A brave choice of venue

Logistics prompted the African National Congress to hold its 51st conference in oaktree-lined Stellenbosch. But the main venue is the DF Malan Memorial Centre, erected with National Party funds to honour the architect of apartheid, and the conference has taken on a symbolic dynamic that is hard to ignore.

Set below mountain ranges and surrounded by wine estates, Stellenbosch is widely regarded as the heartland of Afrikaner nationalism and for many it offers the possibility to continue their old ways. It is the second-oldest town in South Africa after Cape Town and the first established in the hinterland.

All of South Africa’s prime ministers from 1919 to 1978, from Jan Smuts to Malan, HF Verwoerd and BJ Vorster, graduated from the University of Stellenbosch.

“Stellenbosch is the intellectual cradle of Afrikaner nationalism. [Holding the ANC conference there] is an extremely powerful metaphor,” says Willie Esterhuyse, a lecturer on business ethics at the university.

Like the Afrikaners whose nationalism emerged not only as a political power but also as a movement to uplift the Afrikaner, the ANC must deal with poverty — only this time for most South Africans. That “will also send a strong message”, Esterhuyse says.

After the ANC decided on the Western Cape for its conference, the University of Stellenbosch came out tops as a venue. “It was only later on that people realised the political implications — it’s the heart of Afrikaner nationalism,” says one ANC national official.

The choice is an indication of how far South Africa has come, says university spokesperson Isabelle Oosthuizen. “That the ANC has its conference at the DF Malan Memorial Centre would have been unfathomable 10 years ago. Stellenbosch has a history of producing leaders and we intend to continue that tradition for the new South Africa.”

Despite its reputation for conservatism, the Afrikaner dorpie has also pioneered a new Afrikaner mentality, dating back to the debates leading to the first contacts with the ANC before it was unbanned.

The university, whose students are dubbed Maties, counts among its graduates political facilitator Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, former Democratic Alliance Western Cape leader Hennie Bester and former ANC MP Jannie Momberg. New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk lectured there.

“There must be no no-go areas for any party in our country,” says Van Schalkwyk. “The more familiar we become with where other South Africans come from the better.”

But the political significance of choosing Stellenbosch also emerged during the spate of political defections during the floor-crossing period in October. DA leader Tony Leon popped champagne corks to celebrate when the town remained under his party’s control. The town fell to the ANC-NNP alliance a few days later.

Students will vacate the hostels after four days of graduation ceremonies ending this Friday. They will make way for about 5 000 ANC delegates, support officials and security teams, observers and guests, who will arrive in town over the weekend.

“Everything’s booked up,” says the local tourist information office. Only a scattering of places is available in the R1 000 to R2 000 a person a night range. Cheaper digs are only available at Franschhoek and Somerset West, about 60km away.

But interest among Stellenbosch’s residents in what the ANC has described as a “historic” meeting appears lacklustre at best.

“What is the government doing? The crime is going up, rape is going up … They take money and give it to Zimbabwe and [President Robert] Mugabe. South Africa supplies them with petrol, with food. The poor people here have no bread, no milk; the kids go to school with nothing,” says John Daniels, a hawker.

Nomsa Mtsolo (16), who helps out at the local flea market, knows about the conference, but is leaving this weekend for her home in the Eastern Cape. Asked if she thinks the decisions taken at the conference might improve her life, Mtsolo shrugs and says “No”.

The grey-brick, squat DF Malan Memorial Centre is set amid lush green rugby fields against a backdrop of trees and mountains. It is one of the few obvious apartheid-era references remaining on campus.

When South Africans queued there to cast their ballots in the first democratic elections in 1994, the bust of DF Malan in the entrance hall was covered with a blanket. The bust still stands in the entrance hall.

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