When I wrote my last piece for Reclamation Magazine in November last year, I had just been to a protest march in Cape Town. I was actively collecting what I called “pebbles of hope”, hoping that our shared humanity would bring an end to the merciless killing of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children. I didn’t imagine that three months later I would have marched many more times, or that the weekly vigil on the steps of St George’s Cathedral that started on 11 October, would become a regular event. Nor did I imagine that I would be attending a vigil on the same steps for the more than 117 journalists killed in the line of duty. Or perhaps I did but hoped that somehow the world would show up and humanity would triumph.
Perhaps the international protests by people from all walks of life, different ethnicities, and religious backgrounds, are now rocks to cling to rather than pebbles that I collect. South Africa’s presentation to the International Court of Justice is another. The vigil on the steps has also been a source of strength and solidarity for me over the last four months, giving me something concrete to do in the face of overwhelming oppression, violence, and racism. And, yes, this has nothing to do with religion but is racism, apartheid in another guise. The solidarity inherent in wearing certain colours or symbols of resistance or simply standing together provides a home of sorts, a gathering of similarly-motivated individuals.
The steps have been a site for the expression of freedom and justice for decades. The cathedral played a key role during the anti-apartheid movement due largely to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu whose ashes are interred beneath a simple floor tile inscribed with his name and the dates that he served there. Also buried there is Geoffrey Clayton who became the Archbishop of Cape Town in 1948, the year that the National Party came to power, ushering in apartheid racial segregation. On the day before he died, he signed on behalf of the bishops of his church a letter to Prime Minister JG Strijdom refusing to obey, or to counsel the people of the Anglican Church of South Africa to obey, the Native Laws Amendment Act that sought to enforce apartheid in all Christian congregations. His ashes are interred here as he didn’t wish to be buried in a cemetery for “whites only”.
I don’t belong to the church but this history is what draws me there every week; the size of the group varies and a motley collection of people – Christian, Muslim, and Jewish – turns up. I am starting to recognise the faces and appreciate the ripples that move outward from this space. In December I sat alongside people of all faiths while we listened to a minister from the Dutch Reformed Church deliver the sermon in a mosque. Later that week in the cathedral, the imam from that mosque prayed for the safe passage of the South African delegation on its way to spend Christmas in Bethlehem. A group of Jewish activists have been holding weekly shabbat services on the beachfront and have also done the same in the mosque. Over Christmas, the cathedral took its cue from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and wrapped the baby Jesus in a keffiyeh and placed it among rubble for the nativity scene. At the back of the church, the Christian cross is draped with a Jewish prayer shawl and a Palestinian keffiyeh, symbols of three Abrahamic faiths that have so much in common. This interfaith solidarity was characteristic of many of the communities who fought against apartheid during our country’s struggle for freedom, justice, and peace. The community that gathers on the steps every week reminds me of that and keeps a glimmer of hope alive.
The cathedral is highly visible and important in raising awareness. It stands in close proximity to the Slave Lodge Museum, the Company Gardens, and the memorial arch dedicated to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and opposite a major hotel. The area attracts a steady stream of tourists, passing cars hoot in support, and sometimes pedestrians will pause to spend a few minutes on the steps. Just before Christmas one of the cathedral members wrapped a tree in front of the cathedral in red fabric as a way of leaving a tangible trace of the solidarity in between the vigils. When the nearby trees were wrapped in red fabric with tinsel for Christmas, ‘our’ tree was given its own identity with bands of green, black and white mirroring the colours of the Palestinian flag. A week later it had been completely stripped. The tree was ‘dressed’ again at the next vigil. Later “birds for Gaza” made by children during the school holidays with the names of Palestinian children who had been killed, were pinned to the tree. This too was removed. The tree has now been stripped four times, all under cover of darkness and it makes me wonder how insecure one must be to be threatened by such a peaceful show of solidarity.
After democracy in South Africa, many white people claimed they had not known what was happening during apartheid … across the road, at the back of the post office, at work, in church. That they had no idea beggars belief when their sons and brothers were serving in the army that enforced the atrocities that were being committed. There were those who opposed the system and were condemned by those who enjoyed the benefits of the system. Apartheid could not have survived for a single day had it not been supported by this enfranchised privileged minority, said the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Now we are witness to an even more evil system of apartheid that is being documented on social media. There is no saying we did not know.
As for many others, social media has been a concrete avenue of expression for me and I have lost followers on Instagram, been blocked by some, removed from one WhatsApp group, left another. I have known some of these people for more than ten years and I am shocked by two ideas: one, that if you don’t think like us, you can’t be in our group and the other is, how am I not expected to speak up for Palestine when I survived apartheid? I feel like I’m living in a dystopian society, confronted with the horror of what is happening on a daily basis, unable to stop it and yet, there are those who are blind to it. It’s taken up a lot of space in my head but if you’re okay with what’s happening in Palestine, I don’t want to be in your circle and I don’t need you reading my content on social media.
It’s difficult to carry on with ‘normal’ life and to deal with the everyday stresses of a sick mother or a friend losing a family member. I feel overwhelmed and writing feels like such a privilege, at once a platform but at the same time ineffectual. Yet, being able to bear witness gives me a way of processing what is happening in the world and perhaps one person will read what I write and be moved by it somehow.
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