CHAPTER 1
Johannesburg, 1993
The first floor of the ageing Unified Bank Building vibrated with the footfalls. Since Unified's executives had moved their offices to the white suburbs, the old headquarters had turned into a hothouse of political activity. Rissik Street's Sunday window-shoppers were used to the rhythms. Freedom songs provided musical background as people admired the latest Toshiba boom boxes and knock-off running shoes on their way home from church. Today dozens of shop stewards were taking their turn in forging a new nation, a South Africa for the working class.
Monwabisi Radebe's feet flew above his head in this well-practised routine. Limber hotel waiters and plump, middle-aged female street sweepers handled the steps and sways with equal grace. The Movement was preparing to take a decision. They'd honed the process for more than two decades. Toyi-toyi and song provided the comforts of home, firing joyous bullets of inspiration to the heart of the enemy. A hand-lettered banner across the front wall reaffirmed the basic message of solidarity: 'An Injury to One is an Injury to All.'
The singing gradually wound down. Like thousands of South Africans, these shop stewards from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) were examining the draft of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, or RDP, a 147-page bible for a new nation. This was their third session. Only one crucial topic remained – nationalisation.
Though his headache was getting worse, Monwabisi had to bring the house to consensus. This was democracy in action: discuss an issue for hours, sometimes days, until everyone agreed. They called it 'workers' control'.
'Nationalisation without compensation is the only answer,' argued the thick-chested Nathaniel Mda of the mineworkers' union. 'More than 69 000 miners have died in disasters over the years. It's time to reverse history, to claim the gold and diamonds on behalf of the working class.'
A cohort of several dozen showed their support for Mda with a song in Sesotho. 'The land of South Africa belongs to all the people,' their voices proclaimed, 'not just a greedy few.' Once the quiet had returned, Monwabisi sought responses from the meeting.
'Nationalisation is premature,' said Tshepo Jiyane. The long-time shop steward for the food workers wore his usual attire – a black cap bearing the hammer and sickle of the South African Communist Party and a T-shirt with the smiling face of Madiba. 'We are in the democratic phase of our revolution,' he added, 'leading a broad front of all progressive classes, including the national bourgeoisie.'
'The comrade is proposing we jump in bed with the bosses!' shouted Mda as he leaped to his feet. 'The workers must speak with one voice. Sifuna inationalisation kuphela.'
Monwabisi's fist slammed down on the metal table at the front of the hall.
'Comrade Mda, we need order, not personal attacks,' said Monwabisi. 'Take a seat.'
Monwabisi's vision was starting to blur. The headaches did that sometimes. He got one almost every day now, and Panado didn't help. Plus those small lumps in his neck weren't going away. He just wanted to find somewhere to lie down in the darkness. That brought a little relief.
As Mda apologised for his outburst, suddenly the hall shook. The deep-level gold mines under Joburg had made tremors a way of life. Then came the blast. The workers went silent for a second, waiting to see if the twelve storeys above them were going to collapse on their heads. A few of them dove under their chairs.
'That was no earthquake,' said Mda.
'Sounded like a thunderclap,' said Monwabisi, 'but there's not a cloud in the sky.' He sent Jiyane and two shop stewards outside to survey the street.
Members of POPCRU, the police union, took up positions at the door to the hall, guns drawn.
'No one must leave until we know what happened,' said Monwabisi.
'Bloody Boers,' said Mda.
Jiyane came running back inside.
'They bombed the ANC office up the road,' he said. 'Fire trucks are already there. It's serious.'
'We must find them where they sleep,' said Mda, holding a massive panga in the air.
'The POPCRU delegation will guard the building,' said Monwabisi.
'We must strike back,' said Johannes Mtsilo, regional secretary of the railway workers and a former boxer. He began the musical plea for machine guns: 'Awuleth'umshini wami, awuleth'umshini wami.' This time the lyrics weren't ceremonial. The song continued for fifteen minutes. As Monwabisi joined in the toyi-toyi he remembered that his cousin Mthetho, who had just returned to South Africa for the first time in fifteen years, was attending that ANC meeting. The joyous image of him kissing the tarmac at the Joburg airport when he arrived was vanishing from Monwabisi's mind. Instead, he saw his cousin's corpse lying under a pile of building rubble. The killing just never seemed to stop.
The singing wound down but the house was divided on the next step. Mtsilo and others wanted to rush to the ANC office. 'We need to defend our comrades!' Mtsilo shouted, daring anyone to shy away from their duty.
'Rushing there will do no good,' said Jiyane. 'There are already hundreds of people in the streets.' He proposed an adjournment, arguing that the venue was no longer safe for their deliberations. 'We may be the next target,' Jiyane added.
The delegation shouted him down.
'The Boers can't halt the mission of the working class,' said Mda. 'We are COSATU. We don't run away.'
'POPCRU comrades to the front!' Monwabisi called out.
'Yizani phambili.'
Monwabisi ordered the six POPCRU delegates to set up a team of lookouts on Bree and Rissik streets to make sure no one who wasn't part of COSATU entered the building. At least it was a Sunday. The streets were quiet. Boers in their Land Rovers and Voortrekker gear would stick out like Gerrie Coetzee in a shebeen.
Before the POPCRU guards could take up their positions, twenty more black policemen arrived and closed the streets for two blocks in all directions. Meanwhile Police Sergeant Pheto dashed into the hall and assured the shop stewards the authorities had cut off the Boers at each and every point. He said that at least two comrades had perished in the explosion. 'But the workers will be protected,' he promised. Pheto rushed out of the room before Monwabisi even had a chance to ask him the names of the deceased. He'd catch them on the radio later. He had a meeting to chair.
'We've waited too long for this moment to be derailed by a few Boers,' Monwabisi told the crowd. 'We, the shop stewards of the Witwatersrand, must be heard.'
'No one needs to worry,' Mtsilo said, glaring at Jiyane. 'I will protect you.'
The railway worker swung his knobkerrie in a circle as the delegates rose to their feet with applause.
'We stand for the nationalisation of South Africa's mines, commercial farms and major industries,' read the meeting's final resolution. 'We stand for justice and workers' control.'
The delegates added a supplement that wasn't on the day's agenda: 'We stand for the prosecution of all apartheid war criminals and murderers.'
The result satisfied Monwabisi, though it wasn't enough to rid him of his headache. The pain was worse than ever. When he'd spoken on the phone to his wife Constantia, the previous week, she'd advised him to see a doctor. Maybe she was right.
After the workers closed the gathering with a moment of silence and the singing of 'Hamba Kahle' to commemorate those who died in the bomb blast, Monwabisi dashed up the road to look for his cousin. He found him standing next to one of the fire trucks wearing his usual grey suit. At least the Boers had spared Monwabisi's family this time around.
* * *
Though the shop stewards were convinced that nationalisation was the correct path, their resolution ultimately lost out. The Consultative Business Movement and the leading black commercial associations backed 'socially responsible entrepreneurship'. The final draft of the RDP advocated a 'thorough democratisation of South Africa', but made no promises about nationalisation.
Monwabisi and the other shop stewards were disappointed, but they accepted the decisions of the democratic movement. What was more important than the result was the process. People had given their lives for this democracy. In the new South Africa everyone, including workers, would have their say before government took decisions on vital issues. The process of developing the RDP would be the model for the future government led by the ANC. For once the workers could say: 'The future is now.'
CHAPTER 2
Brooklyn, New York 27 May 1994
The sounds of Hugh Masekela's 'Bring Him Back Home' echoed through the rafters of the enormous church basement. South Africa's famed jazz trumpeter had come to St Luke's to celebrate the downfall of apartheid. Just a month earlier millions of South Africans had gone to the polls. Not only had they brought Nelson Mandela back home, they'd elected him and his party, the African National Congress, to head their first democratic government.
With his quiet dignity and elbow-swinging, arthritic dance style, the world's most famous political prisoner had graciously received the sceptre of power from the National Party's F.W. de Klerk. The handover was not just a South African moment. Mandela and the black majority of his country had become global symbols of freedom.
Hundreds of well-wishers attended the event at St Luke's. They listened as keynote speaker Mthetho Jonasi, the ANC's Deputy Representative to the United Nations, claimed the night for the 'freedom fighters of North America, those who put their bodies on the line in solidarity with our cause'.
Joanna Ross and Peter Franklin fell in that category. Joanna looked much the same as she did that Thanksgiving Day in 1985 when she and Peter had chained themselves to the front door of a Buffalo bank that had invested in South Africa. A crowd of three dozen chanted 'Freedom yes, apartheid no' while the police carted the couple away. Mthetho and his cousin Monwabisi Radebe, who was visiting from South Africa, led the lively chorus. Joanna and Peter spent the weekend in the Buffalo City Jail. Their romance blossomed in that brief interlude of shared martyrdom.
Joanna's straight brown hair was still neatly combed, reaching slightly below her ears. Her weepy brown eyes had just begun to sprout a tiny wrinkle or two around the edges. Unlike most of her friends, Joanna hadn't gained a pound over the years, maintaining her wiry, almost gaunt physique. In fact, her life hadn't really changed much at all. She remained the persistent conscience of the community, gently proselytising shoppers, pedestrians and neighbours about the latest human rights atrocity in the world. For the last seven years she'd spent a month of her summer vacation from her job as a school librarian doing counsellor work at a camp for, as the brochures called them, 'wayward inner-city youth'.
Nearly a year had passed since Peter and Joanna's break-up. Though she rarely talked about it, Joanna was still heartbroken. She blamed the separation on Peter's trip to Washington, DC. He'd been arrested there with Whoopi Goldberg and Stevie Wonder in a protest against US investments in South Africa. After that he started to belittle Joanna's penchant for second-hand clothes and what she called her 'vow of poverty'. He talked of becoming a 'role player' in the cause of social justice, not a screamer at the margins. His personal ambition disturbed Joanna. She'd always thought their love was based on a certain humility, a lifestyle in harmony with the poorest of the poor.
Though on this occasion Peter had jettisoned his now trademark suit and tie for a yellow ANC T-shirt, he'd long since abandoned any traces of his old activist appearance. The shoulder-length blondish locks which Joanna once loved to brush had morphed into an executive cut that would blend seamlessly into any corporate boardroom. His reddish Abe Lincoln-style beard had disappeared altogether, revealing his smooth, almost boyish cheeks.
As they met amid the sea of celebrants, the two exchanged tentative hugs, labouring to share the excitement of the occasion. They recalled the half-cooked instant mashed potatoes of the Buffalo City Jail and the three ants Peter found floating in his morning coffee.
'You told me you took them out and drank it anyway,' she said. They laughed.
'South Africa is a buzzy place,' he said. 'You have to visit, see the fruits of your labour.'
'It's not really my labour,' she replied. 'The South African people deserve the credit.'
'Of course,' he said, 'but we played our role. That's all I'm saying.'
Peter went on to tell Joanna how his company, Pellmar Corporation, saw lots of opportunities for greenfield investment and partnerships in South Africa. They'd been undertaking similar projects in Bulgaria, Romania and the Ukraine with great success.
'We are a small firm but we are a game-changer,' he said.
'It's a win-win situation. The needs in South Africa are endless – housing, water, education, electricity, management at all levels. Our people have been in dialogue with the ANC. The new rulers, especially Mandela, recognise their capacity problems.'
Peter handed Joanna his beige business card. His name and title, 'Investment Consultant', were embossed in gold letters. She didn't ask him what an investment consultant actually did. A few years earlier, investment consultants were among the kinds of people Peter referred to as 'money-grubbing parasites'. She never thought someone she once loved so much could shed his principles so easily.
She excused herself, saying she had to meet an old friend, and went to join the queue for food. The South African students had cooked a cow on a spit and slaughtered several goats. Joanna didn't normally eat meat. She asked one of the South African women serving the food about a 'vegetarian option'. The woman smiled.
'Sorry, my dear,' she told Joanna, 'but in Africa we can't celebrate our freedom with lettuce.' She handed Joanna a plate piled high with goat ribs, steak, collard greens and a fat sausage they reverently called 'wors'.
As she looked for a place to sit, Joanna spotted the frizzy black beard of Zoltan Steinberg. He'd been in the crowd that day outside the Buffalo bank. Zoltan was still a student, doing research on something he called 'alienation and worker self-organisation'. He'd explained his topic to her a couple times before, but Joanna couldn't wade through the academic jargon.
'I haven't eaten meat in six years,' Zoltan told her. 'But only once in our lifetime will we see apartheid fall.'
He chewed the wors delicately, as if gentle bites could keep the toxins from coming out.
'I'm getting into computers,' he told her. 'They've got great potential for working-class organisation at a global level. The South Africans are at the cutting edge.'
He took another bite of the wors. 'Not too bad,' he said.
'Better than Denny's anyway.'
'Have some more,' said Joanna as she stabbed her sausage with her plastic fork and plunked it onto Zoltan's plate. Zoltan buried it under a pile of collards.
'South Africa has the most advanced trade union movement in the world,' he said. 'They put the AFL-CIO to shame. Imagine workers who can shut down whole cities.'
'Sounds amazing,' said Joanna. The plastic knife broke as she tried to cut the steak. Hot grease seeped into her fingertips as she picked the meat up in her hands and took a bite.
'I've already visited Johannesburg and met with some leaders of the metalworkers,' he told her.
Zoltan also had business cards. 'I feel like a fool carrying these things around,' he said. 'But everyone over there has them, even the shop stewards.'
He opened his blue nylon billfold and shook out a handful of cards. Each bore the symbol of a different South African union – from the mineworkers' pick to the open-ended wrench of the metalworkers.
'I've got a collection going,' he said, 'but only from the unions. I don't trust the ANC. Too many intellectuals. I'm going to Brazil next. They've got a genuine workers' party there.'
Joanna decided not to touch the goat ribs. She wrapped the meat in a paper napkin and put it in her purse. She'd throw it away outside, when no one was watching. She was a little bit envious of Peter and Zoltan. She'd spent most of her life fighting for justice in the world but she rarely ever left New York City. Maybe one day she'd go and actually meet the people she was fighting for.
By night's end the cow and goats had shrivelled to gnarled bones. A few cases of beer remained but the South African students had plans for those. Their celebration was just beginning. After the crowd rendered a slightly drunken version of the new South African national anthem, a photographer gathered Peter, Joanna, Zoltan and Mthetho together for a picture.
By that time Joanna had covered her light grey blouse with the yellow T-shirt of the ANC. Pictures taken, Peter and Joanna embraced, the final cap to a joyous evening. He kissed her on both cheeks, then on the lips for a little too long. She wanted to pull back but the beer had gone to her head.
'We should have lunch sometime,' he said.
'Good idea,' she replied.
She doubted he would phone. She imagined that investment consultants were busy people.
* * *
Three weeks later, Angela Arness, the national director of Unitarian Vision (UV), rang Joanna. Angela was an old friend from the anti-nuclear power protests of the early eighties. She and Joanna had been arrested together in New England with the famous radical priests, the Berrigan brothers. Angela told Joanna the UV human rights project was hunting for a country representative in South Africa.
'The job involves living inside the country and reporting to Unitarian churches around the US about human rights in South Africa,' Angela explained. 'Later on there might be some project money. We need someone with a church affiliation and a background in the anti-apartheid movement, and we want you to apply.'
'I don't even have a passport,' Joanna replied, 'and I don't know much about South Africa. There's got to be more qualified people.'
'I don't want anyone going there who has a personal agenda,' said Angela. 'Mandela deserves better than that. So do our members.'
