IN February of 1994, two months before the elections, I returned to South Africa. Accompanied by a friend, I embarked on a four- week journey to explore the Northern Cape, Namaqualand and the Karoo, areas which have always fascinated me.
Because I have lived abroad for so many years, my perceptions and expectations were influenced by other factors. But, as I looked out over the landscape, I knew that I had never been too far removed – spiritually – from this country. The sun, the earth, the quality of light and the colour of the sky had always been in my mind’s eye, perhaps even more so than family or friends.
South Africa had held me, had kept me connected in ways that I could not even begin to describe. It took a long time for me to break its hold. During this process of readjustment and separation, I wrote longingly about it.
I realise now, of course, that my nostalgia stemmed from the way I had been torn from the country of my birth. There had been no time or opportunity to ease away, to say my goodbyes and to experience closure. Eventually I lost some of my South Africanness and by a process of osmosis absorbed the culture of my adoptive country, Canada. My vision, though, still lingered here.
On that trip into the Kalahari and Namaqualand we made frequent detours to explore the countryside. We committed everything to film: every little rock and crevice, every stone and succulent, every dry, cracked, crusted piece of earth. We even made recordings of the wind as it howled across the veld. On isolated sheep farms we recorded the sounds of creaking windmills.
This was my first visit to areas I had not been able to explore before. What made it even more interesting was that all of this was happening in the atmosphere of pre-election euphoria. Wherever we went in those isolated regions, we engaged in passionate discussions about change. The mere fact that we were in small towns, debating political change, was remarkable in itself. Clearly change in South Africa, then already, was a fait accompli.
On this trip we stayed in losieshuise in places like Kuruman, Springbok and Vanrhynsdorp. Elsewhere we stayed in hotels that had all formerly been for whites only. This was another extraordinary development, especially in the context of South Africa’s history.
During the early apartheid years when I was growing up here, movement was restricted. Indians required permits to travel through the Free State. Another consideration in those days, which limited our choice of destinations too, had been the lack of facilities for non- white travellers. Out of necessity we had travelled familiar routes so that we might break our journey with family or friends along the way.
In the heyday of apartheid, the prospect of a cup of tea or a meal at a restaurant was as remote, then, as landing a man on the moon. Those were the days when even the toilets at service stations were reserved for whites. Modesty compelled us to drive into the veld to squat behind a rock or bush.
I left South Africa in the mid-Sixties. The previous regime had not only withdrawn my passport and left me stateless in one of our neighbouring countries, but had denied me entry to attend my father’s funeral. Occasionally the anger about the way I was treated still surfaces in my writing. I have no doubt that it will continue to do so for a long time. I am grateful in many respects to my adoptive country for having nurtured me and having provided me with the opportunities that the apartheid era had deprived me of.
By returning to South Africa, my life has come full circle. Not only was it crucial for me to return here to cast my vote, but it was equally important that the outgoing government restore the citizenship they had stripped from me. This alone, I vowed, would be vindication for the past. Accomplishing the former was easy and was probably one of the most emotional and exciting events in my life. The latter was much more difficult and extremely frustrating.
I have lost track now of the hours and the days wasted, waiting in line at the Home Affairs office. So much of my time and my creative energy were dissipated waiting to get information, only to find that staff were either ill-informed or indifferent. Their lack of information and apathy cost me many needless trips back there.
I could only imagine what a harrowing experience this must have been for others, especially mothers with children, trying to get the ID documents in time to register for the local elections. I saw mothers with infants waiting for up to four hours. And on each of the days that I was there, only five of the 15 wickets were open at any one time. This, in spite of the fact that it was over that very busy period prior to the local elections.
Asking to speak to someone in charge was like trying to scale a concrete wall. The inefficiencies I witnessed were appalling, especially after having lived elsewhere and having had a standard by which to compare this service. Few of those waiting were willing to risk confrontation with Home Affairs staff in order to demand explanations for the delays. We are obviously still paralysed by old fears, cowed by decades of government intimidation and the retribution that followed for speaking out. Perhaps, having lived with inefficiency for such a long time, one becomes inured to it. What I witnessed in government offices, however, was more than inefficiency, it was a deliberate slowing-down of the process – a deliberate ploy among certain elements to sabotage the system and the elections.
I have always endeavoured to be polite and gracious, but when I see the pencil-pushers – most of them lazy and indifferent junior and senior civil employees who are curt and obnoxious because this is the way they have always treated the public – I am infuriated. It is time that the public assert their rights to good and courteous service from white and black employees alike. My experiences in this one government department alone were indicative of how inefficient and outdated the system is. But Home Affairs is not the only culprit, the problem is much more widespread than that.
Another illustration of bureaucratic absurdity is that after waiting two months for a document from the archives in Pretoria, and after numerous phone calls to them, I received a response requesting a 35c money order (a stamp would not do) to cover photocopying costs. It had cost them labour, paper, an envelope and a 50c stamp to send that letter.
Eventually, outraged by these constant obstacles, I wrote a letter to the Office of the President describing my frustration and outlining reasons why I was not voting in the local elections. Finding out how to contact the president was another frustrating exercise. I made at least a dozen phone calls that day, including one to the ANC offices. None of the offices contacted were able to provide me with an address. Obviously no one ever wrote to the president. Three weeks later I received my documents and this after almost a year of wrangling with Home Affairs.
Of course it is not easy to break down decades of prejudice and resistance, yet many innovative policy decisions have been taken to effect change. As I see it, the problem obviously lies in getting these policies implemented at the lower levels of management. It is here that old attitudes are prevalent and resistance to change is most apparent.
I must add, however, that the problem does not only lie with the verkrampte elements who are still contracted to the government. Some affirmative action appointees in the civil service, hastily appointed and inadequately trained, are no better. They have adopted the same petty, sloppy, inefficient, lazy, corrupt and incompetent habits of their predecessors. Unless we change the work ethic inherited from the previous regime, we will continue to languish in the disparaging Third World slot.
To be fair, however, I must point out that progress has been made in many other crucial areas. Who could have imagined, 10 years ago, that citizens from the most humble to the most illustrious would be involved in drawing up a Constitution? Who would have thought that one would be able to criticise the government openly, without fear of reprisal? And who could have thought that issues of human rights and the environment would be of concern to all? What about images of black and white workers toyi-toying, side by side? Amazing! The sheer magnitude of change since the elections is a constant source of wonder.
Because of our oppressive history, the pendulum has swung all the way over, resulting in excesses. Perhaps, given time, common sense will prevail and issues like affirmative action and black economic empowerment will no longer be controversial. In my view, though, both were long overdue. Who of us can forget what it was like to live with job reservation in the early days of apartheid when the shoe was on the other foot?
Then too, people, by virtue of their colour, had the best jobs and the best life while the rest of us were left on the outside, looking in. Freedom is still a new concept. It is still a time of experimentation. A time to contemplate what it means to live in a democracy: a time of healing, a time for feeling our way through the morass of laws that had regimented our lives for decades. Many of us still clearly recall the misery of relocation, of having our homes destroyed, of being ripped out of the bosoms of our families: to be jailed, exiled, banished or relocated. We have all been trapped, white and non-white, under the blanket of ignorance during the apartheid years. For the first time we are seeing the light and it is an exhilarating experience.
People frequently ask me why I settled in Gauteng instead of the Cape. I like being here. I like the climate and the buzz of big city life – except, of course, I am finding that the stress of living with such an appalling crime rate is taking its toll on me as well. Life has become so cheap here that we have become apathetic. As long as the violence is happening to someone else, in some other neighbourhood, as long as it doesn’t touch us personally, it is tolerable.
In the short period since I’ve been back, I have seen the devastation left in the wake of criminal and political violence. If conventional methods to bring violence under control have not worked, surely more drastic measures should be taken. One wonders why the army, currently not engaged in military action, is not deployed for this purpose.
There has been so much struggle and sacrifice to build this democracy, yet, here we are, still denied one of the most basic rights – the right to live and work in a safe environment.
Instead we are still gripped by fear, just as in the past. The difference now is that the tyrant has become faceless. Women remain victims. They are the ones left to shoulder the burden of loss and brutality, just as they were in previous decades.
In more numbers than one can imagine, they are still being assaulted, raped, brutalised, murdered, killed and widowed by political and criminal violence. Until their lot and the lot of those marginalised in our society improves; until the general population is able to live in relative safety, without fear for their lives; until our criminal and justice systems and prison systems recognise that criminals have to be dealt with severely, we are still subjected to the old tyranny.
It takes a great deal of stamina to live in this country. I sometimes wonder if I have enough to continue. If this is how I have been affected, how does the average person who does not have my education, experience and resources cope?
A friend of mine, a very talented young woman, told me that she could not take any more and was leaving South Africa. The other day her car was hijacked. She considered herself very lucky to have escaped with her life. This was her second brush with violence. A year ago she was mugged and badly beaten. I am sorry that she is leaving. We will be losing another bright star. But who can blame her for taking this decision?
There is no doubt that we have come a long way since those early repressive years, but we obviously still have a very long way to go.
Farida Karodia has published two novels and two collections of stories. Her latest book is Against an African Sky, published by David Philip.
Farida Karodia. All rights reserved.