Reflections on the steps the Cathedral
There is still much to be done to reclaim our vision of overcoming injustice and inequality, writes Mary Burton
THIS corner of Cape Town, where Adderley Street turns into Wale, tells stories of centuries of our Cape Town history: from the Slave Lodge, the almost-hidden pedestrian pathway into Parliament Street, the green spiked metal railings that protect Parliament from the citizens that it represents, the long wide avenue into the Company’s Garden, to St George’s Cathedral and, beyond it, Queen Victoria Street.
This part of our city is beautiful, graceful, elegant, but it also reflects the cruelty of many of those hundreds of years, a cruelty which had a particular impact on the women of this city: slavery, servitude, exploitation and exclusion. We know some of their names and their stories, but there are thousands of others whose names we don’t know. Their struggle to protect dignity, to find decent work and living conditions, to build family lives and to obtain equal rights has been long and hard. Some aspects of it continue even today, as women still have to campaign to be treated with respect and dignity as equal citizens.
This Cathedral has represented a place of resistance and refuge, as well as a sanctuary for prayer and reflection. These steps have been a site of protest over decades. In 1972 student marches and demonstrations were broken up by baton-wielding police who even pursued the students into the Cathedral itself. Marches headed by the leadership of many faiths departed from this spot, and were also disrupted by police action. We will not easily forget the spectacle of the then Dean of this Cathedral, the Revd Ted King, being bundled into a police van. During the 1980s these streets and pavements were filled with thousands of demonstrators, protesting against the injustices of apartheid rule.
In 1982 a group of 57 people, mostly women, who had been evicted from their shacks in Nyanga next to Crossroads, came to fast and pray in the Cathedral, remaining there for over three weeks.
They were desperately trying to create stable family lives in Cape Town. They found support and new friends among the members of the Cathedral parish, who took them to their homes, bathed and fed children there, and eased the hardships of cold and discomfort.
Another group of women sought to approach Parliament with their plea and, when prevented, knelt and prayed alongside the fence – an unforgettable image of grief.
A decade earlier, the Revd David Russell kept vigil and fasted on the Cathedral steps, urging the government to respond to the needs of the people of Dimbaza and other resettlement camps where they had been dumped without adequate resources and with meagre pensions.
In 1985, Dr Ivan Toms spent three weeks fasting in the crypt, calling for an end to the demolition of shacks in Crossroads and other parts of Cape Town.
Throughout all this time, it was often women who endured much of the hardship and pain that resulted from those policies. It was they who were expected to remain in distant areas designated for black people, caring for the young and the elderly, while their men were drawn into the labour force in the cities.
It was often women who challenged this migrant labour policy by seeking opportunities for a better life in the urban areas, defying the law and building makeshift homes.
It was women who witnessed their children’s growing rebellion against an unjust system, and saw them imprisoned or going into exile. Women, too, became part of the resistance, building solidarity and structures which ultimately contributed to the collapse of the old system and the birth of an open democracy.
For the Black Sash, this corner of Cape Town, and the railings of Parliament, were for many years the place where protests were held. This organisation of women, most of them white and therefore privileged and protected in many ways, stood shoulder-to-shoulder outside Parliament carrying placards and distributing pamphlets protesting against the laws which were entrenching and extending discrimination in every sphere of life: the pass laws, the Group Areas Act, segregated education, health services, housing and land distribution. As the grip of apartheid government control tightened, the protests increased – against detention without trial, police brutality, deaths in detention, capital punishment.
They stood in large numbers, wearing black sashes as a symbol of resistance and mourning for the loss of rights, and for the racially based divisions being exacerbated through every advance of apartheid planning. Then, even the right to protest peacefully came under attack. The Gatherings and Demonstrations Act prohibited groups of more than 12 people from standing together. Later, no groups at all were allowed, so Black Sash women stood alone in one-woman stands, in the city and in the suburbs, often asking themselves what could be achieved.
The only answer had to be that it was important to make use of every centimetre of political space, to continue to strive for justice in every possible way, to demonstrate that artificial divisions based on racial definitions needed to be opposed in words and action.
These steps and streets have witnessed many historic events in our past history. After 1994 and the installation of democratically elected government, they were the scene not of protests, but of joyous demonstrations, celebrating the achievement of a transition to a new world of possibilities.
The years since then have shown the need for ongoing vigilance and struggle. We have witnessed how greed, corruption and incompetence can destroy the hopes of building a new society based on justice and development. We have seen how quickly those who have privilege and opportunities take steps to preserve them, rather than to share them.
Instead of dismantling barriers, we have allowed them to be entrenched.
Instead of working to undo the effects of centuries of racism, we have seen new forms of racism emerge. We have forgotten our hopes for reconciliation and we have ignored the need to make restitution in order to create new identities as joint citizens in an enlightened society.
If we are to embark once again on this task, each one of us has a contribution to make, one step at a time. The Black Sash of today is very different from the volunteer-based organisation of the past. It has placed its focus on the delivery of social security through the Sassa grants, to the very poorest sectors of our population.
There are many other needs to be met. We can start by using this month’s commemoration of the struggles of thousands of women to inspire us all – women and men – to action.
As we recall the stories of the past, we can create new stories for the future. These Cathedral steps and the streets of our villages, towns and cities can continue to be spaces for us to reclaim the vision that has sustained so many: a society where injustice and inequality are overcome and people can live in peace and harmony. There is much work to be done. Mary Burton is a former president of the Black Sash.