Special Hearings — Women's Hearings — 1997-07-28

MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much.  You have literally run away from us.  We wanted to thank you while you are sitting over there.  Your input has really highlighted quite a number of issues which I suppose not only this Commission, but the Human Rights Commission and the Commission headed by you, will struggle with for the next 10 to 20 years.
 In particularly the aspect where you're looking at liberation movements.  That's going to be the most difficult one, in view of the fact that people will be expected to look closer home where their base is and their support and also corridors of power where decisions about them are made.
 We thank you very much.  I hope your opening words are going to encourage the women who are sitting with us today, to realise that it's important and it's acceptable for people to look at their own personal life; not only to share about their husbands and their sons, but to look at their own personal injuries;  as a right to healing and reconciliation.
 We thank you very much, Thenjiwe.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Before we call our next witness, I am going to ask Gcina to give us another poem, please.

MS SEROKE: Whilst Gcina is moving to her seat, I just want to tell you a little more about her.
 She was born in Hammansdale in Natal and she's a short story writer and story-teller, a playwright, director of Zanindaba story tellers, has worked many years with the Market Theatre and other theatres internationally.  
 Thank you.

UNKNOWN: I'll be brief again, I'm just watching time and all of these things.
 I want to sing a song that sometimes I have spoken to somebody who is democratic and free writer.  He said to me, you can't sing a song like that man, things have changed, you must stop it.  This is an old song and someone will bore you with an old song, because these are democratic times.
MS MHLOPE SINGS POEM
(Applause)
 This is a poem that was written for a friend of mine.  I lived for seven years in Alexander Township and while I was living there I was living in a single sex hostel and the weird things go on in a single sex hostel.  But we won't go into that.  I would just talk about a friend of mine and what was and who were the baddies, you know, and the story of the baddies.
 And this is a story, a poem, that was written for her.  It is called "Sitting alone, thinking".  The mid-eighties were strange times too.
Lately I have more than once found myself sitting alone, thinking. Not that I have such a lot of time to just sit and think I am a busy woman with a heavy schedule.  I have to try and keep up with the fast world around me. But then, somehow, it happens, right in the middle of all the hustle and the bustle.  Everything just stops, and I find myself sitting alone, thinking, would Mr President be a better man if he had a womb and breasts full of milk? Would he be impressed by the number of children jailed all in the name of peace, law and order? If he had just one 10-year-old in detention?  Would the smell of teargas and the sight of bloody bullet wounds be so appetising as to bring that strange smile on the President's face; if he had a womb and breasts full of milk? These are the kinds of visions that come up to me as I sit alone, thinking, yhinking of my very best friend, as she sits in a jail cell longing for her little baby, her painful breasts so full of milk
My friend had a child of only three weeks.  Her baby was three weeks old and she was detained and she was not allowed to take her child to jail.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Gcina.  We would like to call our first witness, Sheila Masote, to come to the witness stand.
 The Commission has often been called a Kleenex Commission, a Commission of Rears.  Today I think, as we share the pain of the women who are coming to tell their stories, I would like to remind us that there's healing in tears and that there's no shame in crying.  
 And, that in fact, the women who are coming to tell their stories, have in fact survived the years of violence, but the violence for women is not yet over.  Most of the stories in this country as the opening address said, are stories about men.  
 The women are often very secondary in those stories and yet domestic violence in this country continues unabated.  Young children, young women are still raped and women don't have the peace of mind to walk freely.  There is no real freedom for women in this country. 
 So today, as we look back on our past and we look back at the stories of these women, we need to realise that women in this country all over need to mobilise, to make sure that the women of tomorrow have a safer South Africa to live in.
 I'm going to ask my fellow Commissioner, Hlengiwe Mkhize, to lead Ms Masote's story.  Thank you.

MS MKHIZE: I would like to extend a special word of welcome, especially to our mother, Mama Tupe.  We are grateful to have you here.
 But to you, Sheila, I say please don't do that to me, this is your time so that you can speak.  I will request you to stand up so that you take an oath.  Okay, Sheila, you'll manage.  Yes, that's very, very important.  I will ask you to stand up and to take an oath.

SHEILA MASOTE: (Duly sworn, states).

MS MKHIZE: Thank you.  Sheila, I will ask you to be ready to share with other women about your own experiences having grown up within a family which was deeply involved in liberation struggles in this country.
 I know how difficult it is to look back at many years of suffering within one's family and to talk about it.  But this is very, very important for you, number one, and for your family and for many young people who grew up in families which were directly exposed to the atrocities of our past.  Thank you.

SHEILA MASOTE: Thank you.  Can I start?

MS MKHIZE: Yes.  You can start by just introducing the person next to you and your name and where you are working and how you like to talk to your story.