GLIMPSING HOPE, MARCHING FOR PEACEA Commemoration of the 13 September 1989

Cape Town Peace March

Exhibition Information Brochure

Cape Town Peace March, leaders surrounded by crowd, September 1989, Eric Miller.

The Christian faith, like Judaism, puts a high priority on remembering – the Eucharist has some of its origin in the Passover – and remembrance provides a way of moving beyond recalling the past towards hope and healing.

The new St. George’s Cathedral Crypt Memory and Witness Centre is launching its activities by looking to an event from our history, the occasion on September 13, 1989, when more than 30,000 South Africans marched from St. George’s Cathedral to the Grand Parade to protest against the violence of the apartheid regime and to claim our rights as citizens of this nation. That march was like a spark which ignited flames across South Africa as similar marches swept the country. On September 13, the leaders of society – religious, civic, academic and commercial –walked together and gave new hope to those struggling to break free of racial oppression. “Our cause is just,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu often reminded us, and so today we not only remember that march, we also commit ourselves to intensify our efforts to realize the dream of a just society, free of all forms of oppression, both at home and abroad.

We seek to live out and make real the words of the Prophet Micah, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

FOREWORD

The Very Reverend Rowan Smith - Dean of Cape Town

Cape Town, Guguletu Seven Funeral, circa 1986, David Hartman.

In the 15 years of our democracy we have seen its many initial successes, the formidable challenges that continue to face it, and we are anxious about the passage of time in which new generations come and old ones move on, such that our knowledge and depth of awareness of history may weaken and even fade away.

It can become so easy for South Africans to forget some of the momentous events that have led to the freedom they enjoy. To prevent this, the necessity to keep vital memories alive must become a key responsibility of citizenship. It is a responsibility which St. George’s Cathedral fulfils through the Crypt Memory and Witness Centre and its most appropriate opening exhibition, which commemorates the momentous Peace March of September 13, 1989.

On that day students, factory workers, business people and domestic workers, of every race, faith, age and class – as if they read the signs heralding the inevitable end of apartheid five years later – came together in the streets of Cape Town to call for the future. The event was captured in some of the most remarkable images of resistance. This exhibition gives us an opportunity to recall and perhaps experience something of the “terrible beauty” of that day.

But it should enable us to do more than recall. Hopefully, it can also get us to remember the moral and ethical foundations of our freedom: foundations which ought to support our economics, politics, education, lawmaking, and the social practices by which we live in our communities well into the future. It invites each of us to recommit as we recall the excitement of bringing a new society into being. It is the memory of rededication.

Message from Patron Njabulo S Ndebele

Cape Town Peace March, address from the City Hall, September 1989, Rashid Lombard.

The St. George’s Cathedral Crypt Memory and Witness Centre

This exhibition heralds a series of initiatives in the name of a new outreach of St. George’s Cathedral, the Crypt Memory and Witness Centre.

In helping our community to reignite old conversations, to retell the stories that have sustained us, and to begin discussing new ideas and ways of being, there are three streams that we at the Centre wish to follow:

• TheCathedral’srelationtotheCity ofCapeTown; • WitnessandProtest;and • TheRelationshipBetweenChurch andState.

The exhibit with which we are launching this new initiative reflects all three themes.

Glimpsing Hope, Marching for Peace: Setting the Scene

The conflict between the apartheid state and the broad mass democratic movement escalated towards the end of the 1980s. Protest marches, defiance campaigns and the demand for a better future were met time and time again with crushing brutality from an apartheid government clinging to power.

The call for a boycott of elections on Wednesday September 6, 1989 for the racially-segregated tricameral parliament set up by the apartheid regime led to escalating conflict with the police, culminating in clashes which resulted in the deaths of at least 20 people by police estimates and likely many more. On the evening of Thursday September 7, Archbishop Desmond Tutu retreated to his chapel to pray over this latest assault on his people. What transpired that evening is known only to God and Tutu; but by the following morning, he had decided to call for a march. On September 13, 1989, more than 30000

people from every walk of life gathered in the streets of Cape Town in front of St. George’s Cathedral. They were students, factory workers, business people, domestic workers, political activists; of every race, faith, age and class. They gathered to proclaim with one voice that violence and brutality were intolerable, and that another world was possible in which the dignity of every person was respected and the promises of freedom and democracy would be available to all.

The peace march caught the imagination of South Africans across the country, and solidarity marches sprang up everywhere over the next several days: 85000 people gathered in Uitenhage; 50000 in Bloemfontein; 40000 in East London; 20000 in King William’s Town; 20000 in Durban; 18000 in Johannesburg; 7500 in Kimberley; 5000 in Oudtshoorn and 2000 in Grahamstown.

In Koine Greek, there are two words for time: chronos, denoting chronological time, and kairos time, which is prophetic time, the moment when the divine presence breaks through and people respond. Kairos moments are often the first glimmer of light in dark times, a sense of dawn after a long dark night. The September 1989 peace march was a kairos moment when people aligned themselves with the good, thereby unleashing transformative power.

On that day we South Africans glimpsed a better way of being with each other, a better way of living. It was the “now/not yet” of the Kingdom of God: here but not fully realized, glimpsed but not made wholly manifest.

The question facing us now, 20 years later is: what are the prophetic challenges of our time? What problems, perhaps as overwhelming in our perception as apartheid once seemed, challenge our imaginations and spirits? And what resources can we draw on to fashion new, creative responses as we hold on to our vision of a just and compassionate society in which every person’s dignity and human worth is protected?

Cape Town Peace March, crowd in Strand Street, September 1989, Eric Miller.

Themes and symbols

In this exhibition, we have set out to capture the excitement, hope and heartbeat of the marches. The design is structured around three broad themes: · The Darkest Moments – reminding us of the brutality of the apartheid police state, in which military occupation of the townships, detentions, torture and deaths in turn provoked sometimes violent responses. · Standing for the Truth – the actions and campaigns carried out by the church, other religious communities and the mass democratic movement in the quest for a new dispensation.

· The Peace Marches – a glimpse of hope and of a new way of being. The four symbols of the exhibit:

Candle with barbed wire – This type of peace candle was lit in churches throughout South Africa in the 1980s to keep fanning the embers of hope in a better, more just and gentle world. The barbed wire symbolized those held in captivity and tortured. The metal candleholder and stand have been fashioned out of institutional steel, turning darkness into light.

Cairn and stones – Stones have different meanings for different people in different settings, but for all they seem to anchor us to places and stimulate and settle memory. “ThereJoshuasetupthetwelvestonestakenfromtheJordan.HesaidtothepeopleofIsrael,‘Inthefuture, when your children ask you what thesestonesmean, you will tell them about the timeIsraelcrossedoverondryground.’”

—Joshua4:20-22.

Please feel free to add your own small stone to the cairn – by doing so you will help us build this important marker.

Memory book – This book is fashioned in the image of one of the Cathedral doors. We invite you to write down your own memories of the September 1989 Peace Marches to help us build a rich record of individual experiences.

Ripple and rain – This feature symbolizes the messiness and humor of the “Purple Rain” march in Cape Town 10 days before the September 13 Peace March, in which police sprayed protesters with purple dye from a police cannon.

Recalling the effect of the incident, Syd Luckett, then serving as director of the Anglican Board of Social Responsibility, says: “That was just stupid of the police, to start spraying people and buildings and men in suits and smart cars with purple dye. People begin to see how out of control this is; the police have been saying they do what they do under provocation, but there’s no provocation from a man in a business suit.” The Cape Town Peace March had a ripple effect as wave upon wave of similar marches occurred, both in South Africa and abroad. Purple is also the colour marking the church’s season of Lent. It represents penance and our capacity for doing harm to each other. It ends with Easter and reminds us of hope and new life.

Stories and events that sustain us

“We had years and years of oppression, we were by then almost 10 years of organizing and continuous rolling mass action. We were hardened activists, we were astute at outmanoeuvering police, our people got detained all the time, our friends were shot and killed; we were used to going to funerals. Week after week, year after year, we would be at a funeral. I thought at one stage we would never stop having funerals.”

ChrisFerndale,activist

“We had a state of emergency, violence, police dogs, guns, teargas… and we were accused of being armchair liberals…so what do you

do?… I decided I would discourage police from responding to peaceful protests; I went to the chief of police and said I will not have police violence when our people are peacefully demonstrating our opposition to apartheid.”

GordonOliver,formerMayorofCapeTown

“We were told there were masses of people outside. I was always more concerned with being prepared to engage with the police, but I was absolutely amazed at the sight of a sea of people down Wale Street and around Adderley and I realized right away this was bigger than anything we’d ever done or seen before. The mood was intense, there was a real sense of excitement about being there; one forgets how during all of those years just the fact that we were together… gave one a sense of hope, when… you saw your old comrades… There was a spirit of bonhomie, friendship and goodwill, and it wasn’t without its humor.”

ColinJones,formerDean,St.George’sCathedral

Nobom, recalled that the march was a thrill because she saw so many new faces there, but also because seeing the faces of old friends was a way of ensuring they were alive, that they were not dead or detained or exiled, in a time when communication was tightly monitored and many people had simply disappeared with no word.

NobomSonto,Activist

“I was about to give birth to my first child, but whereas in many marches you had faced police bullets and purple rain, now I’m about to become a mother, I’m in a different kind of nurturing space and I’m not going to put my baby at risk. If I thought I was going to have to run or escape bullets I wouldn’t have gone, so I had an absolute sense that it would be peaceful… I was filled with conviction that things would change: these are our streets, this is my town, and things were going to change.”

ZenariahBarends,Activist

Cape Town Purple Rain March, Central Methodist Church Burg Street, September 1989, Jude Ngwenya.

Nothing, nothing can overwhelm the spirit of a people that yearn to be free. They are unstoppable.

September 13, 1989 was God’s tipping point. When we gathered in the Cathedral to mourn the loss of yet more lives, we knew that the time had come to throw off the yoke of oppression. We would be free because we were created for freedom. We could no longer tolerate the pervasive evil of apartheid that had corroded our beloved country and had torn apart our people. We were at risk of losing our humanity.

And so we came to the Cathedral to pray, Muslim, Jew, Christian, black, white – our rainbow nation – and as we walked out into the streets of Cape Town it was exhilarating to be joined by thousands, swept along in the realisation of the dream that freedom is possible. Freedom was within our grasp because we knew that God was in charge and that all we had to do was claim our God-given right and be free.

That great crowd transcended the ordinary, we saw each other with new eyes, we were free, no one could humiliate us again because of the colour of our skin. And do you know what? Whites also became free on that day. They too realised that freedom is not specific – freedom for the oppressed releases the oppressor from the burden of guilt, the burden of being something less than human. We found that our humanity is bound up together – oppressor and oppressed, we could only be free together.

Then South Africans throughout the country marched for peace by the thousands. Then Europe marched to end the Cold War, and the Berlin Wall fell down.

Godblessyou

Message from Patron Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Acknowledgements

The first exhibition of the St. George’s Crypt Memory and Witness Centre was made possible by the generous contributions of:

Donors:

Trinity Church Wall Street, New York; The Office of the Mayor of Cape Town; Carl Lotter; Di and Don Oliver; HCI Foundation; Independent Newspapers; Henry Bredekamp; Patricia Davison; Carol and Vincent Hendricks; Desiré and Arthur Martin; Santam; Chris Nissen; Franklin James; Jakes Gerwel, Pieter le Roux, Iziko Museums, Mary Bock, Cape Town Partnership, Dean Rowan Smith and The Photo Journal.

Oral Testimonies

John Allen, Zenariah Barends, Allan Boesak, Mary Burton, Cheryl Carolus, Farid Esack, Zubeida Jaffer, Colin Jones, Chris Ferndale, Caroline Makasi, Syd Luckett, Gordon Oliver, David Russell and Nobom Sonto.

Photographs and Video FootageDaily Dispatch, David Hartman, Independent Newspapers, Paul Grendon, Louise Gubb,

Rashid Lombard, Colleen Lombard, Roger Meintjies, Gideon Mendel, Eric Miller, Jude Ngwenya, Cedric Nunn, Guy Tillim and Paul Weinberg, Centre for Curating the Archives: Michaelis School of Fine Arts and Video News Services: Brain Tilley and Lawrence Dworkin.

Research, Curatorial and Design teams:

Fr. Terry Lester, Lynette Maart, Sandy Prosalendis, Shannon Wright, John Allen, Desiré Martin, Patricia Davison, Bonny Bennett, Paul Weinberg, Richard Mason, Gwen van Embden, Ashley Bower, Russel Baker, Allen Huskisson, Stefan Blom, Tracy Prosalendis, William Matthews, the Fabric Committee and Nuala Moore.

Events and Fundraising Teams

Dean Rowan Smith, Carl Lotter, Fr. Terry Lester, Chris Ahrends, Lynette Maart, Colin Jones, Sandra Williams, Di Oliver, Mary Burton, Gordon Oliver, Frank van der Velde, Sarah Crawford Browne, Carol Hendricks, Greg Edwards, Simon Hamer, Lavinia and Terry Crawford Browne.

We salute the spirit of voluntarism that permeated this entire exhibition project. Many more people from the Crypt Memory and Witness Centre and the Cathedral clergy and parishioners have contributed in a myriad of ways… you know who you are…

THANK YOU!

Picture East London Peace March, Oxford Street - Daily Dispatch.

For further information on theSt. George’s Cathedral Crypt Memory and Witness Centre:

contact Fr. Terry Lester on 021 424 7360 or write to us at Crypt@sgcathedral.co.za or visit the cathedral website www.stgeorgescathedral.com.

Stay as is – Cape Town, St. George Cathedral, Unbanning of the Mass Democratic Organisations protest meeting, Rashid Lombard.