Listening to the silent majority

[p. 27]

[22]

David Blood of the Radio Station, 702, invited me to ‘Midmorning Talk’, an hour's phone-in discussion. What should have been a routine affair became a confrontation of sorts. I spoke freely, because as a Dutch journalist I was not on the road to win votes or sympathy from anyone. I ventured to say that I had become convinced that a premature introduction of one man, one vote procedures for all population groups was sure to lead to massive chaos. Events in Lekoa were but one example. After all, parliamentarian democracy did nowhere turn into a smoothly-operating political system overnight either. Therefore, I argued, a gradual reform process would no doubt serve the imperative interests of the black population of South Africa best. The phonelines became red hot at ‘Radio 702’. Listeners from Soweto called in, nineteen to the dozen. They clearly considered me a white Dutch racist who was siding with South African whites, and naturally was advocating continued apartheid in disguise of reform. I was not. Their emotions had taken the better of them. Some of the callers became incoherent and began to stutter, unable to express themselves easily in English.

My father and grandfather were born on the island of Java, where my great-grandfather served during the middle of the 19th century as President of the Netherlands East Indies Railways. I grew up with Indonesians, both in school and at college. In 30 years of living in the United States, where I still live today, neither at Yale University or working as a journalist and lecturer has it ever occurred to me to communicate with anyone on the basis of skin pigmentation. I simply had been programmed from my early years onward not to think in terms of race or cultural background. I made friends in all population groups, just as I am doing now while in South Africa. As a matter of fact, I have avoided South Africa over the past 35 years as an internationally-operating journalist, because of the apartheid policies of the government. Both my brothers left Holland in 1948, and travelled by car through the Sahara dessert, straight through Africa, to Cape Town. My parents followed them in 1950. I chose the United States instead. I saw at the time no future in South Africa, because I projected my own misconceptions onto the realities in this country. In 1986, I changed my earlier-held position and decided to investigate on the spot as to what was really happening. And here I was, facing angry callers from Soweto.

[p. 28]

One lady, Pinky, agreed that unity was lacking among blacks. She wished someone would come and show South African blacks how to unite. But she also doubted my intentions and launched an all-out attack on what I had said in relation to a go-slow approach to reform. I think, I understood her inner turmoil and anger against the apartheid system. Pinky was obviously sincere and patriotic. I suggested that she leave her name and address at the Radio Station. ‘I will drive to Soweto, and sit down with you, to listen to your views, Pinky, because I have come to learn about South Africa.’ To my astonishment she replied on the air, that I was trying to trap her, because she would be arrested for having talked to me at all. I wished I could have met her, because how can one understand South Africa without becoming truly familiar with black rage? I have often wondered these past years, whether whites ever take the trouble of listening carefully to blacks. It is one thing to be aware that all blacks oppose apartheid and demand true freedom, but how are whites ever to truly share this nation with people they don't really know at all?