Voices from the edge

Searching for Mandela entry 2

And so it came to pass that after three decades absence I returned to South Africa for several months travel. The idea was to wander dusty back roads, stay with local families in small towns, meet friends from the past, talk with strangers whom I could not possibly have met in the past, discover the feel and flavour of the new South Africa, and find how much influence Mandela still had in the land of my birth. I hoped that as a returning exile I’d be a time-traveller on a quest to discover the Rainbow Nation’s soul, and to compare life Before with life After.

After what? I was intrigued by the varied names used for South Africa’s renaissance. Officially the anniversary of the first open election is ‘Freedom Day’, but the transition itself doesn’t seem to have a formal title, which is odd. I never heard it described as ‘Independence’. On various occasions I heard the events described as The Transition, The Hand-over, The Change-over, The End of Apartheid, Liberation, The Beginning of Democracy, The Struggle. But whatever labels are used, one thing is clear: the past is divided into Before and After.

Even the timing of After-ness is uncertain. Did it commence with the first open elections in April 1994? Or with Mandela’s inauguration a few weeks later? My pick: the precise symbolic moment was 3.30 pm on 11th February 1990, the moment when Nelson Rohihlahla Mandela walked through his prison gates towards a media scrum.

I visited in 2007. Capetown airport was a mess of reconstruction, overcrowding, jackhammers and noise. I was almost breathless with anticipation and apprehension, choked with half-remembered Before details of vineyards, mountains, home.

A black man in a suit strolled up to me. (Beware of suits, says the legend.) ‘Can I help you?’ He took pity on ignorant me and explained the basic features of Telkom phone booths and helped me with alien coins.

And so it went. Black and brown and white people offered directions. The car-hire lady was a model of patience and helpfulness. I began to relax. All those rampant-crime stories and tales of visitors being mugged on their first day, surely they were wild exaggeration.

We found our way to leafy Rondebosch and encountered a set of problems. Security gates remained closed and intercom buzzers unanswered. The suburb I’d once known now revealed a sinister face: high walls, electric fences, armed-response signs, guard dogs hurling themselves at locked gates.

So we fled south to Simon’s Town and found an excellent B&B. That afternoon, guineafowl emerged from the nearby mountainside and ran around like demented polka-dot cushions.

Next morning we woke to a sun-dazzled paradise of mountains and calm blue sea, the kind of vision that had lain buried in my memory for decades, and the reason I’d brought Jeannie here. Everything was going to be all right. The land was as dramatic and lovely as Before. So began our first full day at The Cape of Good Hope, a name redolent of peace and prosperity, conjuring up images of cheerful citizens, cosy cottages, snug harbours – a region of sunny optimism where warm welcomes are guaranteed.

Simon’s Town is a place of mellow stone, Victorian villas, rusty old anchors, a tiny mosque and buildings with names like Admiralty House. Above the Lord Nelson bar is a panel listing all the commanders of the Cape Station since 1797. On our second evening, Jeannie and I walked down the steep hill along a succession of twilight lanes, trying to ignore all the security warnings we’d been given.

In the reassuring haven of the Lord Nelson I asked the lady behind the bar if she had any advice on street-safety around town.

‘Oh, it’s safe,’ she replied. ‘The navy protects us. We’re not like other places.’

Even after dark? ‘No problem. I think.’

Next day I noticed a worrying detail. A ‘24-hour armed response’ sign outside the police station announced that its premises were protected by Chubb Security. That was a concern. If police lacked confidence in their ability to protect their own building, how much capacity would they have to protect me?

The last time I walked these streets, every public place was dominated by symbols of apartheid. Signs had been everywhere: on every beach, bus, toilet, park bench, and post-office counter. Whites Only/ Slegs vir Blankes. Only for Non-whites/ Slegs Nie-blankes. Separate entrances for post offices, separate seats on buses. And now? Not a trace. Not even one single overlooked park bench.

The winds of change had blown away separate-beach signs in the 1980s. Other signage vanished soon after 1990, so that when museums woke to the historical value of apartheid’s artefacts they were hard to find. Apparently the general relief at Mandela’s leadership plus the prospects of constitutional normality were enough to overpower piddling concerns like souvenir-collection. I wondered if a few whites-only signs lay hidden at the back of dusty store-rooms, but bringing them out now would be like displaying swastikas in Berlin.