‘I came to toyi-toyi and sing,’ said lone white teen

Some key events from this week in history are reflected in the following reports from the archives of the Argus’s 160-year-old titles

SEVENTEEN-year-old Johann Grobler was an oddity for his time, earning a headline which, these two decades later, is hard to credit.

Under that headline of May 11, 1994 – “Schoolboy Johann defies doom predictions to join in the fun” – readers learnt that the Pretoria pupil “went alone to President Mandela’s inauguration, defying warnings from friends and teachers that he would be killed”.

The determined matriculant resolved that “he would not miss the day”, setting off at sunrise the day before, “wearing running shoes, denim jeans and a Peace in SA T-shirt with the new flag on it”.

He told journalists: “My dad dropped me as close as he could and I walked another 6km here.” On the way, the report said, “he met a friend, Stefaans Boshiela”.

Grobler was quoted as saying: “Everybody told me I was crazy. They said I was going to die. I just came to toyitoyi and sing. Everybody is friendly.”

The report said that though he was not an ANC member, “he toyi-toyied along with the stalwarts… a lone white face in a crowd of thousands”.

Asked why he had come, Grobler replied: “It’s a great day in history – it’s history in the making.”

And it was, in ways that have perhaps been forgotten, or become diffuse in a contemporary atmosphere of anxiety and misgiving.

Who remembers that among the “special guests” at the inauguration was Mandela’s “friend – and former jailer”, James Gregory. This story was a scoop for the Argus.

“I am honoured and touched that he has invited me,” a flustered Gregory said when interviewed.

“Now I have to think quickly.” The problem was his life-long fear of flying. But he changed his mind, deciding “as an officer, I have to view this invitation from the president-elect as an order and not an invitation.”

The headline on May 10 – “The rainbow convenant” – may seem sentimental but it captured the optimism and unanimity of an occasion that changed everything.

The report read: “President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela officially assumed the highest office in the land yesterday amid once-unthinkable pledges of support and loyalty to his new government.

“His presidency was ushered in before the largest-ever gathering on South African soil of international leaders, and was offered the unequivocal backing of the country’s military machine.

“‘We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people,’ he said. ‘We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall… a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.’

“Dedicating the historic day to ‘all the heroes and heroines’ who had died in pursuit of freedom, Mandela said: ‘Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward.’

Mandela reaffirmed the right of all races to consider themselves equally South African.

“To my compatriots,” he said, “I have no hesitation in saying that each one of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pr etoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld. Each time one of us touches the soil of this land, we feel a sense of personal renewal.’”

The report went on: “Many moments during the extraordinary day underscored the revolutionary nature of the change that has occurred in South Africa since 1990.

“One was when the country’s top military and police generals – accompanied by Umkhonto we Sizwe chief of staff Siphiwe Nyanda – saluted their new president, and then put on a display of the military might now at Mandela’s command. The military capabilities deployed for decades against Mandela’s ANC...were now demonstrated in his honour.”

Mr Mandela closed his address “with a resounding undertaking: ‘Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.

“Let freedom reign. The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement!

“God bless Africa!”

A historic ceremony took place in the House of Assembly this morning, when Afrikaans was adopted as an official language of the Union by a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament.

The speeches were marked by a sense of the importance of the occasion, and more than one appreciative reference was made to the example set by the Prince of Wales, the Governor-General and Princess Alice in speaking Afrikaans.

Mr CJ Krige called the step “an inspiration and a spur to mutual affection”.

Speaking in English, Senator CJ Langenhoven ( poet, and author of Die Stem) said: “We require the goodwill of the English-speaking section…

“We have had our bitterness in the past and I have no doubt we shall have our opposition in the future, but what they have done here as concerns a sentiment which is nearest and dearest to us is a thing we are not likely to forget.

“If the English- speaking section is to understand our hearts, we must show the way…and (they) will not only be able to look upon us from the outside, but into our hearts and souls. We shall the more readily recognise underlying virtues than the faults of all humankind.