Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

ELLEN KUZWAYO: That's right.  I, perhaps because I was not in that group, but I happened to know...(tape ends)
 Mr van Zyl Slabbert and a few others, I think they must have read the mood in the country that something was wrong, and they took up this mission of going outside South Africa openly and I think perhaps if they had been Black men I am sure they would have been arrested, but because they represented this community where the government was ruling the country, the Nationalist Party, and those men I want to believe, I am not sure, I could be wrong, but they must have felt that the time had come for South Africans, regardless of the colour of their skin, to talk.  They left South Africa and went out.  I am not too sure of the countries they went to, but I know these were the offices of the ANC that they had to go out and deliberate with them.
 I don't have my papers in front of me because more often than not when I write anything on paper and I start talking about what has happened I disregard that paper and I go on and tell the people what, even if it's to give them just the feel, but I know that he went with a group of other White men to go outside South Africa to go and talk to the ANC.  And I can only but imagine what must have gone through the minds of those who were in government.  They must have been very angry, but the time had come when the truth had to be placed on the table where people felt we had to talk.
 I want also to believe that it was at that same time when there was talk about releasing the people that had been in jail for 27 years on the island where the great men who 
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had led this country, the Walter Sisulu's, the Nelson Mandela's, men who today have almost captured the international world, you see it when you sit before TV when he's outside the country that everybody, even the Queen of England on the 8th of July 1996 was almost bowing down to him.  The children of this country saw him and all of them, I am sure they were saying if I can only touch the hem of his jacket I will be happy.  We all saw it.  We are witnesses to what happened just last week when the President of this country was in Great Britain, and all these things were brought about by the men who said to hell with everything, we are going to talk to the ANC and find out what this ANC is about, what gives and what takes.  The ANC which many children were killed because they were suspected to be members of this so-called notorious organisation, political organisation, but an organisation which we felt we had no choice, some of us, but to remain members even if your mouth was shut that you should not talk about it.  You should in a way even turn against this organisation by not admitting that yes I am a member, and you knew in your heart of hearts that you were a member.

MS MKHIZE: I just want to thank you in a very special way for the exposure, for the trip, the painful one that you have taken the Commission through.  I have one question which I will ask you and after that I will hand you over back to our Chairperson.  All what you have said it communicates suffering, pain, anger, and if we are looking at other international examples, for instance taking the examples of the Jewish community and the holocaust experience we have realised that people have different ...(indistinct) and issues that they struggle with over the
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years, I would ask you a question and say do you think the South African community has mourned what it went through on June 16 and many other subsequent years sufficiently?  If yes or no I would ask you to just give us a perspective as to what is it that you think we should begin to embark on so as to promote healing at a deeper level?  I heard that you said even if you die you will still be having some pain which indicated to me that you are showing us that many people are injured.  So I just want your perspective in terms of healing and national reconciliation as to what steps need to be taken.

ELLEN KUZWAYO: Yes perhaps I do and if I don't please stop me immediately and say maybe you didn't hear me.  I must say I was particularly happy that in my travels, particularly after writing my first book "Call me Woman", it gave me an opportunity to leave the country, because for a long time the government of South Africa had refused us and sometimes even taken our passports to move out of this country and somehow I managed you know even to express this in writing and I sent the book out and moved it underground to see that it goes outside because it would not be published if I did not do so.  But this gave me an opportunity to go outside.
 You talk about the Jewish people, what one saw, what they suffered, as well as the Black people in America, when one saw all these things indeed it was a consolation to know that we were not the only people who suffered, and yet at the same time your own suffering is your own suffering, you begin to monitor it.  I think what really hurt me and still hurts me to this day is what happened to the young people in the Black community.  Maybe if all children in this country had suffered that I wouldn't feel so hurt. But I cannot get 
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over the fact that the National Party, in particular, singled out children, changed their education, and gave them an inferior education so that those children could be children who were going to remain the slaves of White people in South Africa.
 And today it's very difficult, we talk about violence in this country and violence that is carried out by young people in this country.  They get you out of your car, or they see your car standing somewhere they come and take it away.  And these kids have been changed into murderers.  And I want to believe that if Native Education had not been changed the situation would be different in South Africa today.  Now it gives an impression that Black children are thieves, murderers, they are everything else that is not good.  
 Whilst I do realise there was this racism in other countries because this was happening to White people promoted by White people it did not give the sense of racism.  But South Africa up to the 27th of April 1994 I want to believe that unlike other countries it was promoted as a racist country.  Other things that happened in other countries there was no racism.
 I hope I have answered the question Commissioner that you brought forward.  If I did not forgive me, maybe I am clouded in my own mind about the abuse of Black children in South Africa by the racist government of the Nationalist Party.

MS MKHIZE: Once more I will thank you and I will hand over to the Chairperson Yasmin Sooka.

YASMINE SOOKA: I would just like to ask you a few questions for clarification please, so I can have clarity on some of the
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things that you have said.  You have talked about leaving the teaching profession because you said that you were teaching children poisonous things, what exactly do you mean by that?  And what was the difference between education under Native Education and Bantu Education please?

ELLEN KUZWAYO: You want to understand the difference between Native Education and Bantu Education, is that it Madam Commissioner?

YASMINE SOOKA: Yes, thank you.