Sadness, grief, relief and joy. These were some of the emotions which swept through a crowd of about 400 hundred people who marched down High Street waving wild olive branches as part of a mass “ceremony of reconciliation” at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown yesterday.
The march was led by former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, author Antjie Krog, journalist Zubeida Jaffer, author Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Judge Albie Sachs, and various struggle dignitaries. The public procession started at Rhodes University’s Drostdy Arch and moved to the cathedral of St Michael and St George on High Street.
The ceremony at the cathedral began with massed Xhosa choirs who sang gloriously and did an occasional funky jive to warm up a cold church.
Tutu drew a chilling comparison between yesterday church ceremony and a visit to a church in Rwanda where hundreds were killed and their skulls left there as a memorial.
“The stench of death was overwhelming.”
Tutu said that South Africans should be “deeply thankful” for people like journalist Zubeida Jaffer who “do not want to punish others even though they have suffered great hurt and pain”.
The evening’s most touching moment came when Ginn Fourie, a woman whose daughter was killed during the Heidelberg tavern massacre nine years ago, was joined on stage by Gobodo-Madikizela to read a poem dedicated to Fourie’s daughter.
The poem was co-written by Letlapa Mphahlele, the Apla commander who ordered the Heidelberg bombing who did not appear at the ceremony.
Some people wept openly as the ceremony progressed. – ECN