Listening to the silent majority

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To illustrate the financial plight of town councils I asked Jabulani Patose, the political young troubleshooter of Mayor Samuel Kolisang, how

[p. 126]

he was being paid for the around-the-clock job he was doing for the vrrp, the town council and the mayor personally. ‘No-one pays us a salary,’ said Jabu. ‘I am not being paid either for what I do for the Lekoa Town Council or for assisting the mayor. I am simply working for my people and my country.’ I asked him how he could live under those circumstances. ‘We still can depend on some petty cash in the coffers of the vrrp. The Party is also trying to talk to people, trying to canvass people and raise some funds,’ he told me. Was the vrrp perhaps supported by black business interests? To some extent they were.

‘We are also approaching the white business community,’ said Jabulani. ‘Because we believe the white community also has a responsibility to assist us to uphold the Party's structures. You have read the vrrp Constitution yourself as well as the ends and objectives of our Party. We operate in the Vaal region. Lekoa is the Sotho name for the Vaal. So, we are definitely trying also to raise money in white towns like Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging. In coming weeks I will mainly work there.’

I asked Patose whether he really expected a positive response from whites in those towns to the black vrrp. Jabulani replied, ‘Everything I do, I do in faith. Our very lives depend on faith, really. I also believe that whites do want to help and that they do support orderly and legitimate substructures. We are a peaceful organisation that wants to see, and that promotes, peace and justice in South Africa. We intend to defend the civil rights of every individual, be he black, white, red or pink. Isn't that what democracy is all about?’