Listening to the silent majority

[29]

Moeketsi Shai (31) sells computers. He also teaches part-time physics and mathematics. He is Director of the Black Management Forum. I met with him in a conference room of his Randburg computer firm. ‘Our struggle,’ he said, ‘means that everybody does his own bit his own way. And, when we reach the end of the day, what counts is that the people will get what they desire. In a struggle of liberation one makes a choice up front. Those who have not made the right choice tend to lose credibility when liberation is completed. After all, this is what has happened all over Africa. Therefore we see blacks who choose to be working from within the current system, while others choose to work outside the present structures. What will happen when the day of voting comes, when power will be handed to the people? We will see it usually goes to those who have taken a firm stand against the system.’

I asked whether he meant by saying that when the struggle had reached conclusion, the often useful and constructive work done by blacks that choose to operate from within the system, would be forgotten and ignored? Shai replied, ‘Yes, people forget. You must understand that a liberation struggle carries a large element of emotion. People tend to more easily identify with compatriots that opposed the system. In all this is a strong element saying, “I don't hate the white man, but I do hate the system”. Liberated people are usually neither calm nor objective about it all. They simply reject the white man along

[p. 36]

with blacks that worked within the hated system. In my opinion, that is what will happen in the future. There are the Buthelezis, Boyas, Mavusos and all others, who choose to work with the system. They made their decision. The question is: did they take the right decision? They might have felt that they, too, were working for the advancement of the people, but what is it that the people are really looking for? Each of us is making this fateful decision in relation to the liberation struggle. The future will tell. We will then know the answer.’

While working on the Moeketsi Shai tape-recording the lady from Soweto who looks after my apartment came in. She was very upset and visibly distressed. Since it was the third day of the month, she had gone to a Hillbrow shoe-shop to buy shoes for a daughter. When she left with the package, there were some young men waiting in COSATU shirts. One put a hand on her face and demanded the package. They said a strike was on in the leather industry (of which she was unaware) and therefore she should not have gone in to buy shoes. Surely, the COSATU robber had made his pertinent choice: hooliganism and terrorism of the disadvantaged poor. Surely, all South Africans make their choices, but I wonder what the choice of the cleaning-woman from Soweto is.