Alice Walker spoke with poise and compassion when she delivered the 11th Steve Biko lecture at UCT last Thursday evening. Her speech, titled “Coming to see you since I was five” was more than just a reflection on her own relationship with our country, it was a call to order. This was a lecture worth listening to, and you can download the podcast from the UCT website.
She asked direct and powerful questions of her audience, and of our country. She wondered how we had run out of steam in our path to democracy, and conveyed her sense of hope that we would all recommit ourselves to something that many people had fought and died for.
She asked questions like how we had come from a country that had one of the strongest women’s movements, to a country that now had a president with three wives and countless children. She asked us to consider whether this was the result the struggle was hoping for. She said
“It is with so much sadness that one reads about South Africa in recent news. I am unable to comprehend how you now have a president who has three wives and 20-odd children. A president who has been accused of atrocious acts, and who seems to have little of the restraint in his personal life that would mean dignity and respect accorded to his people. Was Mandela’s decades of incarceration and Biko’s torture and death for this?”
She asked how presidents like Bill Clinton (who did not take action during the Rwandan genocide, and in fact did not even use the word “genocide” until it was too late) and FW de Klerk (who though lauded for being one of the people who ended apartheid had nevertheless sustained it for so long) would receive more praise and commendation than Winnie Mandela who had played a vital role in our history, in the communication of the apartheid context to the global community, and in her support of Nelson Mandela during his time in prison.
She asked about the strength of our country’s media freedom, the violence against women, the fact that the rich grow richer at the poor’s expense, about the high walls we house ourselves in, and about our commitment to making a change. In short she encouraged us to reflect on what was happening around us.
It was a call for people to be held accountable, and those people are us. We must first take steps to decide our positions, and to listen critically and concernedly to the talk in both the media and from the government podium. We must meet with those who think similarly to us and work out context appropriate and specific solutions to the problems that we face, recognising that we are all connected, and we cannot solve anything without understanding that.
She challenged each of us to transform the conversations we hold over braais, teas and coffees into action, or at least into conscious analysis of the status quo. This requires regular meetings, and making an effort to communicate your point of view to the people in charge. She suggested we pursue consciousness-raising of the form that Steve Biko was so supportive of, and good at.
Democracy requires ownership by the people. We must own this democracy and use the channels that are open to us to reclaim the territory that has been lost in the previous two regimes of Aids denialism, and cronyism. Alice Walker was incredible, and I think that SA has all of the potential she described and more.
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