Listening to the silent majority

[16]

The South African Institute for Race Relations made an attempt to research what happened in the 1988 municipal elections. Research officer Harry Mashabela covered 26 Black Local Authorities and produced a report, ‘Fragile Figures - the 1988 PWV Township Elections’. Themba Molefe reported, ‘fewer than one in five residents in the PWV voted’, according to the report.^15. The Cross Times published the following data on the same election. It said only 1,5 million of the 25 million blacks in South Africa had registered to vote in the municipal election. Only 30 percent of these registered voters did actually go to the polls - what amounted to 2 percent of all blacks in the Republic.^16. Explained Ramoshaba, ‘You see, only a few people voted for these council posts. People refuse to be associated with institutions that are not working. Full stop. Town councils don't carry the support of the community. And why is this? People don't believe in them.’ I replied that blacks I had encountered over the past three years in dozens of townships who were working within the governmental structure were no doubt just as patriotic as the so-called comrades in street committees, with the sole difference that the moderates have a different way of processing input than the radicals do. Said Willie: ‘The problem is that blacks that co-operate are inevitably seen by others as representatives of the apartheid regime. When you face a vacuum, black functionaries in town councils are automatically associated with Pretoria, believe me.’

The image of the ascent and descent of reason has already been mentioned by Plato and Aristotle, in many medieval treatises on logic and, of course, Francis Bacon. From what actual and realistic information do

15. The Sowetan, April 27, 1989

16. The Cross Times, December 1988, p 6

[p. 21]

the people to whom Willie Ramoshaba was referring justify their deduction that blacks working in town councils have to be puppets of Pretoria? None of the councillors or mayors I met from Crossroads to Sharpeville were by the farthest stretch of anyone's imagination mere tools of the South African government. On the contrary, they are genuine patriots in the very same class as Willie Ramoshaba. The difference was, that their minds functioned differently. That is all.

I tried another question and asked Willie, ‘But someone has got to perform administrative tasks in townships.’ ‘Correct,’ he replied, ‘we do need those services. But why could town councils not simply offer jobs to blacks and hire them as employees, and do away with this policy of pretending that townships are run by blacks? Because that is basically what it is. What does one need? You need a person who is able to articulate. So why not simply hire black employees and pay them a salary at the end of the month? As it stands, Soweto will never be a city in its own right. It cannot stand on its own. So, why pretend to give Soweto a city status and say the black mayor decides? What does the mayor of Soweto decide about? On the basis of what budget are decisions made? Basically, Soweto is a suburb of Johannesburg, like Daveyton is a suburb of Benoni. So, when we insist on municipal elections, why not declare Soweto a part of the Johannesburg municipality? Then you are talking, because you have something to decide about.’

It seemed a reasonable suggestion and I asked Willie why this was not done. ‘That is the big question,’ he replied. ‘People are speaking about it and are asking the same question. What you should understand is that most black people now want expert management. To a very great extent, we blacks have so far not been exposed to that, which does not mean that we are discussing here and now an immediate and complete black take-over situation. That is not my point.’