Listening to the silent majority

[15]

Willie Ramoshaba, President of the Black Achievers' Foundation, replied to the same question in fairly similar fashion: ‘One cannot rule chaos out.’ He added, ‘But don't forget, that when there is a very powerful force, that works to divide you, and I mean the white force in South Africa, it does become a many-sided problem.’ Here I disagreed with him and said that it sounded like a cheap shot to blame Pretoria for incredible divisions and petty jealousies between members of the black leadership. Willie labelled the setting-up of black town councils ‘a hopeless situation’. He continued, ‘How can people even seriously talk about elections? Take a closer look at the people that are eventually chosen. In essence, the entire town council situation is desperate. Hence, government policies are largely based on them. What about the quality of candidates? In order to get more capable teams of councillors, the policies upon which town councils are based must be made more acceptable to a much wider public. If that is being done, people will vote for more qualified representatives to look after their interests.’^14.

‘It would be a first step,’ said Willie, ‘if it was to be announced that from now on black people could administer their own affairs. After all, isn't Johannesburg deciding its own affairs? Yet Soweto is not allowed to. Blacks are not running Soweto on their own. That's one reason that black people are sceptical about the so-called black town councils. The administrations of townships have no sources of income. They can't

14. I wondered what intimidation and terrorism from radicals had to do with the quality of town councillors, but planned to return to the subject later

[p. 20]

really stand on their own. It's for these reasons that black people, unless they can pave their way to national governing levels, reason that there is no point and no gain in marking time by setting up town councils. The more so since blacks are bound to be misunderstood as having chosen to support this phoney system. One cannot stop liberation anyway, because it is already moving. The only thing people can do, is to refuse to vote at all and not participate in what is really a charade.’