, I cried, tears of relieve, of joy, of achievement and I thanked God for my City, my country, my people, yes we have done it. We took our City back, we gave police and traffic police and security police back their dignity. We reclaimed our comrades who were on the run and banned and restricted. We had not stayed up for night after night in vain, at least twenty people had not died in vain, at least Nelson Mandela and our leaders were not on Robben Island for nothing, this March will also ensure their release, and not even the Apartheid Regime can stop us now. That’s what I said twenty years ago.

And now after much introspection and turmoil, I dare to celebrate my own involvement in a small spot of South African history, because in celebrating what we achieved on that day, I challenge all those who participated, I mean all, to also celebrate what we did and to use the celebration to inspire us to again reclaim our City. Allan Boesak is right, “Too many of us are despairing, mourning the loss of what we thought we had, bemoaning the state of democracy, blaming others and forgetting our own responsibility.” As we celebrate, “Let us be done with all that now…Yesterday is behind the mist of night. Today is the gift of a new arising. Tomorrow is the dawn of our awakening. The coming day belongs to us!”       I dare to celebrate!

Matthew Esau was the personal assistant to Archbishop Desmond Tutu from 1987 to 1989. He is currently the priest in charge at Holy Redeemer Anglican Church Sea Point