Election Day

Today is election day in South Africa, it is what in the U.S. we would call a mid-term election, with local seats up for grabs.

As a complete novice, I can't begin to adequately address the complex, polarized and racially-charged world of South African politics.

So I thought I would mark the day by honoring the courage it took to bring democracy to all citizens in South Africa.

Down at the end of our block is St. George's Cathedral, Archbishop Desmond Tutu's church. In the base of the Cathedral is a small museum which honors the 1989 "Peace March."

On September 13 of that year, 30,000 people from a diverse cross-section of the city marched in support of peace and the end of apartheid.

It is a small, but incredibly powerful display, with pictures and video from the day. 

The photos gave me the shivers.  One in which a marcher is carrying a sign that reads "bread not bullets" almost made me cry, as it is the same message carried in signs in El Salvador during the civil war, and is the theme of one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, the Salvadoran Roque Dalton.

 

And as I sat and listened to the speeches that were made at the end of the march, I got the same goosebumps I always get when I hear Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech."  It was the same kind of a moment here in South Africa, a little over 21 years ago.

I sat there and really "got" that if I had been in South Africa  at that time, as a "coloured" person, my civil rights, my White husband ... all would have been in jeopardy.

It was an inspiring and humbling moment, for sure.

Here is what the display says:

1989, 6 September, Cape Town:  The brutality and violence that escalated throughout South Africa during the 1980s culminated in the deaths of yet another 23 people at the hand of the apartheid police force ... The people were boycotting the tri-cameral parliament election.  That night Archbishop Desmond Tutu retreated into his chapel to pray and emerged with a call for a march.

And we came, from all corners of Cape Town:  labourers, factory workers, domestic workers, students, teachers, artists, governmental officials, office workers, clergy, professionals, mass democratic movement cadres:  all activists for change drawn together by a common vision of a more just and compassionate nation, on the day we marched peacefully through our City.

What was to be remembered as the "Peace March" set in motion similar marches across South African and hundreds of thousands of people signaled with one voice their demand for an end to the violence and a change to the social order.

And here is Roque Dalton's poem, in English and its original Spanish:

"Like You"
By Roque Dalton
(Translated by Jack Hirschman)

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-
blue landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

"Como Tú"
Por Roque Dalton

Yo como tú
amo el amor,
la vida,
el dulce encanto de las cosas
el paisaje celeste de los días de enero.

También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan,
de todos.

Y que mis venas no terminan en mí,
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.